Before and After for the Pala Bridal show

I’ve spent the last few days in a fury of preparing prints, scheduling rental equipment, and general craziness getting ready for the upcoming Pala Casino Bridal expo on Sunday. As I was selecting prints, I came across an image from a wedding I did a few years back here in San Diego for Cameryn & John (above left). It had a great view of the foothills around the Ramona area, but the sky was completely blown out. I thought that it would be a great image if I could do something about the sky.

That’s when I remembered that I had a super intense glowing sunset shot from the same wedding (above right), and if I could get that great image I needed.

So into Photoshop I went. Now, it’s important to know how light works, how it falls off and gets reflected and refracted in the real world. And in this photo I was dealing with a strong directional light from the right, as well as a mountain in the background that fell off due to the strong light as well as some atmospheric haze.
What I did to compensate for that is created a white gradient come up from the mountain and fading into the sky and desaturated the sky so it was not too powerful.

The resulting picture looks very natural, and retains the character of that beautiful afternoon we took those photos. I will also be blowing up this picture to 20″x40″, mounting it on Masonite, and using it in the back of my booth over all the other photos.

If you are up in the Fallbrook area on Sunday, come see me at the Pala Casino at the Bridal show. I am in booth 60 near the Fashion Show. Come say “Hi” and see the above print.