This was the very first Disneyland shot I worked on and is yet another shot I’ve thought could have been done better. So, I’ve gone back and re-edited it from scratch and come up with a final image that is much moodier and pleasing. To me anyway…
I’ve sat on this one for nearly 3 years now not quite happy with it was turning out. I scrapped it yet again this weekend and started over and finally I was able to edit it as it deserved. I spent not even 24 hours in Joshua Tree but photographing here was an experience I’ll never forget.
It’s not often I get to post something old at Disney that I’ve never posted before but here we are. I’ve sat on this shot for a while because it always annoyed me that the trees had grown so much by the time I visited that Grizzly Peak is obscured. I’ve gotten over it now and other than that minor issue I really do like the shot. The sky especially turned out really nice and I love the contrast against the warmth of the mill.
I had literally just setup for this shot and started my first exposure when it started sprinkling. By the time I had taken my second exposure (for the sign) it was turning into an absolute washout. This worked out great for some other shots, but it definitely doesn’t work when your framing involves pointing the camera straight up into the sky. One additional frame would have helped with some problematic highlights, but I made it work with the 2 frames I had with a bit of color painting.
I must be honest… I only really edited this photo so I could use this title which I thought was sort of ironically funny. Even then it’s basically only related because Pirates. Well, there’s some insight into the deep inner-workings of my brain.
This is from the Disneyland version of Pirates of the Caribbean. The edit was very straight forward with some minor exposure, highlights, and shadow adjustments in Lightroom followed by a single level adjustment in Photoshop. I then finished it off with a very light touch of Color Efex’s Pro Contrast and sharpened.
It’s been a while, but I finally got around to editing some more shots from our October 2019 trip. This is another one from the foggy, rainy morning along Newfound Gap Rd.
Alright it’s time for me to venture back to my Disneyland shots. It’s been nearly 3 years since my one and only trip and I have gone back and re-edited some shots I wasn’t happy with along with a bunch of “new” shots. This one kind of falls somewhere in the middle. I did edit this shot but did not post it to all my normal channels as I was doing a bit of a color test with the orange space thingy behind the Tomorrowland logo. A new look at this one after a few years renders a much nicer final image. I hope you’ll enjoy it.
This shot was another fun exercise in correcting the wrongs of Disney’s lighting team. Once again, the lighting team dug into their warehouse of discount blue lighting to bathe Rapunzel’s Tower in its boring light. I pulled up a reference photo from Tangled and used that to color correct the tower as accurately as I could. I think it turned out really nice and it also helped separate it from the blue sky where it would have otherwise been lost.18
I have posted a few shots from this area already, but this is my first that is your standard sort of framing for the scene. It is a no brainer kind of shot but still a lot of fun to edit as it just looks really awesome (minus the blue lighting… but I digress.) I did a bit of dodging and burning to bring even more focus on the Falcon and hopefully differentiate the shot at least a little. Thanks for looking!
The cool thing about this spot is it makes the Slinky Dog coaster look like it goes upside down. I took this just as the sunset was really starting to pop off and I really like the divide between the orange sunset colors on one side and the fading blue sky and clouds on the other… virtually right down the center. Enjoy.