Post Processing Challenge May 25 2019

There are no rules as to how you apply your post processing to this image; but, please let us know what you have done so we can all learn.

If you would like to post a candidate image next week, please ensure it is of sufficiently high resolution for manipulation by the participants (3000px on the long side, 300dpi for example).

Most of all, let's have fun while we are learning or demonstrating how we use our post-processing software, imaginations and interpretations.

This is Chateau Frontenac, Quebec City.

Another fun photo to work with—thanks, Punta!

Here’s what I did, starting in Lightroom:

1. Basic panel: slight increase in exposure and whites; larger increase in texture, clarity, and shadows; reduced highlights
   
2. Detail panel: strong noise reduction, sharpened with high radius and low amount, strongly masked the sharpening to restrict it to the light areas
   
3. Moderate vertical transform and slightly narrowed aspect ratio to give the sense of looking up
   
4. Cloned to turn on more lights in the upper foreground stories
   
5. Moved to photoshop
   
6. Cloned out one of the flags on the right
   
7. Gave the spire more headroom by enlarging the canvas and cloning in more sky; also elongated the cropped spire by cloning, then tapered it with more cloning
   
8. Back to Lightroom
   
9. Adjustment brush with strong noise reduction over the sky
   
10. Adjustment brush to darken the corbels on the lower left
    
11. Cropped. Then cropped again. And again. And yet again (all that meticulous cloning down the drain). The format gradually changed from panoramic to vertical during these final edits.
    

Have increased the shadows and decreased the highlights in Lightroom, slightly decreased the Saturation. Had Put sum yellow in the highlights, magenta in the midtones and cyan in the shadows in photoshop.

First Version: PSE15: used levels to further darken the shadows and to slightly darken the midtones, slightly modified colors, used content aware spot healing brush to eliminate the extraneous objects in the sky, used dodging tool for very slight degree of lightening along the bottom edge. Sharpened using NOIK Output Sharpener.

Version 2: Converted Punta's original to b&w with Silver Efex. Used levels in PSE and dodging tool to bring out midtones, used sharpening slider by 15%, then followed with a light application of Output Sharpener.

#rd Version (painterly): PSE using levels to darken image, using paint bucket (zebra and green with fibers filters) to add texture. used artistic menu (sponge filter) to add a bit more color, finally used dodging tool again along bottom edge, slightly added saturation.

Nice photo, but I did change it.

I started by making a "small planet" polar projection of the image, but that did not look promising. So, I cropped the polar projection, selected the black background using "magic wand" in Photoshop CS5, then selected the inverse, copied it and pasted it over one of my star field images.

Worst Case Scenario

I started having a go at this on the weekend but I got distracted (by real photography ;)) . My immediate reaction was: ''Gothic!": think 'Gormenghast' by Mervyn Peake.

This version is almost exactly the same as @michaellinder's (which I've only just seen)!. Looks like we both had the same PP 'vision'. Just a few minor differences: I've tried to remove a few 'modern trappings'; (the sign, the triple light on the left) and I've added just a wee bid of 'liquifying' to bend the straight lines. You guys are way ahead in creativity! I've really enjoyed browsing this thread! My thanks, as always, to @PuntaColorada for hosting this challenge and his/her bottomless pit of wonderful photos to work on!

I started having a go at this on the weekend but I got distracted (by real photography ;)) . My immediate reaction was: ''Gothic!": think 'Gormenghast' by Mervyn Peake.

 

The first two novels in that series are classics. "Respect the stones!" or something like that.

Mike inspired me to try Gothic too. This hopefully ominous version is via Topaz Studio Impression plus minor adjustments.

Hi @tom_,r, I haven't read these novels since I was a teenager but they made a big impression on me at the time. My local library is currently 're-organising itself'' which means that I can't browse the 'English section' but I can order books. I tend to read read more and more e-books. Both via my library subscription and via various (free) sources. It's about time I got around to re-reading the first couple of 'Gormenghast' novels ;). It's good to know that anyone else has ever heard of them!

Mike

@tom_r You did a much better job on the 'Gothic look' than I did. I love it! I'm delighted that my version triggered your inspiration. IMHO, that's what this forum is all about.

Mike inspired me to try Gothic too. This hopefully ominous version is via Topaz Studio Impression plus minor adjustments.

 

[ATTACH=full]1297046[/ATTACH]

Last version, I promise! I like the way this turned out using a Graphic Novel selection in Dynamic Auto Painter. Haha...maybe it's just my fondness for blue.

Not quite sure what happened to my last posting of this challenge, maybe it was too big, I did after all add a few more floors and made it appear taller by distorting it.[ATTACH=full]1297430[/ATTACH]

Now that's a Grand Hotel!

I just realized that I hadn't posted other than the original of this image.

I would have liked to take the original in a 3 or 4 exposure bracket HDR but I didn't have a tripod nor something steady to rest the camera on. So this version is 'fake HDR'. I tried to make a 3-bracket HDR by copying the file and taking it down 1EV, copying the original again and taking it up until noise got really apparent, and then telling LR to make an HDR using the original and the 2 exposure-adjusted versions.

The result is probably too subtle to see at this resolution; but, I was somewhat pleased. If I had more ambition, I would perhaps try 3 different exposures and putting them into another HDR; but, it's Friday already!