Where’s my Fountain?

I was watching a Nik Software webinar today that was put on by Lesa Snider. She was discussing how to prepare images for iStockphoto and, even though I’m not a stock photographer, some of her trips were pretty interesting. One of the tips I particularly liked was how to use the “Ink” filter inside of Color Efex Pro to make a photo look faded and “old timey” (technical term). I think I have one or two photos from my walk around the Brier Creek golf course that the effect will good on, but I was looking for another photo to give it a shot on first. I decided to use this pano I took of the gazebo / fountain location that I photograph fairly often. Sadly, the water in the lake is fairly low and the fountain was not going when I took my picture.

From a technical perspective, this photo was stitched together using Photoshop. Additionally, I’m starting to experiment more with brushing in highlight / shadow adjustments instead of doing global versions of them. I think this allows me to bring out some areas (in this case, the trees and bushes bordering the lake on the side I’m standing) without effecting other areas (the sky looked a little funky when I did a global shadows adjustment).