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Cellpic Sunday – The Quayside Lodge

The Quayside Lodge.

Simon’s Town, South Africa.

Upon arrival at the Cape Town International Airport, we met our tour guide, Dries. Though I’d known Dries through a decade of blogging, it was our first in-person meeting. After about a 60-minute drive, we arrived at the Quayside Hotel and Lodge. It was late in the day on our first night in South Africa. There is a restaurant on the property, and after a quick meal, we were ready for sleepy time.

The Simon’s Town Quayside Hotel is a waterfront hotel in the seaside village of Simon’s Town, South Africa. Our second-floor balcony offered a view of the Simon’s Town Naval Base, a small public marina in False Bay, and the surrounding mountains. Dries chose the hotel based on his previous experiences there, and the hotel’s location provided easy access to nearby Boulders Beach and Cape Point. We found the staff pleasant and accommodating.

About the photo: The Samsung S23U was employed for a photographic memory on the morning of check-out as a reminder of our two-night stay. The photo exhibited a problem with vertical lines, making the building appear to lean back. Using the Automatic function for level didn’t do much to correct the lean, so I used the guidance tool to straighten the building. Then, it was sent to Luminar Neo for noise processing and a tweak with the Enhance AI tool.

One trick I’ve learned with Enhance AI is that when trees are involved, often using Enhance AI causes a haloing effect around the leaves. When I notice the haloes, I return the slider to zero, then use Neo’s masking tool to select the sky, then invert the mask. This eliminates the sky from the Enhance AI process. The two sliders in the tool are Accent AI and Sky Enhancer AI. With the mask in place, I choose the Accent AI slider position for everything but the sky, and then I close the tool and open it again. The second slider is Sky Enhancer AI, which only affects the sky. That slider is adjusted only until I start to see haloing around the leaves, and then I back it off to set a happy medium between the haloing and the enhanced sky. To view the completed image in 2K HD on my Flickr site, click on it.

I encourage fellow bloggers to create their own Cellpic Sunday posts. I never have a specific topic for this feature, and the only rules are that the photo must be captured with a cell phone, iPad, or another mobile device… If you have an image from a drone or even a dashcam, that’s also acceptable. The second rule is to link your challenge response to this post or leave a comment here with a link to your post in the comment. Oh, you don’t have to post it on a Sunday.

John Steiner

24 comments

  5. Kudos John on experimenting and learning your phone’s advanced features. Despite having a great cellphone camera (Pixel 9 pro) I rarely do anything other than auto shoot and mild post- editing.

    Reply

  9. Cool coincidence John, your trip you to Simon’s Town and mine took me to St Simons Island. Both with lighthouses or least your lodge’s logo indicates so.

    Reply

  11. I’d like to go here one day! I know in your bio you mentioned that you love taking the photos and posting about them versus trying to sell them, but, I would be the first to buy a book if you ever came out with one!

    Reply

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