Overhead of Carmel and Point Lobos

It’s almost always hiking weather in Monterey, California. There’s a nice park there called Jack’s Peak that you reach by driving up a small mountain. The views from the park are magnificent. You have to walk through the forest to get to various vistas, but you get almost a 360 degree view of the surrounding lands: Monterey Bay, Salinas, Carmel Valley, and Carmel towards the Pacific Ocean.

This shot is looking southeast, over Carmel and towards Point Lobos, another beautiful hiking spot. It’s maybe a 5.5 mile distance as the crow flies (using this handy tool, because I’m terrible at distances). Everything is close by in the Monterey area.

Seeing this really makes me want to go back. We were only there for nine months. Enough to capture a little piece of my heart.

Overview of Carmel to Point Lobos – ProjectEdit365 – 17 Jan

It was super bright this day! I decreased the highlights and lightened the blacks; increased the clarity and upped the vibrance. I dehazed a bit and then used graduated filters and adjustment brushes to work on the sky and the distant ground. I had to bring back a bit of the color and contrast without losing too much detail. Here’s the original for comparison:

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You gonna eat that?

The seagulls in Monterey ARE NOT shy. I think the tourists like to feed them and they become rather aggressive. In this photo, I had just finished a 5K and was sitting down on the sea wall to enjoy a banana and a bagel. My little friend landed right beside me and watched me eat every single bite. I did not share.

You gonna eat that – ProjectEdit365 – 29 Nov

My little friend was pretty dark in the original photo. I couldn’t increase the exposure of the whole picture though because the water was almost blown out. I used an adjustment brush on him to balance out the lighting. I also used two different graduated filters to lower the exposure of the water on the right side. Doing that made the bright area look brownish yellow, so within the filter I cooled the temperature. That got rid of the yellowing. Here’s the original:

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Ice Plant Path

Ice plant is not native to the Monterey Bay area, yet it grows like a weed there. I know it’s a nuisance to naturalists or plant nativists, but I think it’s pretty.

Ice Plant Path – ProjectEdit365 – 26 Sep

I did so much to this picture because the original was so dark. I didn’t want to introduce too much warmth with yellow light because I’ve been doing or seeing so much of that recently. So I adjust various controls, including the individual red and orange controls; and used a graduated filter on the sky to give it an overall cool tone but warm with the plants. From the shadow, it looks like I was shooting at midday so the sun is not flattering at all. Here’s the original:

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Lone Cypress

Just like any other landmark or iconic object, it is special to finally see it in person.

Along 17 Mile Drive sits the Lone Cypress. Kind of all by its lonesome – it has many visitors to keep it company.

The Lone Cypress – ProjectEdit365 – 13 Sep

The original was pretty dark. I increased the exposure, highlights, and contrast, and lightened the shadows. I decreased the clarity a little bit to play up the haze in the background. I used an adjustment brush on the tree to increase the contrast and clarity of it. I also used a graduated filter to warm the right side of the sky and rocks. I finished by adding a small vignette. Here is the original:

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Whale Breach

Y’all. There’s nothing like seeing a whale breach. There are much better pictures out there of breaches, but this editing challenge is about taking what you’ve got and making it usable. Using Lightroom I made my picture a little more dramatic.

Whale Breach – ProjectEdit365 – 09 Sep

I cropped the original for better composition and to straighten the horizon. I decreased the contrast and increased the highlights, whites, and clarity. I moved the tint slider more towards the magenta. I used two graduated filters, one for the water and one for the sky to make them more dramatic. I ended with a small vignette. The original:

 

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Seal or Sea Lion?

Haaaayyy! While living in Monterey, we learned an easy way to tell the difference between seals and sea lions. Seals are grey-er, have no visible ear flaps, and slide more on their bellies on land. Sea lions have visible ear flaps and longer flippers (both front and back), and they tend to be browner. So, what is my happy little friend below?

Seal or Sea Lion? – ProjectEdit365 – 08 Sep

He’s lifting his flippers out of the water to regulate his body temperature. These guys were everywhere in Monterey Bay. They were curious, loud, and their roosts were *stinky*! The original photo was dark and dull. I cropped in to compose the picture better. I increased the clarity, vibrance, and saturation. I decreased the shadows and contrast. I adjusted individual color sliders to make the color of the water stand out a little better. I used an adjustment brush on his eye to sharpen it a bit. I ended with a small vignette. Here’s the original:

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Golden Gate Haze

There’s almost always haze lazing over San Francisco. This isn’t a great photo, *but* it’s much better than the original. And, as it turns out, it’s one of the only photos I have left of our trip to San Francisco. I did the UNSPEAKABLE as a photographer. When we got home, I did not back up my files. And several months down the road, as we were preparing for another trip, I just assumed that I *had* backed up all the files. Format. Realize error. Cry. Kick myself every time I think about it. Sigh.

Golden Gate Haze – ProjectEdit365 – 07 Sep

The original was very hazy and dull. I increased the exposure, highlights, and vibrancy. I then used an adjustment brush to increase the clarity, contrast, and saturation of the bridge. I also used the individual red color slider to increase the saturation. I adjusted the hue and luminance to make it look the way I wanted. I used a different adjustment brush on the trees to decrease the shadows on them. I used a small vignette to finish it. So instead of a pretty unusable photo, I at least got something out of it! Here’s the original:

 

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The Birds

Carmel River State Beach

The Birds – ProjectEdit365 – 22 Aug

I love how the clouds help make the birds look a little 3D. I also love how deep the sky is. My horizon was off just a touch so I cropped to straighten that. I increased the contrast and clarity to give it more of an HDR look. I didn’t like how sharp it made the water look so I used two separate adjustment brushes on the water to drop down the clarity and contrast on it. I also made the water temp a little bluer and it ended up mirroring the color of the sky a little better. I sharpened the whole picture and decreased the noise just a bit. The original:

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Sailboats in Nawiliwili Bay

In my dream
I’m drifting
on the whitest sailboat,
in between a sea and sky that are competing for the bluest.

Sailboats in Nawiliwili Bay – ProjectEdit365 – 30 July

The original was beautiful, but a little dull and too bright. I used graduated filters to lower the exposure of the sky and decrease the shadows of the hills. I used a radial filter on the hills to increase the contrast to show off the texture. I lowered the clarity of the whole picture to create a more dreamy effect. I checked the “remove chromatic aberration” button in the Lens Corrections section of Lightroom because it looked like there was some aberration to me. I still see it a little, but don’t know how to get rid of it fully. I ended by adding a little vignette. The original:

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Volcano!

A helicopter tour is a great way to see the active volcanoes on the Big Island. I believe this is part of Pu’U ‘O’O, but it could be part of Kilauea. You can see if you look closely, just under the black surface is the red lava. It flows in underground tubes into the ocean where it produces steam when the lava hits the water.

Volcano! – ProjectEdit365 – 16 July

I took this in the helicopter, so through a window. I had to crop it to straighten it. I was able to heal my reflection out. I used an HDR preset and then modified the red color using the color sliders. I decreased the vignetting that the preset added so you could see the lava at the corner of the photo. Here’s the original.

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