Post Processing Challenge 28th April 2017

Hi, primary adjustments in Lightroom, slight straightening, sharpening pushed a fair amount. Transferred to Silver Efex, contrast and structure pushed a lot and added a vignette.

As David has already mentioned there is not a lot of pixels to play with. For reference when starting a thread PN seems to allow full camera resolution, EG last weeks source photo was uploaded at 4896 X 3264 pixels. (cannot find the sites recommendations for posting).

This sample demonstrated the importance of some pixels to work with. I ran it through piccure+ to try to sharpen it and really got nowhere. I was going to crop square, on the left side, but that was pixelated in normal viewing. I couldn't see the EXIF, but shutter speed was too low, or it was OOF. I think that B&W was probably the only option, but, even then, don't try to look at it full-screen.

Agreed, the image isn't as sharp as it should be. I recognized that when I worked on my version, but yet I wanted to see what others could do with it. dc - I'm not sophisticated enough in technique yet to check groups of pixels.

Agreed, the image isn't as sharp as it should be. I recognized that when I worked on my version, but yet I wanted to see what others could do with it. dc - I'm not sophisticated enough in technique yet to check groups of pixels.

Well Michael, this is a good place to start learning. If you're going to use in-camera JPEG, then you need to set the quality level as high as it will go. That will give you the most pixels that your camera can produce. Shooting in RAW, if you camera will do it, takes it a step further, giving you an uncompressed file to work with. In order to include as many in this exercise, we don't do that here, but for your personal work stream, you might want to think about it.

To review your own image, you should look at it at least full-screen. In your sample, to view full-screen, it was at more than 100%. Full-screen is not an extreme test at all, but if you look at that, you'll see that nothing is sharp. (That's either a focus issue or camera shake, due to too low SS). That's why all of us tried to sharpen it. Taking it to B&W, helped hide some of the softness and allows us to use more extreme Contrast.

Please take this in the spirit of learning. I was going to keep my mouth shut, but the I realized that most people on PN are trying to improve their craft. If those of us that have taken hundreds of thousands of pictures don't speak up, then your road to improvement just gets longer.

Well Michael, this is a good place to start learning. If you're going to use in-camera JPEG, then you need to set the quality level as high as it will go. That will give you the most pixels that your camera can produce. Shooting in RAW, if you camera will do it, takes it a step further, giving you an uncompressed file to work with. In order to include as many in this exercise, we don't do that here, but for your personal work stream, you might want to think about it.

 

To review your own image, you should look at it at least full-screen. In your sample, to view full-screen, it was at more than 100%. Full-screen is not an extreme test at all, but if you look at that, you'll see that nothing is sharp. (That's either a focus issue or camera shake, due to too low SS). That's why all of us tried to sharpen it. Taking it to B&W, helped hide some of the softness and allows us to use more extreme Contrast.

 

Please take this in the spirit of learning. I was going to keep my mouth shut, but the I realized that most people on PN are trying to improve their craft. If those of us that have taken hundreds of thousands of pictures don't speak up, then your road to improvement just gets longer.

dc - - I am quite grateful for your helpful comments. Indeed, my main goal while on PN is to learn. Thanks a bunch! mhl