Seattle Spring. Making fine art from a plain image

This is a shot I took last spring but just recently finished editing it for fine art prints. It’s an HDR of the downtown Seattle skyline. After the HDR was rendered it looked goos but it was still just a skyline show. I started to work in Photoshop to make something more. Of course fine art and is in the eye of the beholder so I’ll let you be the judge, but I thought I would talk a bit about how to achieved this shot.

I started with the above three images taken at various exposure levels and made an HDR using Photomatix Pro. Of course your image does not have to be an HDR.

I then used “The Edge”action from my Hollywood Effects Photoshop actions set. This can also be done without an action though it will take a bit longer. The Edge basically adds some snap using curves, levels and sharpening. This gave me a cool looking image like we see below.

Next I wanted to go a step further. I made the image into a high contract black and white using Le Creme Infrared from Hollywood Effects actions. You could also use your own B&W method. As I add effects to the image I fine tune it, mask off areas ect to keep things looking the way I want. I also went thru using the burn and dodge tools to lighten/darken clouds and other areas. This is one of my secrets for adding dimension to an image. I especially darkened the edges. Play around with it and you’ll see what I mean. Then I cropped the image for a wide look.

It looked good whole, but it felt better in this widescreen look. Finally I added an acid burn type border to it. I used Photo Frame Pro, but there are various ways to achieve this, and many border styles would have looked good.

In the end I got this final image that I’m really happy with. There’s a thousand different directions I could have gone with this, so it certainly does not define a fine art print by itself. The key to taking and image and making it a masterpiece is proper editing and many of us overlook that. Of course you don’t spend an hour on every image, but I see people all the time with cool images that still look plain because they are straight out of the camera. In the old days it took lots of time in the darkroom burning, dodging, and whatever effects could be mustered to make an image great. Now we don’t have to do that. We take some time to make our snapshots into grabshots!