With near ideal conditions almost daily, hot air balloons are a common site in the Phoenix area this time of year. I happened to be out early to shoot something completely unrelated, trying to finish up before the golden hour at sunrise was over, when a series of these began lift off not but a mile or so from me then proceed to float almost directly overhead.
RAW conversion in ACR; run twice to bring back blown highlights on the left side of the balloon, then blended in PS CS3
PP in PS CS3:
cloned out sensor dust
rotate orientation slightly and crop
levels/curves adjustment layers
hue/saturation adjustment layer
burned corners for slight vignette effect
selective color adjustment layer (enhance/clean yellows & reds)
Noise Reduction (image layer)
Smart Sharpen (image layer)
flatten
resize for challenge
add 1px border
convert to 8-bit sRGB
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