Just another surfing photo, taken at Salt Creek Beach in Dana Point, CA Nikon D7000 1/1500th f/8.0 300mm (crop factor to 450mm)
I cropped the photo, added some motion blur behind the surfboard, a lens flare in the wave and some minor additional adjustments gave me the remake below.
Dana Point, CA
I another crop, below, starts with two boys on a volleyball court, in Long Beach, NY. Which, BTW has a brand new, post Sandy, 2 mile long boardwalk.
This one I cropped and put a ray of sunlight on the boys. In Lightroom, I used the Adjustment Brush, sized the diameter, placed it over the boys and clicked once. I then adjusted Exposure and the other settings to suit.
Long Beach, NY
Long Beach, NY has dozens of volleyball courts up for an extended season. It is not uncommon to see most of them in use, especially in the evening.
This crop was a fairly interesting photo unto itself. For a beach gallery, however, I wondered if it would become just another photo.
So, I cropped the photo even more, desaturated the colors and added a grunge texture. There are many free and paid sources to download textures/backgrounds. For awhile I was flipping from PS to Bridge to get the textures. But now I can load my entire texture library into PS. Once I add the texture I work with Blend modes and opacity to get the look I want.
A rock in a pool of water at Crystal Cove State Park, Newport Beach, CA
I then removed the people in the background in Photoshop and added a sky drop to the water and sand.
Beach houses under restoration, again at Crystal Cove State Park. There are many that are operational. You can rent them from the park, but it is just one step above camping, as the cabins are bare bones.
Here I went for an old time look with a new sky. I used Landscape pro for the sky changes and lighting. There are then multiple ways to get the old time look through other software or directly in Photoshop.
Finally, a fall day, with a totally boring sky, on the boardwalk in Long Beach NY.I changed the Sky, this time with the new Sky Replacement in Photoshop, and relit the boardwalk to work with the sky.
See full presentation is here. It was a fun project as I had to see how I could be just a little creative for each photo.