Usually I like to shoot in RAW format, But since I knew I'd be taking so many shots, I just shot high quality JPGs, which are smaller files and can be processed using the same software I always use.
Adobe Bridge (left) and Adobe Camera Raw (right)
I processed over 400 images, so heavy retouching was not an option because of the time factor. I had a little workflow set up where I'd go from viewing the files in Adobe Bridge, opening and processing them in Camera Raw, and finishing up with light clean-up, color corrections, sharpening, and cropping in Photoshop.
I won’t show show before and after shots very often, and this example is really understated, but here is the raw, unprocessed JPG:
Castel Sant'Angelo, Rome, Italy - raw JPG
Shot it through our tour bus window with my Canon G10. The bus window acted as a bit of a light filter but that didn’t help the reflections which showed up. Here is the processed shot:
Castel Sant'Angelo, Rome, Italy
Like I said, pretty understated, but I just wanted to “correct” the shot, quickly retouch out the junk on the window, and create a nice composition, without using a bunch of filters and effects. It was a sunny day, and even though I had the white balance set properly in the camera, I remembered the buildings being warmer than the raw shot, so I warmed them up a bit during the Camera Raw stage.
The sweet thing is that, if I ever use this shot as a photo reference for an oil painting, I can easily pump up the melodrama of this shot!
At the time I knew little about this structure aside from the fact that in the early 1500s the pope escaped to this castle while fleeing from marauding Spanish troops. Click here to learn a lot more about it.
In the next “Postcard From Italy” post I’ll show a more aggressive (and fun) processing job.
Arrivederci-
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