Irish Inspirations, Day 4: A Giant Cause for Photoshop

Irish Inspirations, Day 4

Today we visited the Giant’s Causeway in County Antrim, a UNESCO world heritage site that basically marks the origin of Irish hero Finn McCool’s bridge to Scotland. Either that or it’s an area of about 40,000 interlocking basalt columns, the result of an ancient volcanic eruption some 50 million years ago. Your choice. I mean, that Finn McCool thing makes a lot of sense.

Traveling through Ireland in November has had many advantages, including not having to fight the crowds (and, frankly, more sunshine than I’ve previously experienced in July). But it doesn’t take huge crowds to interfere with your photograph. No, it may just take “idjit” (as they call them here) American tourist with his or her cell phone sitting in a prime photo spot.

My way around it was to use my iPhone’s Olloclip fisheye lens to bend the view around unwanted people. Of course, it also bends the horizon unnaturally; let’s call that an artistic choice. This one dude was in my frame, but he seems cool enough.

If you recall, Deke’s Techniques 022: “Removing People with Image Stacks,” dealt with just such a situation. There was Deke, trying to capture the forced perspective of the amazing Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza, Italy. And some annoying tourist—I think she happened to be American as well—kept walking through his frame:

Turned out to be no problem because Photoshop Extended includes a top-secret way to automatically remove view hogs from your travel photos:

Good to know Photoshop has something to offer even the most intrepid traveler. May all your travels—or the Photoshopped versions thereof—be similarly unwanted-tourist-free.

Next entry:Irish Inspirations, Day 7: Castle Hunting around Clare

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