Mirror Hole

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Mirror Hole

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During my visit to Lake Braies, I took a short ride along the lakeside looking for some interesting spots until I found this hole in the ice on the left side of the path

What struck me most about this spot was not so much finding an interesting composition, but to see how the trees and the mountain reflected in the hole in front of me. On the right side, the mountain reflects itself on the thin layer of existing ice

I took a series of 7 exposures brackting since the area where I was shooting was quite dark I wanted to have the full dynamic range available to intervene later with the digital blending

I take my shots a distance using my 14-24 lens set to 20 to not get too close to the hole where all around the ice was very thin, it was a little risky 🙂

WORKFLOW EXPLANATION

I opened all my shots inside Photoshop and I blended the exposures using TTS PRO with the use of luminosity masks I set the highlights and shadows to fix the sky and lighten the trees that was too dark

I increased details in the whole frame mitigating the effect by inserting a slight orton effect, which as you know I love to insert in almost all my images at low opacity

With dodge and burn I increased the lights over the ice and the reflections around the hole, giving more energy to the reflections and to that glow of light that is near the ice

I increased the purple colors a bit using camera raw filters and I put less blues using hue/saturation hand tool

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

TECNHNICAL STUFF

Camera: Nikon D-800

Lens: Nikon 14-24mm f/2,8

Three Exposures Focus Stacked (-3 ; -2; –1; 0; +1; +2; +3)

ISO: 50 at f/9

Software: Photoshop CC2019

Plugin: TTS Pro


Bubble Crack

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Visiting Lake Braies is always beautiful, since I’ve been here other times, on my last visit I wanted to see it in winter. Usually in winter the frozen lakes lose part of their fascination, especially due to the absence of reflections, but in my opinion they gain on the colors and the pov where it is possible to take some pictures and Braies is one of the best on this

I found a very interesting point under the famous pier overlooking the mountain, under the snow could not settle and so remained only the ice, here the view towards the mountain in the background was perfect and the ice with all its variations did the rest

Photo aside this pov was definitely very uncomfortable, I had to shoot quickly because the place was very slippery and my tripod keep slipping away 🙂

I captured the images with two different focus points for focus stacking in order to obtain a unique focused picture of lake Braies 

 

WORKFLOW EXPLANATION

As I mentioned above, I captured all my bracketing exposures first focusing on the ice below and then focusing to the mountain.  Once at the computer I uploaded all the photos between them and started this process to have 3 final images focused near and to infinite

At this point I started using my TTS PRO panel, to make a digital blending between images using auto blend functions. I started removing some people in the scene with clone stamp tool, than I raised the detail levels and adjusted the contrast with the luminosity masks

I used the dodge and burn to give more impact to the bubbles below, then adjusted the colors by increasing the purple and applying a colder filter to the frame. With the glow tool I adjusted the light intensity of the sky and lightened some points of the photo.

Finally I launched a slight orton effect and created a vignette effect to emphasize the central scene

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

 

TECNHNICAL STUFF

Camera: Nikon D-800

Lens: Nikon 14-24mm f/2,8

Three Exposures Focus Stacked (-1; 0; +1;)

ISO: 50 at f/6,3

Software: Photoshop CC2019

Plugin: TTS Pro

King of Snow

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Also this year I decide to spend a some days on the Italian Alps, these places are always beautiful and I really appreciate them also in winter, here we have Lake Carezza or rather the Latemar massif considering that the lake below is completely submerged in the snow

After the recent heavy rains in the autumn that caused extensive damage in many regions of northern Italy, this area has suffered too, on the road that leads to the lake I found hundreds of trees felled and collapsed due to bad weather and even the long lake Carezza not it was accessible

Despite this condition from the road it was possible the same to admire the lake Carezza and the Latemar massif due to the absence of trees that usually cover the view from the street. To have a greater width and depth of the scene I decided to photograph the lake through a photomerge, so I photographed the lake according to 3 sections, taking care not to exclude any element between one photo and the other, with bracketing mode to 3 shots

 

WORKFLOW EXPLANATION

I’m not a great fan of Photomerge because it increases the work in Photoshop, but I must admit that it is of great help when you want to give a greater photographic composition, to do this work I captured three bracketing images per horizontal group, respectively the mountain, the central body of the photo and the foreground

I discarded the darker ones and I worked exclusively on the middle shot and the brightest shot of the bracketing series, so I created two photomerges which I then used for digital blending. With the full image avaiable I started working on it to intensify the colors, here I used the Color efex pro plugin to boost up of the golden hour tones

Then I increased the contrast and details with the help of my TTS PRO panel. I used the dodge and burn applied to the luminosity masks darks to lighten the trees under the latemar massif and to darken and then bring out the details of the mountain, with the colors I intensified the yellow levels and slightly lowered the blue ones

I intensified the highlights and applied a slight orton effect to increase the photo’s glow level, as a final step I again adjusted the contrast of the photo and the brightness through the layers adjustment layers

