Category: Photograph

With a bit of creative editing we see a new perspective of a familiar old lighthouse.

So, who’s afraid of the dark? No one around these parts need fear the night because we have a light to keep us safe.

Of course this is a composite image and a good bit “contrived” – but it has attracted a lot of attention on social media. None of that attention was negative. Well, there may have been a few snarky remarks but the image received (literally) hundreds of re-tweets on twitter and dozens of “likes” and “comments” on Facebook on a personal page, a business page and some local group pages.

It is that “feedback” that prompted this brief article with an explanation of how this image was created.

Step one was to choose an image like this “touristy” snapshot-style picture of the lighthouse complex. The Fenwick Island Light Station in this shot includes the tower, the keeper’s home and assistant keeper’s home.

Next was to “straighten” the buildings and “remove” the wires and the utilities pole. This is something that is almost never done by photographers with and turns an ordinary picture into a photograph worthy of being displayed. This was the longest and more tedious part of the editing process. Photoshop Elements software was used for this most of what follows.

The image was also cropped to a (more) standard 3:2 ratio. This shape prints perfectly at a small 12″x8″ size up to the popular 36″x24″ for wall display.

The blue sky was removed and rendered black with scattered stars. The building and lighthouse had lighting reduced and contrast increased to give a bit more of a “nighttime appearance” without losing detail in the structures – as might happen with a normal nighttime exposure.

Using the same Photoshop editing software the moon (from another image by Bill Swartwout Photography) was superimposed onto the night sky. The addition of the moon and the starry background are the “composite” (added on) parts of the image.

Finally a special “Star Filter” by ProDigital Software was used to create the lighthouse beacon. That resulted in the final composite photograph you see at the top of this article.

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The image below is another (popular) photograph edited from the original. This is also a composite image with a dramatic sky added to the background and then converted to black and white. This creates a moody and impactful scene as might have been photographed decades ago.

Click the large images above for more detail and to see the wall art and home décor choices available for both of those photographs.

Click here to see more photographs of: The Fenwick Island Lighthouse.

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