With all my travels up and down the Hudson Valley for our book Historic Hudson Valley, I never sufficiently explored Poughkeepsie, a historic city in Dutchess County.  Yesterday I thought it was about time to put that right, especially since I’m doing a talk and book signing at the Mid Hudson Heritage Center on Thursday October 24.

Poughkeepsie has several historic districts, including this one on Main Street. Here are two versions of one of the photos I took, both processed in Photoshop CS 5 with Topaz Adjust 5.  (The building on the right houses the Mid Hudson Heritage Center.)

Each version expresses a different side of the character of the Main Street district. The first has a hint of the gritty look I associate with this kind of area. For this I used, from the Topaz Adjust Vibrant collection, Detail Strong – II, in which I increased the number of color regions to five and boosted the saturation to 1.30.

For the second version I used the Faded Glory (the name itself says it all) with the original presets.

Please leave a comment as I’m interested in knowing which version you prefer.  And don’t forget — my talk/book signing at the Mid Hudson Heritage Center on Thursday October 24. I’d love to see you there!