Author Archives: Giuseppe Sapori

By the Way

Tags : 

 

Tokyo Skytree from the nearest bridge. In my previous photos I posted some images taken from the the top of this tower, since it is a fairly impressive structure is seen from the main points of the city and so I took advantage in the evening to do some shots  in the around areas. With a easy google maps research I found this bridge that had a great view in perspective of the Tokyo Skytree, exactly what I was looking for for this shot!

I started shooting at sunset so as to “freeze” the moment of the sunset sky and some elements like the trees, then I waited for it to get darker to start taking the light trails that I added to the final image. During this photo I realized another element to keep in mind when making the photos from the bridges… vibrations due to the passage of heavy vehicles, I noticed a strong vibration when someone of this passed, for safety I preferred redo some of my shots taken in those passages

 

WORKFLOW EXPLANATION

I selected a shot for the correct sky at dusk and others images to select light trails, I selected from this images 2 exposures that I used to add the light trails you see. Iresized the image, I re-adjusted the perspective, than I launched  my panel to add details and to fix the color cast. I fixed the colors adding some cold filters (one for the highlights and one for the shadows). After adding a soft contrast, I fixed the lights of the trails, using glow brush tool included in TTS PRO.

I made som adjustments at the colors, increasing the lights of red and yellows and decreasing the light of blue. With luminosity masks applied to lights 1 and to curves tool I darkened the light of the sky, I finally applied a soft sharpen to light trails and added a small vignette to better give the sense of dark mood

As always I hope you will find this usefull. I like to ear this from you!

 

TECNHNICAL STUFF

Camera: Nikon D-800

Lens: Nikon 14-24mm f/2,8 (Shot at 14mm)

Multiple shots

ISO: 100 at f/22

Software: Photoshop CC2018

Plugin: TTS Pro

 

Sensō-ji

Tags : 

 

During my stay in Tokyo I could not miss the most famous temple in the city, I am talking about the Sensō-ji temple. That is a Buddhist temple complex located in the Asakusa district of Tokyo. It is the oldest temple in the city, and one of the most important. I take this photo to the  imposing five-storey pagoda that you can find near the temple

The entrance to the temple is marked by the famous “door of thunder”. It houses a huge paper lantern, painted red with black characters. In the nearbyes there’s a busy shopping street, that leads to the main entrance of the Sensō-ji temple

The Sensō-ji is a popular tourist destinations.  In the shopping street you can find a high number of stores specializing in the sale of traditional Japanese items have emerged in its surroundings, as well as restaurants offering traditional Japanese food (ramen, sushi, tempura, etc.). Many of these shops are run by the heirs of former owners, who started their business thanks to the economic income secured by the great flow of pilgrims to the temple

I really enjoyed the visit to Sensō-ji and among good food, photos and shops the visit to this traditional Tokyo place is very pleasant 🙂

Here you are some shots taken in the temple area:

 

 

WORKFLOW EXPLANATION

The main picture of pagoda is a result of a digital blending made from 3 exposures brackets. I used my panel to stack the images and to blend them using luminosity masks blending funcions inside TTS PRO

I increased details and I launched dodge and burn applied to luminosity masks to avoid to affect the unwanted part of the picture, in particular I lightened the darker areas near the door. I also applied a warmer filter to the highlights and shadows to emphatyze the yellow lights and I added some glow effect to the sky

After a fix on the sky colours I added a soft contrast using midtones. As final touch I added a small vignette to increase emphatyze the center of the image

As always I hope you will find this usefull. I like to ear this from you!

 

TECNHNICAL STUFF

Camera: Nikon D-800

Lens: Nikon 14-24mm f/2,8 (Shot at 15mm)

Three Exposures

ISO: 100 at f/9

Software: Photoshop CC2018

Plugin: TTS Pro

 

Tokyo Nights

Tags : 

 

Last image from this trip that regards highest japan buildings… I promise 🙂

As my latest post also this is taken from Tokyo Skytree, the biggest tower in the world and the second highest artificial structure after Burj Khalifa skyscraper

To make this shot changed position from my latest post and I turned to the east to photograph the long river Sumida and its surrounding traffic arteries. From this point you can see how gigantic the city of Tokyo, even from this height you cannot see the end of the city that is practically as far as the eye can see

