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I couldn’t believe the way the clouds were arrayed across the sky on Saturday. The morning began as a cloudless day but by early afternoon these cloud formations were spreading into the east. I processed the image in Aperture 3 and NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 before cropping it slightly. I also took it into Photoshop CS% where I manually corrected the vertical perspective.
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The point where the three Interstate Highways intersect in Louisville is known locally as Spaghetti Junction. The weather was changing yesterday from a cloudless sky in the morning to this winter sky around mid afternoon. This image overlooks the Spaghetti Junction intersection and southeast Louisville. It appeared that there was a grid that had been overlaid on the city sky that extended into infinity. The perspective of the clouds intrigued me and I decided to capture it.
I first processed this image in Aperture 3 where I made a few adjustments to the RAW file before taking it into NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 where I worked on enhancing the texture and tonality of the image. I then returned it to Aperture 3 where I applied some exposure, saturation and vibrancy changes. I lowered the saturation slightly and increased the vibrancy in order to achieve the overall feeling I felt when I shot the scene. I had a couple of dust spots that needed attention so I used the Spot and Patch tool in Aperture 3 to clean them up. I then took the image into Photoshop CS5 where I manually adjusted the vertical perspective to compensate for the distortion my 12mm lens had created. Back in Aperture 3 I applied a very slight vignette before saving the image for the web.
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While installing the handrails on the Big Four Bridge, Perry and Thomas had to cut some of the large rivets away to make room for the handrail base. The pneumatic chisel they are using is a handful and the job goes better when they work as a team.
I wanted to capture the movement as they cut the rivets so I used a slow shutter to allow their figures and the tool to blur while retaining the texture on the steel. I wasn’t sure how the images would turn out but once I loaded them into Aperture 3 I saw that I had captured the essence of the workers and the impact that the chisel makes as it hammers away at the stell.
I started by processing the image with Aperture 3 where I did some initial RAW adjusting and sharpening. I then took it into NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 where I applied a realistic preset and some tone mapping. After that it was back into Aperture 3 for final sharpening and some saturation and vibrancy adjustments.
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Best Wishes to you all. May this day be everything you hoped for. For me the day will be spent with our family, watching the joy in the children’s eyes, enjoying their company and feasting on my mother-in-law’s wonderful Italian cooking, spaghetti and meatballs.
This image is from a couple of years ago and was taken with my Nikon D50. The D50 didn’t do very well at high ISO and consequently there is some noise in the photo but I liked the composition and the colors. I was using Topaz Adjust a lot back then and processed it with Topaz Adjust and OnONe PhotoTune before finishing it in Aperture 3.
Peace To All…. Nick
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I wanted to capture the beauty of the November sunset and include the access ramp architecture as well as the pattern of the parking lot. I used a single frame which I processed in NIK HDR Efex Pro 2 and Aperture 3 to create this image.
