Hiking in the Magic Forest of Point Lobos (California)

I am very excited that in only 48hours I will have another chance to visit and photograph Point Lobos.

I am in the final stage of the preparation for my unexpected, last-minute trip to North California. Once again I will get to experience the amazing drive from Los Angeles to San Francisco.

Point Lobos State Reserve has a number of distinctive areas of the park and it takes at least a day to visit all of them. But, when I am in a rush and I do not have the entire day to dedicate to the park, I always start with Cypress Grove Trail which is my favorite area of the park.

Over the years, I visited Point Lobos on many occasions and below you can find the collection of my favorite photographs I took in the park.

Shooting

The only challenge I had with this shot was the group of people who walked very slowly, stopping every few meters refusing to leave the scene. After waiting for a couple of minutes I decided to take a shot and remove people later in Photoshop.

• Camera: Canon 60D
• Lens: Canon 10-20
• Focal Length: 10mm
• Shooting Mode: Aperture Priority (A)
• ISO: 100
• Aperture: F13
• Shutter Speed: 1/30s
• Bracketing: 3 (-1, 0, 1)
• Tripod: FEISOL Tournament CT-3442  – Check my FEISOL Tournament CT-3442 Review.
• Ballhead: FEISOL CB-40D

Processing

It was a single RAW file editing.

The main goal here was to bring back vibrant colors of the forest and emphasize the variety of the textures of the forest, the cliffs, the ocean and the sky.

One of my favorite Lightroom presets from Landscape Collection called Point Lobos and I knew from the very beginning that I would use it to edit photo of Point Lobos, just to be consistent 🙂

I applied Point Lobos first and after I used TOOLKIT to boost colors and contrast.

Lightroom Editing Formula: Point Lobos (9, 13, 17, 21, 31)

Photoshop:  I spent at least 30min in Photoshop mostly removing the distracting elements of the composition (wires, fence, a tree stump in the foreground, people). I finished by applying color correction and contrast.

Photoshop Plugins: 

• Topaz DeNoise was used to reduce digital noise (sky mostly).
• Topaz Clarity was used to enhance details and boost colors.