One Four Challenge, Week 2, May 2016

I know, this looks just like Week One at first glance, but if you look closer you can see that I processed it some more and I think it was worth the further effort.

First I started over and made a new color layer that was brighter by increasing the  exposure and manipulating it with the shadows & highlight tools.

Then I made a black and white image reduced the noise, played with the shadow and highlights; removed one wisp with the spot healer and increased the contrast and the dark and light levels.

I placed this as a bottom layer and added the new color layer over it, exposing the B&W slightly and again, exposing it ever so slightly so as to leave a strong base but strong color as well. It seems to give the whole thing more dimension and more bulk to the buildings.

I tweaked this rendition by sharpening the shadows some and brightening it with the curves tool, especially gaining more highlights and dimension to the clouds. I also painted out 2 small wisps of clouds that bothered me.

Overall, the colors are richer and brighter and the final picture is cropped just a little tighter to ensure the focus on the Stata Center.  A lot of work for such a small difference?  Yes, but that’s what happens when you join this challenge.  You rise to it! And get very picky!

Just as a note:  I just realized that with this theme of WordPress, I can’t do a gallery slideshow, so now I wonder if I can add one somehow without changing the theme out again.