Cafe Gaga

Sometimes with a little bit of imagination, a crappy crooked out-of-focus picture can be repurposed to be presented as an arty impressionist photo.  Sometimes it is universally appreciated, sometimes not.  But, I find the effort of changing the shot and improving it to be a creative activity.  

Here's an example:

This is the original, taken in Split, Croatia, I noticed her coming out of the alley holding her coffee firmly.  I rattled off a shot but as you can see it is nothing close to being a good photograph. 

So, I straightened it, cropped it, lightened the exposure, add some fill light, boosted the color, and removed some of the "noise" (although I did experiment with adding grain also). 

And, this is what I ended up with.  I like it, but some people... maybe not.  But, it is certainly better than the original.  By the way, you can now make out the letters GAGA on the awning behind. Thus the title "Cafe Gaga".