My photo, by Jordi V. Pou
Sunday, August 29, 2010 at 6:12PM | Glyn Evans 
This was a photograph taken in a small village near my hometown Lleida. The dog was sleeping in the middle of this street. I just arrived with my car and the dog stood up and started to walk slowly in front of me. I took this picture from inside the car. The strong midday back light was horrible and left a dark image. But I thought the silhoutte of the dog may have some possibilities.
I decided to use PERFECTLY CLEAR first to get more overall contrast and a little focus (just keep the sharpen to zero or very little).
The second App used was PHOTO FX, wich I use because of the Masking option on the filters, this is great to correct different zones without touching the rest. I used levels (Image - Levels) to up the contrast and light on the main road and dog, but protecting the sky and houses with a Mask (the Brush icon). This makes the dog silhouette stand out over the rest.
The color was still dull so I used a filter to give some color. In this case I used the Antique effect (Special Fx - BW Looks) but without the Mask, remember to clear it or it will still be there.
To use different effects inside the app just choose Add Layer once you finish with one of them.
I finally used Levels again with a Mask to make the main road and dog pop out a little more and saturate. Saved the image then.
And the last App, my preferred one, TILTSHIFTGEN. I use this app on almost all of my images to control viewers attention with blur, to control contrast and B&W, and Vignetting.
For the dog image I just decided to keep focus on the dog and main road, leaving houses and sky out of focus. You have to choose the Blur window and drow a circle over what you want to keep in focus. You can also correct the size of the circle and the transition to blur.
I corrected a little of saturation and contrast, and added some Vignetting.
Saved, and thats it. From a dull image to an eye catching one.
This image is one of my iPhoneography project at www.kokovoko.info and it's also on Flickr @ http://www.flickr.com/photos/kokovoko/4893143395/
So that's how Jordi created his shot, so if you have a photo and technique that you would like to share, then send me an email, and I will send you further details on how you can submit it for consideration.
Jordi V. Pou in My photo, by...
Reader Comments (11)
Nice picture
Stunning work in post processing. The final image is great!
I liked the shot better without all the blur.
yeah, agree with Matt. I don't like the blur at all, amazing composition though!
Great picture! I love the blur effect
Also, thanks for the step-by-step tutorial. It helps us beginners to understand your vision and to follow the decisions.
Great work amigo!
thanks for sharing the technique ...
Thanks all for your kind comments, thanks also to Glyn for allowing me to show my work in this great site.
I forgot a couple of things on the main text. One of the concepts that attract me to iphoneography was how fast all the process go ( take picture - process - post .. take a new one ). All this was done in less than an hour for this image. I took the picture in the car, and less than an hour later the image was posted in my site.
Referring to the blur comments. I usually do a couple o even more final versions of the image. Always a color and B&W one. In this image I did three, one color with no blur, the one you see, and a B&W one. I like to take fast decisions, and in this case the blur just won. Right or wrong ? no more thinking about it, just worrying about the next image to take.
Great shot, and thanks for the breakdown of the technique!
I'm also a fan of TiltShiftGen, but I like this sot better without the blur because you had a powerful mood in the sky before blurring.
Did you consider removing the power line? TouchRetouch could do that beautifully. I'd also like to see this shot cropped to square.
Photo fx's clone paint tool could also have been used to remove that power line. Though I like it there.
Actually, he also could have used Photo fx's Center Spot filter for blurring and the Vignette filter for the vignette and would never have had to use two of the four apps.
Awesome process to get the best out of a simple photo. I also liked the last step version, without the blur, but both are quite impressive.