Also here as in the previous posts I take shots through the windows of the Tokyo Skytree so I had to pay the maximum attention to the backlights that could reflect the lights on the window, to avoid this you can use a sweatshirt or a dark towel. In this image even something come through the camera on the borders so i easily cropped it

 

WORKFLOW EXPLANATION

I take 2 different exposures (brighter and darker) to have the chance to make a digital blend. Using TTS PRO, this time I used fast blend darks cause the blend was easy to do and the process satisfied me

After a small cleaning process (crop, dodge and burn and fix white balance) to have a series of images rather uniform with the others, I applied to this image all the lines of my Tokyo Nights previous posts, so here I used the same color variations provided by the application of color filters lookup that I applied to the others

I increased the details using the High details filters that you find in all my panels and I also applied a soft sharpen to give more depth to the viewer’s sight. As final I increased the shadows to give more luminosity to the bottom buildings

I always hope you will find this usefull, I love to ear this from you!

 

TECNHNICAL STUFF

Camera: Nikon D-800

Lens: Sigma 24-70mm f/2,8 (Shot at 48mm)

Two Exposures

ISO: 100 at f/11

Software: Photoshop CC2018

Plugin: TTS Pro

Tokyo Nights

Tags : 

 

I take this from Tokyo Skytree,  from here you can admire (and photograph) the highest view of the city of Tokyo. The Skytree is a telecommunications and panoramic tower located in Sumida, Tokyo’s special district

With a height of 634 meters it is the tallest tower in the world and the second highest artificial structure in the world after the Burj Khalifa skyscraper in Dubai, the Tokyo Skytree is a strong tourist attraction and one of the main symbols of the city

The view from here is excessively high and everywhere you turn you can find some ideas to photograph from the top of the Japanese capital. Here I managed to make some shots including this where I preferred to emphasize a detail with one of Tokyo‘s main traffic arteries… everywhere I turned around it turned out to be all small 🙂

Also here as in Tokyo Tower to take shots through the windows of the tower I had to pay the maximum attention to the backlights that could reflect the lights on the window and definitively ruining the photo, at this regard also here I came to the rescue my sweatshirt with which I covered most of the reflections that entered the frame

I captured 3 exposures in bracketing mode for this frame, to have the ability to fix the lights and shadows with digital blending, the longer shot was of 25 seconds at ISO 100

 

WORKFLOW EXPLANATION

I started this picture with digital blending using  TTS PRO, I blended the images using fast blend lights funcion and auto blend darks funcion. With the resulting frame ready I worked on luminosity masks going to fix the darks and lights as I like, to lighten some shadows and decrease some lights too strongs

I added details and using dodge and burn I lighten some darks area of the city and I used some color lookup filters to add to this picture, in particular: crisp winter at 20% filmstock 10% and futuristick bleak 30%

The latest touch was to increase the shadows and adding some extra sharpen to the frame

I always hope you will find this usefull, I love to ear this from you!

 

TECNHNICAL STUFF

Camera: Nikon D-800

Lens: Sigma 24-70mm f/2,8 (Shot at 48mm)

Three Exposures

ISO: 100 at f/11

Software: Photoshop CC2018

Plugin: TTS Pro

 

 

Tokyo Nights

Tags : 

This is one of the possible views that can be seen from Tokyo Tower, is a telecommunications and panoramic tower located in the Shiba-kōen district of Minato. 333 m high, it is the second highest artificial structure in Japan, after Tokyo Skytree. The Tokyo Tower is a tower inspired by the Eiffel Tower painted white and international orange in order to respect the rules of air safety

Among the various possible views I chose this because I liked the close-up view of the skyscrapers in front, moreover as in all the photos taken in the evening in front of the windows you have to pay the maximum attention to the reflections

At this regard it is very easy that in the frame can enter lights from the back usually lit to allow visibility into the Tokyo Tower, or the screen of someone’s cell phone that takes the picture behind you, for this reason it is really very important to have not only a tripod behind to shoot with long exposure times and low iso but also something to cover these reflections

