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big wheel (2)
jacek (85)
I took this photo on a nice sunny day in Manchester. I cropped irrelevant bottom bit. No postprocessing. Any comments how to improve such photos welcome.
Altered Image #1

jacek (85)
Contrast masking
Edited by:aros Gold Star Critiquer/Silver Workshop Editor/Silver Note Writer [C: 121 W: 19 N: 23] (141)
In order to bring up the shadow areas of the picture, without blowing the highlights, I duplicated the background layer, desaturated then inverted it, applied a 4 pixel Gaussian blur, changed the layer blend mode to Overlay and reduced opacity to around 50%. This is the standard technique for Contrast Masking, useful if you have harsh contrast and detail lost in shadow.

After that, I made another adjustment layer and did some minor tweaks to the overall levels and contrast and saturation, just to finish it off.