Post Processing Challenge January 26, 2019

"Another weekly challenge.

If, anyone else would like to post next week please give it a go, upload a High resolution jpeg. Just indicate your intentions by Thursday or early Friday.

Remember there are no rules you can do what you wish in your interpretation, please can you give information of the steps taken and software used to add interest.

It is not meant as a competition just a bit of fun." (Gerald Cafferty)

Tall ships visited Punta del Este in April 2018. This is one of the Argentine vessels in attendance; the ARA Liberdad anchored just off Isla Gorriti.

Have fun.

Punta thanks for posting again. Opened in PSE and using the clone tool moved the Isthmus closer to the ship, did a preliminary crop and opened in Lightroom. Used the white balance selector on the hull of the ship which opened up the blue in the sky and sea. Set the white and black points. Toned down the blue a little, cropped to what you see. Finally added some sharpening.

Hi @PuntaColorada, before getting into the digital darkroom, I just want to say how much I appreciate and value your initiatiive and choice of photos (as I I did when @Gerald Cafferty took the lead),

Mike

"Another weekly challenge.

If, anyone else would like to post next week please give it a go, upload a High resolution jpeg. Just indicate your intentions by Thursday or early Friday.

 

Remember there are no rules you can do what you wish in your interpretation, please can you give information of the steps taken and software used to add interest.

 

It is not meant as a competition just a bit of fun." (Gerald Cafferty)

 

Tall ships visited Punta del Este in April 2018. This is one of the Argentine vessels in attendance; the ARA Liberdad anchored just off Isla Gorriti.

 

Have fun.

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Hi @PuntaColorada, before getting into the digital darkroom, I just want to say how much I appreciate and value your initiatiive and choice of photos (as I I did when @Gerald Cafferty took the lead),

 

Mike

Thanx Mike. I've got plenty of them but I don't want to monopolize posting for this thread.

I forgot to mention the mysterious lagoon on Isla Gorriti.

Polar coordinates and lots of other stuff.

Thanks for the photo. My version is a hybrid sketch/oil paint.

Punta thanks for another great image. I did all my work in Gimp. The water board person from two weeks ago wanted in this image.

These poor Argentine sailors!

Adjusted in LR and then into PS. Made a curved selection of the water and sky on the right then transformed it to get the vertical alignment. Used another bit of the sky on the right to extend to the bottom. Had to do some clone-stamp in luminosity to make that sky blend in. Used the healing brush along the edge of the waterfall and then a bit of dodging to lighten that edge up. Used Render>Clouds to make the 'steam' and used blending and masking to restrict it to how much and where. Used my limited but growing Spanish for the caption (Quick, Turn Right!), put a border on it and then back to LR for a vignette and export.

3 versions again, done much earlier today involving both PSE15 and NIK software. This is the second time I didn't inventory my steps, so I can't remember them now. It won't happen again.

I forgot to mention the mysterious lagoon on Isla Gorriti.

 

Polar coordinates and lots of other stuff.

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Great subject for the "mini planet" treatment, well applied.

This photo presents a wealth of opportunties for creative PP! I have a couple of ideas that I'm still working on (and struggling to learn as I go along how to 'visualize' these in Photoshop - which I think is a major benefit of this thread! :)). But I thought I'd post a quick one for now. I put the ship into a modified version of David Cox's painting 'Pirate's Isle' (1826). The painting is now in the public domain and is freely editable.

This photo presents a wealth of opportunties for creative PP! I have a couple of ideas that I'm still working on (and struggling to learn as I go along how to 'visualize' these in Photoshop - which I think is a major benefit of this thread! :)). But I thought I'd post a quick one for now. I put the ship into a modified version of David Cox's painting 'Pirate's Isle' (1826). The painting is now in the public domain and is freely editable.

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Magnificent work, Mike!

A lot of cut & paste and clone tool to try and 'randomise' the ship's 'repeat' patterns caused by too much cut&paste.....so rigging cuts, flag removal, lifeboat removal etc etc.:)

Pop in an old B&W row boat and add a speech bubble...

This is an unoriginal 'naff' idea that occurred to me so I thought I'd give it a try. But I really have sweated blood trying to get to this version! And I'm still not at all happy with it. Anyway, it is was it is. And I did learn a whole lot on the way:). Most of us are PP 'amateur's here but - after this experience - I'm truly in awe of the PP 'professionals' who create such seamless compositions. CC attributions (with my thanks) for the extra photo components are at the bottom.

TBH, I chose the wrong 'bottle photo' at the start. It had approximately the perspective for my (modified) perspective of the ship but it also included whole a lot of background and -in bottle - distractions. I tried lining up the 3-D perspective of a 'cleaner' bottle with that of the ship but that didn't work out so well.

The main challenge I found was in separating (masking) the fine details of the ship from the sky, especially the thinner ropes.

CC attributions:

Original bottle (contents): Yinka Shonibare - Nelson's Ship in a Bottle 2010 2: Yinka Shonibare - Nelson's Ship in a Bottle 2010 2

Wood Grain: via Freepik:

The main challenge I found was in separating (masking) the fine details of the ship from the sky, especially the thinner ropes.

Indeed! I tried making a mirror-surface reflection but was never happy with the rigging etc as a mask/cut-out. The fine lines share about 75% of their colour and tone with the sky.... and disappear entirely in some places.

The 'grown-up' compositors use green-screen for a very, very good reason...;)

I really like the original composition of this photo so - having 'savaged' it a couple of times - this is a version of the original with a bit more color (and reflection of ship in the sea). After adjusting levels, I created layers filled with solid color (blue for sea, magenta and yellow for sky, purple for everything), applied gradients to them and masks for sea/sky. I added some randow yellow brush strokes in a layer for the sky and used 'Gaussian' blur to diffuse these. I finally added masked yellow and red layers to suggest that the sun had set. All color layers are blended in as 'soft light' with opacities varying between 10%-60%. I created the reflection by (roughly) selecting the ship, copying it to a new layer, flipping it vertically, erasing bits of sea and sky and using the Photoshop filter distort/ocean ripple. It's blended in as soft light (30%) too.