Panama City Beach, FL - Sunset Shots

[tlabranche]

I just got back from Panama City Beach yesterday. Here are the sunset shots I was able to get while down there.

Here are some sunsets I shot in Panama City Beach, FL last week.

[megatop412]

10th shot is my favorite, nice balancing act between the sun and the buildings

[tlabranche]

Thanks!

[captmjk16]

That's an epic set Tim, the first and third are my favorites by far, amazing colors!

[RomNYC]

Tim, mind sharing some of your workflow? Great stuff!

[Zee71]

Tim, fantastic set of images and great post processing as well!

[tlabranche]

Thanks eveyrone!

Tim, mind sharing some of your workflow? Great stuff!

Here is a rundown of my workflow(s).

-The first image was done as an HDR because I liked the clouds in the air.

For the others, here is what I do.
-Open all images in Adobe Camera RAW editor first. Balance the histogram by adding fill light, shadows, and brightness where needed. Add contrast if needed and white balance correction if needed. Shots such as the 7th, 8th, and 9th shot in the set as well as my wife and son portraits are edited a bit differently. After I do the above fixes, I press G while in the RAW editor to pull up the gradient tool. I pull out the brightness in the foreground because I exposed for the background when I shot the image not to lose any of the background colors. Since it was a RAW photo, all of that data was in the photo. Keep in mind, it adds some noise, but removing it comes later. After I brought out my foreground brightness to what my eyes saw, I open it up in PhotoShop.

Once in PhotoShop, I level/crop/resize the image. Next do the dust spot removal. After that, I add a levels adjustment and slide the arrows on the left and right side of the histogram to balance the contrast and brightness if it needs it. The next step is where the "pop" in the photo comes from. I add a curves adjustment next. I don't touch the color curve. Rather, I go to the top of the layers pallet and change the blending mode from normal to soft light. It will add a ton of contrast and color pop - too much. So, I take the opacity slider down to an acceptable level. What this is doing is removing that atmosphere haze that is in a lot of photos. You can even run a gradient on the image to blend the soft light. Here is a tutorial I did for the PHX Spotters on using the curves adjustment with a soft light to remove the haze: http://phxspotters.com/forums/index....ic,1916.0.html

Next is my noise removal. I use Topaz Labs DeNoise. This is an amazing filter for PhotoShop. You can download it a www.topazlabs.com. Since it is a filter, you can layer mask what you want in the final result. You can use a preset or manually adjust the sliders for a more targeted result. I have customized presets for all of my camera ISO's I use. After the noise removal, I sharpen the image. I use the High Pass filter to sharpen my images. I make another duplicate on the image. Go to filter/other/high pass. The screen will turn grey and a small box will appear. I size all my images at 1600 pix for web, so I use a 0.3 radius. Click OK. Change the blending mode from normal to linear light. You will see an incredible change in the sharpness of the image. Add a layer mask and use a black brush to brush away whatever was over sharpened. That's about it. I try to expose the shot to minimize processing time. But, when shooting into the sun, if I don't have a tripod with me, bracketing shots isn't a option. That is the only time I will do gradients to brighten up foreground.

Hope that helps!

[RomNYC]

Thanks for sharing some of your work, Tim. Always great to learn from more experienced photogs!

[tlabranche]

Thanks for sharing some of your work, Tim. Always great to learn from more experienced photogs!

Any time!