Postprocessing Challenge 25 October 2019

Punta, with no intent to become a usurper, I decided to post a challenge image, which I moderately downsized.

One reminder to participants: Please itemize the steps you take in preparing your respective versions. This will help to facilitate others who are experts to compare their versions with others. It also helps duffers like me to learn.

Thanks for uploading the nice photo, Michael. My version went through the following punishments: Woodgrain template in DAPainter, Topaz Simplify, Akvis Sketch, and Flaming Pear's free plugin Zephyr followed by highlight adjustments in ACR and hue and saturation adjustments in PS.

The photo has a nice symmetry around the central tree that I wanted to accentuate. So, I cropped the image with the base of the tree as the upper right hand corner, copied the selection, and then pasted mirror images on a blank image in Photoshop with four times the area of the initial image. I added the man walking (and his shadow), the hawk, and the extra loungers so that the image was not completely symmetrical. I was aiming for an Escheresque quality. Escher's paintings were mostly in monotone or had muted colors, so I reduced the saturation.

Once again, sorry Michael for not noticing that you had posted the challenge. My bad. I'll pay more attention.

And thank you for posting the challenge! It is a very good one for sure.

All was done in PS. First I duplicated the layer I cloned out the chairs and tree near the 'pit'. Then I selected the 'pit' and filled it with black and drew a path on it using the curvature pen tool. Then I used the render flames filter and followed with the lighting effects filter (spotlight). I adjusted the opacity of the layer to try to bring back some of the loungers at the rear. Whether you can see them will largely be affected by the brightness setting of your display. Mine (Apple iMac) has been doing some wonky stuff today as we go from bright sun to dark cloud cover.

The resort is all ready for tonight's campfire sing along. Don't forget your marshmallows and bug repellant! Given my experience with fire, the chairs would be melting in the front row with these high flames, but it is only fun, right?

 

The resort is all ready for tonight's campfire sing along. Don't forget your marshmallows and bug repellant! Given my experience with fire, the chairs would be melting in the front row with these high flames, but it is only fun, right?

 

 

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Puntadude,

Great job, but…I’ve seen marshmallow fires and sing-along bonfires …and these flames are definitely not those! These are ALL-HALLOW’S EVE FIRES OF HELL, RAISE SATAN, ALL HIS DEMONS AND RELEASE THE KRAKEN STUFF!!! :eek:

On my calibrated monitor, I am enjoying and appreciating your dying of the light as it reaches the back row!

(Dying of the Light is a superb science fiction novel by Game of Thrones guy, George R.R. Martin.)

Here's mine (finally). All work done in PSE15. Used correct camera distortion filter to alter both horizontal and vertical perspectives. Then applied both horizontal and vertical lines, as well as paint bucket options, for texture. Last step, slight color augmentation (not saturation, though).

Basic rgb curves and channel work.