 

TECNHNICAL STUFF

Camera: Nikon D-800

Lens: Nikon 14-24mm f/2,8

Three Exposures (-1; 0; +1;)

ISO: 50 at f/10

Software: Photoshop CC2019

Plugin: TTS Pro, Color Efex Pro

Bled

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Hi guys here we are as usual with the appointment of the weekly photo. As you could easily imagine I finished photos to edits 🙂 and thanks to the bad weather and many seasonal illness I have not succeded to shot anything new. This is why today I also propose a photo from my archive of photos taken from the past 🙂

In this case we are talking about Lake Bled, a magical and beautiful place that I recommend everyone to visit at least once. Lake Bled is located in Slovenia, not far from Lubjiana, it can be reached by car in about an hour and a half from the highway and the whole area offers many other important places to visit and for excursions. I take this photo  in 2013 with my old Camera when I went on the island of the lake by rowing boat (it is one of the attractions of the place)

I hope to find time one day to come back here in Bled again, and take pictures with my new equipment soon! In the meantime I look forward to leaving for my new trip at the end of March,  for the location at the moment I  want to keep it secret … 🙂

 

WORKFLOW EXPLANATION

This is a single exposure shot, I fixed lights and darks using luminosity masks, with TTS Fast Panel I launched details and dodge and burn to increase details and brighten some part of the frame, specially around the bushes of the island

With a brush with soft light effect I incrased slighly yellows in the sky to give a soft look of drama in the sky. Always using luminosity masks, I increased contrast applying midtones excluing darks to curves layer. If you use my panel you can easily do this selecting  midtones 3 and subtracting by this, a dark layer pressing ALT keyboard and pushing on darks 2. After this if you lauch curves layer you could move only the specific selection of this and add contrast better

Last two passages was to decrease the lights in the sky and add a small vignette to create a dark mood to the image

As hope you will find this information usefull. I love to ear this from you!

 

TECNHNICAL STUFF

Camera: Nikon D-90

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

Single exposure

ISO: 100 at f/13

Software: Photoshop CC2018

Extensions: TTS Fast Panel

 

 

 

Hide and Seek

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Hi everyone, this is an old find inside a folder of photos taken years ago in the Regional Park of Gran Sasso. What we see is the Corno Grande, the highest peak in the Apennine range

I love this place, it is natural wild, sometimes inhospitable and above all very quiet, at the sight of the mountain overlooking the whole valley below and is completely different from the rest of the landscape. I recommend everyone to take a trip around here if you do not know Abruzzo is a milestone for photography enthusiasts and is just over an hour’s drive from Rome

I captured this photo with my old nikon 18-105 and I got the image from 3 bracketing shots at sunset while I waited for the sun to start taking some photos to the stars

 

WORKFLOW EXPLANATION

I discarted the overexposed picture and I merged the two shots using luminosity masks, I used lights applied to curves to fix lighting, always using the masks I reduced darks and adjusted contrast in the frame. With the use of TTS Fast Panel I increased details and applied a soft orton effect



I corrected colors using auto adjust, then I decreased the effect reducing the opacity. With a soft dodge and burn I recover the exposure in the darker part of the mountain and increased the colors around the Corno Grande. I reduced a bit the noise I increased the lights behind the mountain, after I decreased the light in the whole frame to make a more dark look and create more atmoshphere

As always I hope you will find this info usefull. I’m always happy to ear it from you!

 

TECNHNICAL STUFF

Camera: Nikon D-800

Lens: Nikon 18-105mm f/3,5 (Shot at 34mm)

Three Exposures (-1; 0; +1)

ISO: 100 at f/11

Software: Photoshop CC2017

Extensions: TTS Fast Panel

 

The Wall

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View of the lake of Stua inside the park of dolomites near Belluno, this artificial lake is located next to a small dam that serves the path in Val Canazoi. The view on the lake is very interesting also because it is facilitated by a terrace that overlooks this view

It would have been interesting to come down on the frozen surface and take some pictures with interesting shots from below but the ice surface did not allow it, so i decided to took the the framing close up the mountain because I love that light that touches the trees under it

 

WORKFLOW EXPLANATION

I take some exposure bracketing but I decided to work on a single image, I fixed lights and contrasts using luminosity masks between the trees and the sky. With TTS Fast Panel I launched details and orton effect to increase details and give after a softener effect through the forest

With the use of dodge and burn I lightened some darker areas between the trees and on the snow peaks of the mountain. After a contrast fix I put a filter mix between warm and cool fixing fixing the effect decreasing the opacity between two

To use this filter I applied the warmer filter and the cooler filter to lights luminosity masks. Last touch was to fix some contrast and fix the highlights. I hope you will find all this usefull. I love to ear this from you

 

TECNHNICAL STUFF

Camera: Nikon D-800

Lens: Sigma 24-70mm f/2,8 (Shot at 46mm)

