Seascape in blue

A few years ago I photographed the Parade of Ships in Norfolk, Virginia. This is an event where magnificent tall ships under full sail cruise along a portion of the Atlantic Coast, and it's a great photo opportunity. I chartered a fishing boat so some friends and I could be mobile and photograph the ships from any vantage point. Unfortunately, the organizers of these events never consider photographers. The parade took place from 9am to 12 noon when the light was terrible. Not to be defeated by poor planning, I used Photoshop to create a dramatic image with the kind of light that I would have loved to have seen. I replaced the sky entirely, and the original ocean foreground was replaced by Flood 2. This new version of my favorite plugin (Flood is made by flamingpear.com) offers some much improved stormy seas. When you apply Flood, however, it doesn't have any noise. Since all digital images have a certain amount of noise, it was necessary to add noise to the water to maintain continuity and realism. I did this in Photoshop with Filter > noise > add noise. In the dialog box, I typed in the value '4'. The number you choose depends on the ISO of the original capture.