After a few months’ break, I am back on the photo editing path and joining the One Photo Focus participants to work on a single image. I must admit to feeling a little rusty.

For our October One Photo Focus, our host Stacy Fischer of Visual Venturing has thrown us a challenge: to process a photo by Y. Pryor, taken with a phone rather than a DSLR.

Original Image by Y. Prior

I found this image a challenge. It is dark, busy and has a lot of distortions: lines tilting one way and the other.  I initially tried correcting the distortions, but it was beyond my Photoshop skills.

In the end I decided to see what effect could be obtained by REALLY distorting the image. I cropped it to a square, focusing on the centre right part of the image and applied the filter Distort/Polar Coordinates, to wrap the image into a sphere. I then tweaked the exposure, shadows, clarity, vibrance and saturation to lighten up the image and bring out the burgundies, blues and gold.  Here is the result.

I like what it has done to the arched windows in particular with the pattern it has created.

This photo processing challenge always brings out varied and interesting interpretations.  Do visit Stacy’s post to see what other photographers have done, by clicking on the One Photo Focus badge.