Sunrise, Randolph, NJ

An early Saturday morning trip to the Randolph motor vehicle inspection facility yields a pleasant surprise.

Once I pulled up to the end of the line, a full three cars ahead of me, I turned east to witness the sunrise. With the tower and trees to add some sharp detail, I composed and captured this image…

The HDR mode filled in the blown-out area where the sun was peeking with yellow, and revealed much more detail in the shadows. But the sky was quite flat and bland.

So, I brought both images into Photoshop on different layers, and combined the two by digital dodging and burning; that is, I masked out one of the pixel layers, and selectively brushed it back in. This gave me the best of both images.

I then processed the image in the L*a*b* color space to enhance the colors. Pulling out the blue was particularly tricky. The result is a pleasing memento of a mission accomplished, allowing me to enjoy the rest of my day.

At first, I categorized this as iPhoneography, but I’ve since moved it to Post-Pro. Because this was post-process outside of the iPhone itself, it no longer qualifies as iPhoneography. Perhaps it’s better described simply as iPhone Photography.