Post Processing Challenge 1st July 2017

Another challenge for another week, as no one else has stepped in it's one of mine again. Remember there are no rules you can do what you wish in your interpretation, but if you can give information of the steps taken and software used to add interest. It is not meant as a competition just a bit of fun.

I will not be around next week to post the challenge, so if there is a desire to continue? You know what to do.......Regards GC.

Crop, b/w conversion, levels and curves, some burning of selected areas, slight warm toning.

Edited July 1, 2017 by Norma Desmond

OK, having not done this 'challenge' before, I thought to give it a try!

 

First, what was the end product I saw in this? The idea came to me "tourist", 1960s, and Kodachrome... :cool:

 

I further made this a challenge in setting a time limit of 15 minutes for total edits to save. Not building a piano here are we? So typically, the steps were:

 

• Adjust levels
  
• Tweak gamma
  
• Make new layer
  
• The house bothered me. Healing tool.
  
• Splotches on sidewalk were distracting. Adaptive fill 80% opacity.
  
• Create contrast mask at 10% opacity to extract details
  
• Tweak exposure on the background copy layer
   
  
• Dodge and burn everywhere--especially to bring drama to the sky--mostly midtones and shadows
   
  
• Say, is that Sir Winston in the club car? Lasso & brightness adjust on midtones
  
• Increase the vibrance & saturation a bit to pop the colors
  
• Unsharp mask
  
• Crop to tighten content reference
   
  
• Save for web at 1000px wide
  

Voila! Welcome to Grosmont. A complete set of these in a slide show could stupify an entire family for the evening!

 

 

Oh, and the editing platform was PS CC 2017.

Edited July 1, 2017 by PapaTango

Sorry Fred, I saw your crop and couldn't get it out of my head, so:

 

Post Processing Challenge 07-01-2017 by David Stephens, on Flickr

 

The file had good detail, so it stood up to a very severe crop, just under 1,000x1,000p. I like the way it emphasized the engineer and fireman and put the perspective line down the middle of the image.

 

As always, I processed with DxO Optics Pro 11.4.

Left DxO's automatic geometric correction engaged, but it made very little difference.

Applied ClearView at +42.

Raised EV to +22 to offset some darkening cause by ClearView

Contrast at +22

Microcontrast at +26

Highlights -17

Shadows +24

Blacks +4

Layers, always with the layers

 

I'm not going to post, since PP is not one of my strengths, but I do want to comment. What I find remarkable, per Fred's example, is given enough MP, good DOF and light, is just how many interesting images can be "mined" from quite a large number of shots in a portfolio. Another No Words lesson!

Exactly Sandy!

 

This is the value to me of the NWF (oops, I might be violating a rule here...). It gives me reason to look at what at first blush might be rather blase images years down the line from capture--and find something new in them. It might be by basic treatments--through crops and conversion to monochrome--or complex PS or NIK collection manipulations.

 

It's a voyage of discovery on every thread!

Exactly Sandy!

 

This is the value to me of the NWF (oops, I might be violating a rule here...). It gives me reason to look at what at first blush might be rather blase images years down the line from capture--and find something new in them. It might be by basic treatments--through crops and conversion to monochrome--or complex PS or NIK collection manipulations.

 

It's a voyage of discovery on every thread!

 

Exactly. We all learn, including those set in our ways. It a great exercise, to expand our horizons and see what we didn't see before.

My version is nothing fancy or sophisticated. I started by cropping a little from the right edge and a bit more from the top in PSE15. The rest was done in Silver Efex: making tonal adjustments using the sliders, using a control point to brighten the conductor somewhat, and then adding structure. Edited July 2, 2017 by michaellinder

I liked Fred's idea of cropping. LR for cropping, shadows, highlight. etc. Color Efex 4 and then Tonal Adjustment.

The crop issue here is particularly interesting to me because there was something counter-intuitive about it. It took me a bit of time to get past cropping out the front part of the locomotive as it steams toward us. I honestly kept trying to preserve the whole front of the train because it seemed so important to me at first. Then, once I zeroed in on the crop I came up with, I actually felt the power of the train was still (and maybe even more) on display. Maybe it's that burst of steam from below and that the viewer is now right up against the hard black steel of the train. I watch a lot of old movies and, somehow, this crop felt cinematic and narrative to me, like we're in the midst of something. To me, the original (which I also think works, by the way, for different reasons) feels more scenic and a little more about the sense of distance and the horizon line than about the story of the train itself. I thought bringing the conductors closer made it into a story of sorts, helped by the lone figure waiting on the station. Quite a while back, a photographer friend influenced me in looking for radical crops sometimes. I still find it difficult to throw away what can really feel like important elements that I will miss, but it can definitely work sometimes. And, though I hesitate to use clichés, it does show that there's merit to the statement that sometimes "less is more."

 

Good to hear and see everyone's take on this photo. :)

I too like Fred's crop. But, I wanted to try something different, so I played with perspective and then lens barrel distortion, and then cropping. I also added a bit of cloning near the front of the locomotive engine to remove a couple of distractions, and dodged the two figure leaning out the window. Finally, I converted to black and white.

Thanks for all the support for this weeks challenge.

Here's my attempt. 1:1 crop and basic exposure, highlight and shadow recovery in LR. transferred to Silver Efex Pro, modified sepia preset and added border.

Thanks for all the support for this weeks challenge.

Here's my attempt. 1:1 crop and basic exposure, highlight and shadow recovery in LR. transferred to Silver Efex Pro, modified sepia preset and added border.

[ATTACH=full]1196625[/ATTACH]

 

GC, excellent call on the border and sepia.