"Before and After" Forum.

<p>Trying to bring the discussion back on track: I think the OP's suggestion is a good one!</p>

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<p>Trying to bring the discussion back on track: I think the OP's suggestion is a good one!</p>

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<p>Agreed; I think it would be a good learning resource.</p>

<p>I also support the idea of a "before and after" forum.</p><p>Incindently, I had suggested also some months ago that there should be a forum dedicated only at postprocessing (which comes close to this idea). At present all the post processing questions go to the Digital Darkroom forum, along with questions/discussions on which printer to use, which program to use, etc etc. It would be nice to have a place were we can concentrate all the discussion on postprocessing.</p>

<p>I also support the idea of a (with words) "before and after" forum. To me, a major benefit of such a forum would be that such a forum would allow people to compare & contrast alternative post processing treatments of the same original image without the thread becoming lost amidst a sea of other discussions about post processing, but which don't contain concrete examples.</p>

<p>For example, attached is my alternative treatment of Patrick's image of leaves. In contrast to his approach, my workflow did not involve any painted-on masks, but instead relied on some highly automated commercial plugins. I treated his original color image with:</p>

<p>(a) Topaz details (set to smooth small features but enhance large scale features)<br /> (b) Topaz simplify (to further smooth small features)<br /> © Topaz adjust (to quickly adjust the exposure)<br /> (d) Photoshop's native BW conversion (as an adjustment layer)</p>

<p>Some folks might enjoy seeing (in one forum) discussions of alternative PP techniques such as this.</p>

<p>Tom M<br /> Washington, DC</p>

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<p>Tom, i dont mind people using my image to work with them and acquire new knowledge or bring a new vision..but please dont call it *similar* ... because in your version the leaf look like posterize and over glowy sharpen..more like a illustration tahn a picture..just call it *another version* and i will be OK with it ; )</p>

<p>Hi Patrick - Sorry. Poor choice of words on my part. I wanted it to look like an illustration to demonstrate how variety could come from open discussions on the new forum.</p>

<p>Cheers,</p>

<p>Tom M<br>

Washington, DC</p>

<p>All is fine then ; )</p>

<p>feel free to use the images i post to play around and post your vision</p>

<p>Well, Patrick, I guess I/we sure put an end to the "before - after forum" discussion. Sorry for the hijack, folks. :-(</p>

<p>Actually, thinking about the lifetime of threads on photo.net, I am strongly coming to the conclusion that the relative short life of threads on photo.net (compared to other technical forums) is strongly influenced by the way the index pages to the forums are sorted. </p>

<p>Specifically, on most other forums that I have participated in, threads are generally NOT sorted by date of creation, but rather, by date and time of the last post. Thus, the way it is now, even if a thread is active, after a few days, the listing for the thread on the index pages will have sunk so far down on the list that essentially no one will ever know that the thread existed. Thus, the only possible contributors to the thread at that point will be people who have clicked on "Notify me of responses", and, by the laws of probability, those folks will, one by one, drop out the discussion, and the thread dies quickly thereafter. I bet if one constructed a histogram of # of posts per thread on photo.net and compared it to histograms of other technical forums, there would be a huge difference.</p>

<p>In a discussion with Josh, he stated that this behavior was intentional, but to be honest, I can't remember EVER seeing a forum whose index pages were sorted this way ... almost all are sorted by putting the last post in the thread at the top of the list. I certainly respect Josh's decision, but, to be honest, I would sure love to have the option to sort the index pages whichever way each use preferred (eg, by the usual method of clicking on a sort box at the top of each column on the index page).</p>

<p>I think that there would be many advantages to photo.net by doing it the way I suggest. For example, from experience on other forums, there would almost certainly be fewer threads with nearly identical, repetitive topics. This would make the threads more useful to newbies as reference documents, and hence photo.net would gain even more of a reputation as a source of trusted photographic knowledge and advice.</p>

<p>Anyway, if someone but me cares about this topic, I would love to hear your thoughts. :-)</p>

<p>Tom M<br>

Washington, DC</p>