While on the photo walk in Seattle this weekend I captured this picture in Post Alley just behind Pike Place Market.  I loved the composition but there were quite a few things wrong with it and I started making changes.  I like the end result but it’s totally fake – I do love Photoshop.

So what was wrong with it, what did I do?  Well firstly the sky was a horrible drab grey color.  It wasn’t white just dirty!  So I grabbed some sky from a shot I took over Lake Mead in Nevada.  The sky was a little too blue so I had to lighten it a little for image.  Then there was the Post Alley sign.  Only the word Post was lit up, Alley was broken.  So I fixed that too.  Then there was wall around the Dead End sign.  The wall is basically cement, and looked flat and boring, so I changed that to make it pop a little.  Then there were the bricks on the other side of the road, I made them redder and sharper and did the same for the cobble stones on the road.  The end result is the image below.

I know what you’re thinking, now you know what I did you can “see it all” and I’ve probably ruined it for you.  The end result is I probably spent too much time on this and arguable over processed it.  But I had fun doing it so what the heck!

What I really liked about this image was the composition.  A normal shot of the Alley wouldn’t have looked anywhere near as nice.  This one came out really well.  I should say a big thank you here to Chandler who came up with the idea for the shot (can’t really take credit for that).

Update 9/27: Someone asked me what the original image looked like, so I added it to the post.  Just hold the mouse over the image to see what I started with.

Master Chief found a jar of Maraschino Cherry’s and went a bit nuts tonight.  Abi won’t be happy when she get’s in these are hers!