Cellpic Sunday – Manhattan Island Skyline

Manhattan Island Skyline from the upper decks of the Carnival Magic.

New York, New York.

I never tire of looking at the magnificent New York skyline. This is the second Cellpic Sunday image I’ve shared, this time looking southeast on the starboard (right) side of the ship. At the extreme left center of the image, you can see the aircraft carrier Intrepid, now decommissioned and housing the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum.

We will probably make other trips to New York to see some of the things we missed on this, our first trip to the Big Apple. We would love to have enough time to see a Broadway show, just to be able to say, “Been there, done that.” There are other cruise itineraries out of New York that may provide the impetus to stay a few extra days to see some more of the city.

About the photo: This image is actually a “mini-panorama”. I used Lightroom to stitch two images together and then cropped heavily on the left to eliminate much of the ship’s structure cluttering that side of the image. This technique allowed me to include much more of the skyline that didn’t exist in the image on the right. I am always impressed with Lightroom’s ability to seamlessly stitch two images and completely hide the join.

I am doing less and less in Lightroom as Luminar Neo has added more tools to its toolbag. Panoramic merging is not one of those tools yet. I also like the catalog system in Lightroom. There is a catalog structure in Neo, but I have found it slow to import large numbers of images. It just goes to show that not one tool is perfect and one should be flexible in choosing image editors.

After using Lightroom’s basic exposure tweaks and image geometry corrections, I sent the image off to Luminar Neo to take advantage of that program’s artificial intelligence to enhance the image further. Click on the image above to see it in 2K HD on my Flickr site.

I encourage fellow bloggers to create their own Cellpic Sunday posts. I never have a specific topic for this feature, and the only rules are that the photo must be captured with a cell phone, iPad, or another mobile device… If you have an image from a drone or even a dashcam, that’s acceptable as well. The second rule is to link your challenge response to this post or leave a comment here with a link to your post in the comment. Oh, and, you don’t have to post it on a Sunday.

John Steiner

44 comments

  1. Clever use of the stitching edit to create a shot with more impact even when it isn’t an obvious panorama. And who doesn’t love the Manhattan skyline! I like this unusual take on it 🙂

    • Stitching allows me to have my choice of wide, wider, or widest angles (sometimes all three) depending upon where I crop the edges… and I don’t need to change lenses. >grin<

    • Our first trip was just a taste at two days, but I’d like to go back and spend some more time. I want to see a Broadway show for example.
      By the way, thanks for taking the time to comment. I enjoy the feedback from readers.

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