photobyjohnbo

Cellpic Sunday – Ibiza’s Botafoc Lighthouse

Botafoc Lighthouse – altered.

Ibiza, Spain.

As we sailed into the cruise port at Ibiza, I noticed the lighthouse was still operating, but I couldn’t capture an image then. After breakfast, I saw the excursion buses were starting to arrive. I captured a shot of the lighthouse from my balcony during the morning hour but well after sunrise.

The lighthouse was built in 1861 and has been operational for over 150 years. With more modern navigation technologies in place, the time for lighthouses has passed. For many years, the Ibiza Lighthouse has only been used as an entrance beacon to the port.

About the photo: I captured the image with my Samsung S23U and processed it with Adobe Lightroom Classic and Luminar Neo. I cropped out the view of the excursion bus and formatted it as a landscape instead of a portrait. Then, I sent it off to Luminar Neo for some creative editing. My usual technique with lighthouses is to lower the exposure to create a day-to-night shot, and then I use the Luminar Neo Sunrays tool to make the two light beams. This time, though, I would try something different.

One of Neo’s new creative tools is the Twilight tool. Instead of lowering the exposure to simulate night, I adjusted the Twilight slider to give the image an after-sunset appearance. I then sent it back to Lightroom Classic for masking since I’ve been using those masking tools for several photos, and they work better than the Sunrays tool in Neo for lighthouse illumination effects.

In Lightroom, I used a brush mask, starting with a small brush to illuminate one side of the light. Then, I enlarged the brush and did a shift-click at the edge of the photo to simulate the beam spreading out. I duplicated that effect on the other side of the image and then used a tiny radial brush to better illuminate the center of the light source. You can click on the image above for a better view via my Flickr site.

Ibiza Lighthouse with traditional processing.

I processed the image more conventionally for those who prefer a more traditional approach (as in not AI-altered). I will soon post the other photos I captured while in Ibiza in a Travel Tuesday post.

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 also acceptable. 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, you don’t have to post it on a Sunday.

John Steiner

22 comments

    • Good eye, Brian! I just went to see the elongation you mentioned. I’m not sure why that happened or whether that’s the fault of WordPress or of my processing. We are on our last leg of our trip back to Tucson this morning. When we get back this afternoon or certainly by tomorrow, I’ll check the photo I posted. I suspect it’s a WordPress issue. I didn’t notice it when I put the post together.

      Reply

    • I checked the original Lightroom photo of the lighthouse and the virtual copy I created to do the altered photo. I’m not sure how it happened, but somehow, I must have modified the size of the virtual copy creating an elongated version of the lighthouse.

      In short, it’s operator error on my part. >grin<

      Reply

    • Truthfully, I like my original better as well. When AI is done right, it shouldn’t be noticeable. Brian pointed out that my first image is elongated. I didn’t notice that until he mentioned it. I don’t know if I inadvertently did that in processing or if it’s a WordPress problem.

      Reply

      • Oh, ok. I was hoping for a psychedelic Love Bus like the one on ‘The Partridge Family’ with David Cassidy at the wheel, bangs in his face. ☮️🌻

      • Occasionally, the tour buses are decorated. On a tour of Tortola, we rode a 12-passenger open-air bus painted in a Caribbean theme. Since it was just after Christmas, they hadn’t had time to remove the “wreath” of branches and large Christmas ornament balls that dangled from the roofline. Fun stuff.

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