The Cedar River

Weekend before last my band was in Cedar Rapids, Iowa playing at a Czech music festival. I got to spend a little time walking around the Czech Village area taking photos and this was my fave. The placid body of water is the Cedar River. In 2008 it inundated the city with a 500 year flood--it was their Kartrina. For a little more info, you can read my blog post here: The Cedar River. (BTW, the bridge has a very slight uphill grade towards the left so the image is indeed level.)

http://www.mediarare.com/GWimages/im...apids_blog.jpg


Sláinte.

Interesting shot. Did you apply a glass filter via photoshop or similar to create that water texture? Or was it really like that?

nice reflection play

Very interesting reflection.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mad Aussie

Did you apply a glass filter via photoshop or similar to create that water texture? Or was it really like that?

---

No glass filter, the natural reflection was quite nice in the original shot. The final image, however, does have a bit of post processing. What I did was convert the image to black and white in Nik Silver Efex Pro (SEP) and then blend the color back in. The steps I use in SEP for an image like this is to boost the contrast about 15% and the structure about 25%, click "OK" and it makes a new black and white layer. I then duplicate the original color ("background") layer and move it above the newly converted black and white layer. I then apply the "color" blend mode in the layers palette to that new color layer--this effectively blends the color and black and white layers adding only the contrast and structure boosts from the black and white conversion. I do this simple and quick post technique to a lot of my photos, adjusting the contrast and structure to taste.

Sláinte.