Post Processing Challenge Saturday 12th August 2017

Another weekly challenge.

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.

If anyone else would like to post next week please give it a go, upload a HIGH resolution jpeg.

Processed in DxO Optics Pro 11.4.2

Square, tight crop

Contrast 100%

B&W conversion with DxO FilmPack Rollie 25 imitation

PN-Challenge-08/12/2017 by David Stephens, on Flickr

Here's something akin to the old Kodak tone-line process,published in the 1960s(?).

In that method, litho film was used to make a sort of line drawing, where all of the tonal transitions, light to dark, were replaced by a line.

Basically you contact print a normal negative onto the high-contrast litho film, resulting in either black or clear areas. This high-contrast film is contact printed onto litho again. The result is two films, that when sandwiched, emulsion to emulsion, in perfect alignment won't let any light through. But... if you sandwich them emulsion sides facing away, the emulsions are separated by two base-thicknesses. So you contact print that sandwich onto another sheet of litho film, but during the exposure you make the exposing light come on from off-axis at all angles (imagine the contact-printing frame rotating on a turntable, with the light source being off-axis; the amount of off-axis controls line width).

So I approximated this method in the GIMP. I didn't like the transitions in the face though; one of the software blending options lets one of the background tones to come through, which I think looks better, so I used that. (You can do the same thing with the physical film by sandwiching a semi-continuous tone image with one of the line images, which is what I was working towards.) Photoshop probably does the same thing with just a button push.

I think he needed some separation from the trees. I added some fog and masked him out. Desaturated a little bit using Silver Efex. It was a fun photo to play with.

Cropped in LR. Opened in Silver Efex Pro 2, added Structure & Contrast, added Vignette & Border.

GC, if you'd like me to post the next image, I think I have an appropriate one.

OK Michael that would be fine with me. Thanks for helping to keep things going............regards GC.

I played with two layers in Photoshop CS5, one layer using Topax Simplify to give a painterly style to the background, and another layer using solarization in ColorEfex for the Buddah. I then cropped and flattened the image. [ATTACH=full]1204443[/ATTACH]

Looks like the Buddha has grown a beard!