For the occasion I use a sweatshirt with the zip that open becomes big enough to be able to almost completely close the field behind the camera and minimize the reflections on the glass, probably someone will take you for a crazy while you’re with a sweatshirt open behind the camera stopped for 30/40 seconds, but the result does not wait … this is achieved with shutter speeds of 30 seconds and ISO 100

 

WORKFLOW EXPLANATION

I take two shots of this view, a brighter and a darker exposure that i blended using auto blend darks function inside TTS PRO. Obtained a definite image I worked on luminosity masks going to fix the darks and lights as I like, to lighten some shadows and decrease some lights too strongs

I increased details and i used dodge and burn over the darks, as final touch i applied a small vignette to emphatyze the central part of the frame

I hope you will find this usefull, I’m always happy to ear this from you!

 

TECNHNICAL STUFF

Camera: Nikon D-800

Lens: Nikon 14-24mm f/2,8 (Shot at 24mm)

Two Exposures

ISO: 100 at f/14

Software: Photoshop CC2018

Plugin: TTS Pro

 

The Golden Gai

Tags : 

The Golden Gai is a truly magical place that is located in Kabuki-cho, the Shinjuku district a place that never sleeps in Tokyo

It is an area with many small bars that accommodate five to ten customers each and are really very small. The streets that surround the golden gai are all alleys and is famous for being the meeting place for artists, musician and actors

Although it has been a couple of nights at the Golden Gai in search of of a particular photographic point that struck my attention and I found this colorful and characteristic alley that contain the essence of Golden Gai

Despite is a place of small bars inside Golden Gai  the atmosphere was really calm in the streets, while if you enter one of these bars you find a completely different atmosphere of cheerful people

WORKFLOW EXPLANATION

These are single shots images, I started working them opening the images in camera raw to get the major adjustments to white balance highlights and shadows

Once opened the images in Photoshop I used TTS PRO to launch dodge and burn with I decreased the lights of the lamps and increased the lights around the darker areas. Final steps was to increase a bit the details and fix contrasts.

 

TECNHNICAL STUFF

Camera: Nikon D-800

Lens: Nikon 14-24mm f/2,8 (Shot at 15mm)

Single Exposures

ISO: 500 at f/2,8

Software: Photoshop CC2018

Plugin: TTS Pro

 

 

Highlights & Shadows Enhancements with TTS PRO

Tags : 

 

In this tutorial is shown how to use the highlights and shadows enhancements using TTS PRO

The first group of highlights and shadows adjustments are in the field warm and cold filters – they are Warm Highlights – Cold Highlights – Warm Shadows – Cold Shadows

The main use of these buttons is to accentuate the effect of golden hour or blue hour in the images and to give more dynamism at dusk pictures

 

– Warm highlights and warm shadows increase the levels of warm in the picture – they are very usefull for increasing golden hour effect or to give more energy into the sun direction

– Cold highlights and cold shadows increase the levels of cold in the picture – they are very usefull to increase the blue hour effect or give a soft blue touch to milky way, night shot or to mix with blue the colors of sunset

 

The other interested buttons of highlights and shadows inside TTS PRO panel are More Highlights and Shadows Recovery. Both are filters that allow a quick click to lighten highlights and shadows.

– More highlighs gives more energy to sunset and sunrises increasing the highlights in the landscape sky without burn it.

– Shadows recovery increase the luminosity of shadows going to recover some parts of the peripheral image where we risk losing details

Enjoy the video

 

Download TTS PRO today!

 

Colours Enhancements using TTS PRO

Tags : 

 

In this new video we will see how to use the colours adjustments buttons using TTS PRO panel. 

The colour correction is composed by Auto Correct – Colour Adjust – LAB Colour and Autumn Colour and in the finishing page we can find a Black and White conversion

Auto Correct will automatically correct your colour cast with one click, it usually make a good job but for every variations and how to use it without TTS PRO please read this article

Colour Adjust is a black and white based level to change the color cast of the picture moving the sliders of the colours, it’s an easy and great instrument to brighten and darken the image without affecting other colours.

