From my window!

[rawill]

This photo got a few ticks in a mini competition.
I know it has faults, like the right lower corner, too much of the corner of the room in it.
However as I played with curves I could not get it "pop" for me.

I have done very little PP to it, didn't really want to crop it, was taken on 2 seconds on my little Ricoh P&S.

Still I did want it to "pop" and grab viewers attention.

[JPS]

Hi Robin,
I can see where your coming from with this picture, you like it, as do I; but feel it needs 'something' more.

Hope you don't mind, I have had a little play with it in PP and this was my humble effort. I'm still learning when it comes to PP, so please it's not great just the best I could do with limited skills. If you would rather I had not posted this just let me know and I will remove it.
Thanks for sharing, it's been an interesting learning curve for me.

[DeepWater]

Here is another attempt to achieve what you are after. First I opened your JPEG in Adobe Camera RAW (am working with CS6) where I corrected the lens distortion and some perspective issues. Also took out a lot of the chromatic aberration and fringing in the sky. Then I made some general exposure adjustments, also in ACR - added contrast, dropped exposure a bit added clarity, a tad of vibrance. Then I opened in Photoshop. Here I made two general adjustments. I copied the layer (Ctrl/J on a PC) and changed the blend mode to soft light -
(you can play with opacity to get the look you want). Then I flattened the image and once again copied the layer. Then I went to filter - other - high pass - 1.8% - and hit OK (the 1.8 is not a magical number - you can play around with it if you want - it is a sharpening filter) Then this layer has to be changed to overlay blend mode. I also took this image into NIK (a plug in) where I made a few minor tweaks but the majority of the effect was accomplished with just Photoshop. Had this been a full res RAW file you would have been able to do a bunch more with it - such as correcting the blown highlights in certain areas, etc. However, even if you don't shoot in RAW, you can still open a JPEG in ACR and use the tools there to improve your image. This was a fairly quick take on correction, so there are some issues which I am sure some will pick up on, but I think it comes closer to what you were asking for. Let me know what you think

[rawill]

Thank you for your work.

If I put a photo on here and ask for C&C that means (in my mind) I am giving you permission to comment or do what you want with the photo. So many thanks.

John, I like that your got rid of the corner of the room, I never tried cloning that out as I thought I would be quite difficult to get the pattern right, maybe I should have tried with Faststone. It has a good cloning tool.

The more I have looked at the original I think the look I want is impossible, there is too much "grainyness/haziness" in it. Is that what they call "noise".
The atmosphere was very smoggy when this photo was taken.

James, great work. It shows what can be done.
And I thank you for you the detail in showing how you achieved your result.
I never thought of changing the blue, and mostly all I do is play with curves, clone, sharpen, and some cropping.
I reckon I need to go to a few workshops on PP to up my skills in GIMP.

We seem to have lost some of the road at the bottom of the photo.
I liked that bit, as one of the things I was trying to get with the photo was the car lights in a long "streamers".

However, in taking it for 2 seconds I have some "blown" bits that kind of wreck the photo.
Maybe I needed to take EC down, but I did not know about that setting (and many other things) at the time.

[DeepWater]

That is a masterful job of cloning - I would not have attempted it either. Have never been very good with that tool The loss of the road at the bottom was the result of my lens corrections - To avoid that one could have pulled Mr. Clone out of the bag, but he and I have never developed a great relationship, so I lost the road! Was fun to play with and see what could be done - thanks.

[CLK]

It is really interesting to see what can be done with a little bit of skill in PP. I have none so it is helpful to read the details. I am more partial to blue so I like the bluer version. I think I can see where you are coming from re: the road at the bottom however. If I were playing with it I would take that corner on the right bottom and if I couldn't clone it out, which I probably couldn't then would soften it use the space to put in a title and your name in a soft elegant script, something like "A Room with a View" Robin dropping the opacity so it is more like a water mark than a neon sign. However, just having that kind of view on a regular basis I would probably also have several hundred pictures of it and enjoy every one.

[rawill]

That is a masterful job of cloning - I would not have attempted it either.

To avoid that one could have pulled Mr. Clone out of the bag, but he and I have never developed a great relationship, so I lost the road! Was fun to play with and see what could be done - thanks.

Good on you for giving it a try, always helpful to see what others can "see" like and create.
It took me a while to "see" what had been cloned in, initially I was confused by 2 roads that go nowhere.

But good cloning job, a little "bluring" and it would be hard to figure it out.

And yes cloning is painstaking.

[rawill]

If I were playing with it I would take that corner on the right bottom and if I couldn't clone it out, which I probably couldn't then would soften it use the space to put in a title and your name in a soft elegant script, something like "A Room with a View" Robin dropping the opacity so it is more like a water mark than a neon sign. However, just having that kind of view on a regular basis I would probably also have several hundred pictures of it and enjoy every one.

I like the idea of softening it and putting in a title.
I might give that a go. And the title is right even if not original.
It was a spectacular view, which of course is why I had a go at getting it with my little P/S.

I might have to get a better one for my next travels.
The photography virus/addiction is expensive to treat.