Lightwards - a photo on Flickriver

Lightwards

This shot comes from my archives dating from Summer 2015, when we had a vacation in Catalunya (Calella and Barcelona). My sunrise session at Cala de la Vinyeta was coming to an end; the sun was slowly rising above the horizon, just beyond the rocks - those Maresme pink granite rocks which slowly turns into a beautiful grainy, rosy sand. I had overlooked this shot because… well, I have no idea why. The relevant thing is that I have unearthed it now, mainly because of the curvy, sparkling line painted by the backwash on the seashore. An everchanging path towards the light springing from the horizon. A memento of what my life shoud be: a journey from darkness towards the light. Since this is the (highly non-linear) journey of a lifetime, I am – or should be – humbly along the way. However just now you and I are fellow travellers, and I feel that the best thing I can do for you, just now, is to share this path of light.

Before the usual notes about processing (sorry, being one of the strange beasts librarians are I somehow must describe the process behind the photo), I have to tell you that I have played with some unusual, precious features of an unusual, precious free program called Chasys Draw IES Artist by John Paul Chatcha. Very interesting features indeed; just as an example, I have tried “heuristic rescaling” and in a flash I have got a 2x2 high quality enlargement of my original image (from 4946x3280 px to 9892x6560 px). What I have actually implemented in this picture, as an experiment asking for your potential criticism, is “smart resize”, which allows to change the proportions of the frame from 3:2 to 16:9 in… well, in a smart way (e.g. I selected the cliff on the left to have it retaining its original proportions) ;-)
Although I must state that this program cannot possibly supersede the Gimp in my workflow, I warmly advice you to try the “special” features of Chasys Draw IES Artist.

I have obtained this picture by blending an exposure bracketing [-1.7/0/+1.7 EV] by luminosity masks in the Gimp (EXIF data, as usual, refer to the "normal exposure" shot), then, as usual, I added some final touches with Nik Color Efex Pro 4.
I tried the inverted RGB blue channel technique described by Boris Hajdukovic as a possible final contribution to the processing. While this technique (which, its imposing name notwithstanding, is pretty simple to implement) often holds good results in full daylight landscapes, its effects on a low-light capture (e.g. a sunrise) are utterly unpredictable, so at the end of my workflow I often give it a try to ascertain its possibilities. Here I have blurred a bit the inverted Blue channel layer.
RAW files has been processed with Darktable (I am trying experimenting with RawTherapee, but in no satisfactory way for now). Denoising with DFine 2 and the Gimp (denoised and original images blended by luminance).

Taken in: Spain / Catalonia / Calella / Calella (show map)

Taken on: August 3, 2015

Tags:

Spagna

Spain

Catalogna

Catalunya

Catalonia

Calella

Cala de la Vinyeta

Vinyeta beach

Vinyeta cove

beach

cove

sea

sunrise

dawn

rocks

cliff

cloudless

serene

waves

backwash

ebbing

undertow

riptide

alba

aurora

scogli

scogliera

mare

exposure bracketing

daybreak

Nikon

D5100

the Gimp

luminosity masks

Darktable

Nik Color Efex Pro 4

inverted blue channel

Dfine 2

silence

peace

serenity

light

sparkle

glitter

flicker

glint

twinkle

blur

dazzle

glow

radiance

blush

flare

glare

gleam

Chasys Draw IES Artist

John Paul Chatcha

granite

sand

horizon « less

Sets appears in: • Catalunya • Sunrise

Groups appears in: • Beautiful Light • Flickr Addicts more » • The Light Fantastic • 200+ Faves 1-2-3 (Post one,Comment and Fave two) • Sunrises & Sunsets • Nikon D5100 • Nikon D3100,D3200, D3300,D5100,D5200,D5300,D7000,D7100 group • The New**Perfection In Pictures** ( Sweeper) • Land Of Landscapes Magazine • Best Photo of the Day! - No AI Images • Exquisite Imagery.... Submit your BEST for invite • INVITATION - POOL • Flickr's Professional Showcase ~ Admin Invite • 200 - 299 faves (add 1 - fave 2) • **Special Landscapes** « less

Camera: Nikon D5100, f/22.0, 0.4 sec, 18mm (=27mm), ISO 100 (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Nikon D5100
Aperture:	f/22.0
Exposure Time:	0.4
Focal Length:	18mm (35mm equivalent: 27mm)
ISO:	100
Exposure Bias:	+1/3 EV
Flash:	No Flash
Exposure Program:	Aperture-priority AE
Exposure Mode:	Auto
Metering Mode:	Multi-segment
White Balance:	Auto
Color Space:	sRGB
Software:	GIMP 2.10.18
Show full info

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