This was taken from the fourth floor balcony of a condominium in Hampton, Virginia, in 2002. If the metadata are right, the time was about 5:40 am, but getting up that early was worth it. Albeit a bit exaggerated, now, all the colors you see were in the original photo. Immediately beyond the horizon is Chesapeake Bay. The Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel is a bit further east.
Nikon D1, ISO 200, f/8, 1/45 sec, zoom lens at 17mm
post-processing
- The photo was taken as a single jpeg. I knew nothing about RAW nor HDR back then. The Exposure slider in Adobe Camera Raw was used to produce three additional jpegs, one each at -2, -1, and +1 EV. These were processed in Photomatix to achieve a good histogram.
- Adobe Camera Raw (on the tif from Photomatix) -- Clarity, Saturation, and Luminance.
- In the bottom left corner was a white balcony railing and part of a roof. These were covered over by flipping a duplicate layer horizontally and masking.
- Topaz Simplify -- Watercolor II, masked off the boats
- Nik Viveza -- subdue the sun
- Red Giant Knoll Light Factory -- add additional sun rays
- Curves -- lighten the foreground vegetation
- Photo Filter adjustment layer -- violet, masked from the lower part of the sky and the foreground vegetation (This made some difference in color but not as much as you might think.)
- Photo Filter adjustment layer -- warming #81, masked to the lower part of the sky
- Fractalius -- B&W preset based on the old Sketch preset, Multiply blend mode, masked off where the sun would lighten the scene
- nonuniform gradient vignette
