la Alhambra

improving old photos

Palacios Nazaries :: Alhambra



I visited la Alhambra in Granada back in 2004. This is an amazing complex of buildings all intricately carved and tiled. It has lots of colour and detail everywhere you look. Trying to capture it's beauty is challenging, one because of the light and dark of the sun, reflections and shade of the building, but also because of the thousands of people visiting it each day, which means that you will always have lots of people in your shot.

For this photo, when I realised we where leaving the area, I ran back to the far end and took a couple of photos, ensuring people where at least just in one area.

How did I do it :: Before and After

Camera: Canon 300D
Lens: 28-200 f/5.6 (Shot at 28 mm)
ISO: 100 at f/8
1 jpeg image
Where was I: Shot at the Alhambra in Granada, Spain, 2004.
Hardware I used : Dell Studio Laptop
Software I used: Lightroom, Photomatix, Photoshop

What I did:
As This was taken before my RAW shooting days, the jpeg image was loaded into Lightroom, where it was then exported as 3 tiffs with exposures of -2 0 +2.
These were then loaded into Photomatix, where it was processed in the tone mapping section.

As you can see below, its amazing what you can get from a jpeg file.

before
after
before
after