More color - because I just can't resist it

Here's another of my Paris images. I had to drag color out of this image, kicking and screaming using the Curves feature. Problem was, all the Curves and levels caused grief with the light in the bottom right. I loved this light and it has a wonderful shape so I was bummed to see it as a big black blob.

So, back to the image, I corrected it separately for the light and then masked various portions of it until I had the best of both worlds - the light and the rest, sort of like having your cake and eating it too... kinda brings poor ol' Marie Antoinette to mind doesn't it? You know.. Paris, the revolution..

Monmartre - in color

One thing I love doing to photos is to mess around with the color. This photo was ripe for it and I dragged heaps of color out of the image and then worked to blend and tone it back down until I had a look I really liked.

The building is just by Abbesses Metro station in Montmartre, Paris. The station itself has the original Art Nouveau signage and canopy and it has a huge spiral staircase which is covered in art going up and photography going down - ask me, I climbed it and photographed every step of the way up and down. This building is just across the road from the station and it's gorgeous. It's a photographer's delight and very, very French.

If you look really close you'll even see a face and hands painted onto the face of the building.

Gotta love Paris

This photo captured me because of the shop's wonderful name and the blue and red colours. It's unexpected and funky.

The fixes included cropping it to remove excess and unwanted detail and colour correcting it to boost the colours in it. I also duplicated the final image layer, blurred the top layer then used a mask filled with a white to black gradient across the image to blur the right edge of the photo. I needed to also paint onto the mask to bring the tree back into focus.

It's proof that even funky shots that you don't think will amount to much can be great if you give them a chance to shine. I also love short wide crops.