Mission San Juan, modified using Mask Pro

Today's photo is one that I originally shot and posted back in September, but I was never totally happy with the in the shot. I took the photo shortly before sunset and the sky originally was a hazy blue/gray color. I was able to tweak the coloring to make the sky a light blue, but I still was not totally satisfied with the result. I kept the photo in the back of my mind though for when I would find a good masking tool that would allow me to selectively pick out the sky colors to drop, so that way I would be able to get rid of just the sky and retain the details in the trees.

I finally found the program I was looking for in onOne Software's Mask Pro, which I finally had a chance to ask some questions about at ImagingUSA. One of the features is that you can choose colors to drop and colors to keep, then you brush the "drop" colors away with ease. The software is very easy to use and more importantly is quite reasonably priced. If you are looking for a good masking program I HIGHLY recommend it, but I think the difference in the two photos alone speaks to how well the program works.

Just like the new Judson's Candy Factory shot, I won't delve too much in to the details of Mission San Juan as I talked briefly about it in my original blog post (located here). If you visit San Antonio I recommend taking the time to see the other missions (San Jose, Concepción, and San Juan) even though they are a bit of a drive, each of the missions I feel are much more interesting and photogenic than the Alamo.

Please feel free to leave any comments or feedback on this photo. Clicking on the photo takes you to my online gallery hosted at smugmug where you can view this (and other photos I have taken) in various sizes. Thanks for stopping by!

Mission San Juan - with a new sky

Original Mission San Juan

(NOTE: The photos are slightly different because I also reprocessed the shot entirely again from the original brackets. I have more tools and experience since I processed the original shot, I think the new one has a better representation of natural coloring in it)