LAB Colour is a great instrument to enhance all the colour of your picture, it gives a nice boost of vivid colours without overdo it. You can find my LAB Colour Tutorial here

Autumn Colour is the color effect that converts all the greens into red foliage autumn feel

Black and White creates a high contrasted black and white conversion of your image, it’s always possible to adjust it by clicking the window on the layer thumbnail and moving the slider to brighten od darken the picture

Enjoy the video

Stars Zoom

Tags : 

 

Hello guys! Here I am again with a night picture from the beautiful Rocca Calascio. What you see is the castle, with the path that leads to the slopes of the fortress. The way was glimpsed in the darkness and the atmosphere created by this photo was something that catch me imediately I like very much that mood and I also like the light pollution behind the castle that seems a daylight lighting

Speaking of the sky and the stars this time I tried to do something different, I enjoyed playing with the zooming and  Photoshop levels to create something original and slightly different from the usual, one created is a startrail zoom made by copying the same level multiple times and changing the blending mode into lighten, the sky full of point-like stars seemed to me too reductive for this beautiful castle 🙂

 

WORKFLOW EXPLANATION

After created the images stack I changed the blending mode into lighten to create a zooming effect, than i merged the result into a final frame. Using TTS PRO I launched luminosity masks with I increased the lights of the darks and decreased the highlights curves. I created contrast zones to fix the light and the contrast over the main part of the picture

The next step was to fix colors using auto correct, that give me a very good color tone, than I slighlty changed it by reducing blues and increasing yellow using a warming filter.

I used dodge and burn to lighten the path that lead to the castle, I also launched orton effect decreasing the opacity to 8% to create a soft and dark dreamy atmosphere in the image. The last step was to darken the image e and to launch a noise reduction with very low opacity just to give the last touch

All the effects I mentioned above are inside my brand new panel TTS PRO, that I recommend to download to  fasten your workflow and to have all the effect in one click application!

I  hope you will find this usefull. I love to hear that from you!

 

TECNHNICAL STUFF

Camera: Nikon D-800

Lens: Nikon 14-24mm f/2,8 (Shot at 14mm)

Single Exposure

ISO: 3200 at f/2,8

Software: Photoshop CC2018

Plugin: TTS Pro

 

Milky Way Door

Tags : 

To make this picture I moved to the central area to have a frontal view of the “door” this time in front of me, the moment of shooting the picture is logically different than my previous post, the milky way was much more displaced and higher. This was not one of my favorites spots that night because the light pollution of the nearby cities that are located a few kilometers away from the location selected for this photo definitely comes on stage

I selected two shots for this image, the first with a darken and the second with brighter foreground, in this way i was able to use the brighter shot to bring up the lights on the ruins and the foreground, I don’t use any blending functions but only luminosity masks to bring up exposures and layer masks to paint the areas in.

 

WORKFLOW EXPLANATION

I started in Camera Raw setting the exposure, shadows, whites to push up initially the milky way withouting destroy the other part of the picture. I’t really important that in this first phase to not add contrast because it will affect all the following work.

Opened the image in photoshop  I started to  to raise up the milky way using  TTS PRO  I made the main adjustments regarding, color, lights and contrast masking the work done only on the milky way, for this I simply used a layer mask and a brush. With dodge and burn I increased the lights around the rocks on the foreground and I darkend the light pollution coming from the city. Using hue/saturations and the color adjust funcions of  TTS PRO i fixed the colors around the milky way, this time turning it slightly more on blue

Always using my panel this time I applied the noise reduction to the image, reducing the opacity a little bit more, the latest touch whas to add a very soft focus around the milky way using glow funcion, you can find the tutorial here

I really hope you will find this usefull. I love to hear that from you!

 

TECNHNICAL STUFF

Camera: Nikon D-800

Lens: Nikon 14-24mm f/2,8 (Shot at 14mm)

Two Exposures

ISO: 3200 at f/2,8

Software: Photoshop CC2018

Plugin: TTS Pro

 

« Pagina precedente — Pagina successiva »

Site Founder

Hi, my name is Giuseppe Sapori, a professional photographer and author of this website, created by yours truly to show my work and share with you the techniques I use. My expertise is in the field of Landscape Photography... (Read More)

Instagram Feed

Newsletter Signup

Discount Coupon Codes

Flickr PhotoStream

Other info

About
Contact
Privacy Policy

Facebook Page

Facebook

Newsletter Signup

© 2011 - 2018 Giuseppe Sapori - All Rights Reserved