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Post Processing Challenge, June 26, 2021


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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 an old mining shed in Death Valley National Park775229529_oldminingsheddeathvalley.thumb.jpg.34e2114297832c01602acbad9ccd5de0.jpg

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'After amassing a fortune in Death Valley, the mining shed retired to the humid tranquility of José Ignacio, Uruguay.'

 

Thanx for posting this week, Glenn. I really want to thank you for selecting a subject that had primarily straight lines because I used the pen tool to make the selections to be masked. I watched a video about the Maximum and Minimum filters in Ps and used the Minimum filter to adjust the size of the masked areas. Use of a gaussian blur on the mask helped too.

 

490387913_GlennJune262021-Edit.thumb.jpg.acff149c1482a81c1ceb077864b07b7e.jpg

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'After amassing a fortune in Death Valley, the mining shed retired to the humid tranquility of José Ignacio, Uruguay.'

 

Thanx for posting this week, Glenn. I really want to thank you for selecting a subject that had primarily straight lines because I used the pen tool to make the selections to be masked. I watched a video about the Maximum and Minimum filters in Ps and used the Minimum filter to adjust the size of the masked areas. Use of a gaussian blur on the mask helped too.

 

[ATTACH=full]1393148[/ATTACH]

 

I find it impressive that you could make an accurate mask of such a complex subject!

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I'm also blown away by Punta's precision with the pen tool--wow.

 

I started by jumping into Photoshop and plumbing up the lines using warp transforms and the liquify filter. Once everything was straight(ish), I had a big gap in what I wanted to be the upper right-hand corner, so I added the missing parts by drawing them in with the clone stamp. The two parts of the image that I was particularly interested in were the shadows on the floor and the pattern of wood against the background. I stretched the image vertically to give me more to play with. So this is the image after this first stage, with the only Lightroom edit being to reduce the highlights.

 

1657727_772682b8a697f9867c7bb2303a65a5ec-Edit-3-Edit-Edit.thumb.jpg.1e5b18596ed64f52790f9ffb11652070.jpg

 

I recropped in Lightroom to isolate the upper part of the frame. I wanted to increase texture, sharpness, and clarity, but I didn’t want to exacerbate the sharpening artifacts, so I applied these with a soft brush and stayed away from high-contrast edges:

 

1657727_772682b8a697f9867c7bb2303a65a5ec-Edit-3-Edit-Edit-3.jpg.2d2872e3a9bc350cb45a30e61cfeb145.jpg

 

Then I played with the floor. I increased texture, clarity and contrast, reduced exposure at the top using a gradient, and slightly reduced whites. I also messed with the tone curve to add contrast to the tones that define the grain, and I increased saturation in the yellows and oranges:

 

1657727_772682b8a697f9867c7bb2303a65a5ec-Edit-3-Edit-Edit-2.jpg.85184e3f43e15c1e0504bdb57f948bc6.jpg

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I find it impressive that you could make an accurate mask of such a complex subject!

Thanx Glenn.

It really wasn't that hard. I created a mask on a duplicate layer. Using the pen tool, I started at one corner of each opening, clicked on the corners until I got back to the original corner which closed the path. Then I changed the path to a selection, inverted it (I don't know why this step was required) and filled it with the background colour (black). Then on to the next opening. Each selection was not perfect so I used the minimum filter to expand the dark parts of the mask (counter intuitive to use minimum to expand) and then the blur to soften the mask. That did the trick.

Most people hate the pen tool because of the bezier curves associated with dragging at any point on the curve. I don't use the bezier curves. If I need to go around something, I use many points on the path for that section. The minimum and maximum filters have settings for 'squareness' and 'roundness' which will help too, now that I know about them. Here's the mask.

854940017_ScreenShot2021-06-29atJun297_29_29AM.thumb.png.8388b438822f0795aa288f53f61c7815.png

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