Signal processing on the mountains – Marco Venturini Autieri

The difficult thing of post-processing this image was enhancing the contrast in the distant mountains. I realised, during shooting, that the mountains were barely visible. Hence I decided to improve the signal / noise ratio by taking, instead of one correctly exposed photo:

4 shots at the nominal exposure
4 shots at -0.7 EV
4 shots at +0.7 EV

Eventually I merged the images with photoshop (Smart layers, Mean) to obtain a much cleaner image over which applying a dramatic curve layer. Without this weird procedure, the noise would have been too much.

In Marina di Pisa (Pisa) there is a new commercial port, already working, albeit still being erected. Behind this levee, you can see, distant, the Alps (Alpi Apuane) of Tuscany

PS: the sea waves moves of course, so that part of the frame needs to be created from a single shot.