Single shot

ISO: 100 at f/13

Software: Photoshop CC2017

Extensions: TTS Fast Panel

 

 

 

Resia

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I always wanted to go to visit this place, so I took advantage of my last trip to Trentino to reach it. The lake Resia is one of the most fascinating places in the Alp, the bell tower is all that remains of the ancient city of Curon Venosta that was submerged by water after the construction of a dam

Although in summer it is nice to see the bell tower emerging from the water  but in winter it is nice to be able to reach this ancient bell tower on foot

 

WORKFLOW EXPLANATION

For this image I used a single shot so I did not use the luminosity masks to make a digital blending but to fix the light shadows and contrasts in the image. I fixed the color cast giving a slight imprint of yellow to light

After incrased details using  TTS Fast Panel I added contrast in the fram using luminosity masks applied to midtones curves. As final step I fixed the last lights using levels adjustment layer

I hope you will find this informations usefull. I’m always happy to ear it from you!

 

TECNHNICAL STUFF

Camera: Nikon D-800

Lens: Sigma 24-70mm f/2,8 (Shot at 38mm)

Single Shot

ISO: 125 at f/13

Software: Photoshop CC2018

Extensions: TTS Fast Panel

 

Mostly White

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I took this photo during my last trip to Trentino, I returned to some of the places that I enjoyed better last time, Lake Carezza is one of these. As I headed towards the lake, I thought I would find it frozen, but not to find so much snow over the ice that I could not even recognize where the land ended where the water started 🙂

The place was surrounded by a magical atmosphere of silence, and sinking with snow up to almost the knee in the end I managed to take all the shots I need, since the moment of the shots I realized that they were photos in a natural black and white

 

WORKFLOW EXPLANATION

This is probably the fastest workflow of latest years, the picture was naturally in black and white with no colors, the only things to do was fix the white balance and the exposure. I take the better exposed shot and I used  dodge and burn under brightest areas, I decreased luminosity under the foreground snow

I added contrast in the frame and I fixed lighting using luminosity masks applied to curves tool. With TTS Fast Panel I added details, the final touch was to increase the vibrant colors that add a more blue light to the image

As always I hope you will find this informations usefull. I always love to ear it from you!

 

TECNHNICAL STUFF

Camera: Nikon D-800

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

Five Exposures ( -2; -1; 0 +1; +2)

ISO: 100 at f/16

Software: Photoshop CC2017

Extensions: TTS Fast Panel

Night from Day

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Giuseppe Sapori - Night from day

Probably soon, I will return to this beautiful place, while I look at the old shots made the last time I went to Campo Imperatore to photograph the milky way I found this untreated photo

That afternoon I made some shots at the beautiful rocky lake and then moved to the point where the milky way was better visible at night, this is just one of the shots I did at the time of the first darks of night, at the time discarded but today revalued

The reflections of clouds and stars on the water of the lake create a magical atmosphere throughout the picture. At that time I probably had discarded it because the sky was too cloudy and the milky street was almost on the opposite side but having found a shot with this particular light was almost a surprise 🙂

 

WORKFLOW EXPLANATION

I had only a shot, indeed two! The second is another picture with more foreground and less sky, I blended the two images to have a more complete frame with sky and foreground

I worked this picture only using luminosity masks applied to curves and other effect launched from my panel, high details, sharpen and dodge and burn as well. I also edited the colors warming the sky and pushing up some highlighs, I increased contrast and darkness to give a dark mood to the picture

As the final touch I reduce noise, at some points in the photo there was visible. I hope you will find this usefull, I’m always happy to ear it 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 CC2017

Extensions: TTS Fast Panel

Nature Embrace 2

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Giuseppe Sapori - Nature Embrace 2

I found this shot between my shots of my trip near Bolzano and Dolomites and Lake Carezza  was a pleasant surprise that I met along my way. I remember well that in that day my destination was not even lake Carezza but the Sass Pordoi, which is several kilometers further from this lake

Unfortunately that day I found the cable car to go inexplicably closed, with any explaination on the website, so I went back and I stopped here to take some shots. It was almost a fortune to have found the closed cable car, I would not have discovered this magical place

 

WORKFLOW EXPLANATION

I blended all exposures with the luminosity masks, then I made some color correction on the green and the yellow. I used dodge and burn to lighten the darker parts of the trees and increase highlights on the mountain. I stepped up lights and darks in the foreground area then I increased contrast

With TTS Fast Panel I launched high details and sharpen over the picture, I also used the panel to launch LAB Color that give to the mountains a touch of gold. After applied a orton effect to darken a bit and create a glow effect the last touch was to darken a little more the frame

 

TECNHNICAL STUFF

Camera: Nikon D-90

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

Five Exposures (-2; 0; +2)

ISO: 100 at f/11

Software: Photoshop CC2017

Extensions: TTS Fast Panel

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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)

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