Wlodowice palace (Before & After)

Todays short tutorial will be about cheating. And I might get in trouble for posting that one ;). Not to say that as many people feel it is wrong, even more people will do it from time to time. Look at the image on the right- do you see what is wrong about it? It was hot at 3 pm on the very sunny summer day. Contrast, for once, bright highlights and dark shadows. And blown out sky. Not mentioning slightly crooked horizon by the unusual perspective. And yet, I am sure I get the image to work. All it really needs are two things. I am going to start from turning it black and white. The way you are not supposed to do- as afterthought. I know now looking at the image that it will work as B&W, but I shot it without the realization. Many people oppose treating B&W as “unsuck filter”. But it will save the image byt diverting attention from blown sky- unnoticeable now. The second thing is a lot of Clarity, to reveal all the texture and imperfections in the old structure. After adding maximum Clarity on the whole composition, and went several times with the Local Adjustment brush, to accent the most interesting sports. The crop and straighten to fix operator error. And a bit of Curve adjustments and a delicate Vignette, and now the image turned into a gem. I wish I thought of it when I was posting the panorama from this place last year.