Dubrovnik detail in the evening

Dubrovnik old town at night, Croatia
Dubrovnik old town at night, Croatia

I haven’t posted anything for a while…but never mind! This is a photograph taken in the Placa in the old town of Dubrovnik in the evening (Croatia). The old town of Dubrovnik is a fascinating place, full of nooks and crannies to explore and to photograph. I had ignored this image for some time because I couldn’t get it looking right in post processing

However, I have just started using Nik software’s HDR software just out of curiosity, and have been really impressed by the more subtle HDR type effects. The last time I used HDR software was a couple of years ago with Photomatix, and was not satisfied with its ‘encouragement’ of what I saw as overly detailed and contrasty images.

So, I was idly ‘thumbing’ through some images that I had put to one side and forgotton about until I decided to run the HDR software on it, and the image came to life a lot more. I like the lit arches looking into the shops and the details in the brickwork. I had trouble making the legs and feet more prominent and had left it alone. Anyway, now I am much happier with it.

  • Loved this piece. Composition, texture, story, movement. Really fabulous.

  • hey, this could have been a halloween entry, with the ghost-like detached feet … 😉
    on a serious note, though, the contrast between the “cold” colour of stone wall and pavement and the warm tones of the windows is really charming …

  • le rendu est extra : ces fantômes sans corps apportent un plus
    JP

  • veronique says:

    Beautiful processing and well framed.

  • Good one Tony: I like the strong graphics in the composition – and the bodiless legs!

  • Splendide rendu, une image spectaculaire, superbe job. Bonne journée.

  • Nice image. I like all the NIK filters and Google released the complete collection to registered owners a little while ago for free. I do wonder about their future though as Google acquired NIK for Snapseed and has now abandoned it.

  • Feels like a ghost army of goose-steppers marching through 😉
    Keep me right, are you using a 16 bit .tiff in Nik HDR Efex, or a multi frame radiance file?

    • Hello, and thanks!

      I used a single 16bit TIFF photo from a RAW file, and just put it straight into Nik HDR PRO. I customised one of their presets and this is pretty much all I did. So I didn’t use multiple images. The tone compression on a single image behaves in a similar way to the highlights and shadows in photoshop. Except that the effect is a bit different which is why I used HDR Efex. Also the structure slider adds a kind of local contrast which I applied to the image as well, which helped to bring out out the detail in the brickwork.

  • And you should be happy. Love this one. Great contrasts. Those blurred legs really lend a surreal air.

  • woooooow!
    very nice!
    very nice long exposure shot!
    so beautiful composition, colors, lights & texture!
    A M A ZI N G !

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