Jamaica - before & after photo editing

As much as I love to have my camera in my hands while exploring somewhere, I equally enjoy the digital darkroom part of the process. I will usually do my best to get the best shot possible right from my camera but I find that I can always find something to add in Lightroom and/or Photoshop (and/or many plug-ins that I have).

The majority of my editing is basic corrections or enhancements... Exposure or slight color correction, cropping, sharpening,etc. I can always tell the difference after my edits but I do recognize that I'm more picky than the average person. The editing that really gets me excited is the really dramatic differences. I love to take an average (or even a bad) photo and make it look amazing, or at least somewhat cool.

Today I watched part of a class on the Kelby Training website and I decided to follow along with a really cropped version of an "ok" photo I took of the pool at Couples Tower Island. The tutorial used a Photoshop plug-in called Adobe Pixel Bender that is available for free in Adobe Labs. I was very interested because I have never even heard of this plug-in and it was quite fun to play with it. The goal is to make the photo look painterly, an affect that I don't use often (I really do prefer a natural look most of the time) but when I do I usually have fun with it.

So, here is the before & after: