Roller Coasters and Thrill Rides

[Sunday0303]

Haven't posted anything in a while, so though I'd do one today.

A week ago, I went to Valleyfair. Valleyfair is an amusement park in Minnesota. Awesome thrill rides there. I really wanted to bring a compact on a roller coaster, but I didn't have one and didn't want to risk being kicked out of the park or hurt anyone. But that's besides the point.

So here's the straight out of the camera photo. It's an overview of the park:

Before:                                                               After:
     

Here's what I did:

1) Transformed the perspective. Get that Power Tower straight! I used the transform tool in The GIMP in the 'backwards' mode.

2) Created a layer mask for the sky and lightened the ground a bit.

3) Bumped up the saturation for the entire image.

4) Lastly, some artificial lens flare was added.

Enjoy!

[jbm1991]

nice edit

Only thing I'd personally have done slightly different is i would have tried to avoid stretching the roller-coaster whilst straightening the tall tower ride, as you can see some stretch blur on the roller-coaster scaffolding.

[TW0R]

The colors look a lot better but lens flairs = fail.

[jbm1991]

i had a crack at editing it as well hope you don't mind

[Sunday0303]

Originally Posted by jbm1991

nice edit

Only thing I'd personally have done slightly different is i would have tried to avoid stretching the roller-coaster whilst straightening the tall tower ride, as you can see some stretch blur on the roller-coaster scaffolding.

Thanks for your feedback, but I don't see any blur on the coaster. Or do you mean it was stretched? If you mean the stretch, well, I don't think many would mind if I didn't show them the original.

Originally Posted by TW0R

The colors look a lot better but lens flairs = fail.

Not always. If the flare takes away contrast and saturation of your photos, that would be bad. But sometimes, IMO, flare adds to a photo. In this case, i think that it adds to it because where the flare is is just a patch of blue sky. Not much detail in that sky... Then again, the matter of flare (and photography) for that matter, is highly subjective.

Originally Posted by jbm1991

i had a crack at editing it as well hope you don't mind

Nice job, John. I like your idea of brightening the clouds.

[vsa]

Originally Posted by Sunday0303

Not always. If the flare takes away contrast and saturation of your photos, that would be bad. But sometimes, IMO, flare adds to a photo. In this case, i think that it adds to it because where the flare is is just a patch of blue sky. Not much detail in that sky... Then again, the matter of flare (and photography) for that matter, is highly subjective.

Real lens flare can be good. The Photoshop filter lens flare is usually not. At least I don't remember seeing any photo where it would've really worked.

Nice straightening job and colors.

[jetblack]

very nice!

[elvenprincessjo]

Very nice. Personally, I like the added lens flare. Everyone has different tastes, though.