I went to Barcelona with my friend Austin for a short trip. One day, he, his family and I rented bicycles and rode along the beach, eventually reaching the W hotel. Behind the hotel is one of my favorite sitting spots, so I took them there to hang out.

When we set out to leave, I noticed a blond girl sitting alone on the outside of the railing, and loved the way the scene looked, so I decided to take a photo. Unfortunately, three people came and sat close to her right as I tried to get the photo, so I waited for around ten minutes for them to leave, while my friends had moved on.

Ten minutes later, I took a few shots, and, satisfied that I have the photo I want, I took one last photo with my phone so I could show my friends without having to wait to go back home and process the camera shot. I was extremely happy with the phone photo, and was very excited to process the shots from the camera when I got home, sure that they'd look even better with just a few minutes of post-processing.

Unfortunately, when I got home and saw the photos, I realized I had screwed up: I had taken all the camera photos from a lower height, and horizon was right behind the girl's head, cutting it in half, and looking much less nice than the composition of the phone photo.

After four hours of Photoshop work, and lots of compositing from three different photos later, the result is what you see above. You know what they say, "save a minute in pre, spend an hour in post". You can see the original photo in the "before" shot.

Fortunately, I don't have to go back to Barcelona just to retake this photo, as I am quite happy with it now.