Golden Field Original Shot

For those wondering what the original shot looked like for the Golden Field Landscape, this is it.

Yeah, that's a throwaway wouldn't you think? I took it as a series of 5 exposures so I could try my hand at an HDR because the sky was so blown out anytime you could see the flowers, and then found that I didn't even need to do an HDR to get what I wanted.

Using LightZone for Linux I first applied a "Wow" effect that increased the tonal and contrast range. I then applied a "relight" effect. That accomplished about 90% of what was necessary to balance the lighting between flowers and sky. Then I applied an increased saturation to the sky only by adding a saturation effect and then drawing a circle around the sky.

That was it... I exported it as a full size JPEG at 100% quality and then opened that image in Gimp. I applied a very slight vignette effect, reduced the size and used an unsharp mask for the final edit.

I have to say LightZone for Linux was the best investment in photography I ever made. Sometimes the sensor in your camera just can't capture what your eye or mind sees, and LightZone can help you bring out what you saw from behind the camera.

Disclaimer: I have no association with LightCrafts.com or LightZone, but darn that's a good piece of software! And more importantly, it runs in LINUX!