Post-processing Challenge, June 11, 2022

[tom_r]

There are no rules as to how you apply your post-processing to this image; but, please let us know what you have done so we can all learn. If you would like to post a candidate image next week, please ensure it is of sufficiently high resolution for manipulation by the participants (3000px on the long side, 300dpi for example).

Most of all, let's have fun while we are learning or demonstrating how we use our post-processing software, imaginations and interpretations.

 

Straight out of camera landscape photo with many problems!

 

[mikemorrell]

Added color to rocks, replaced sky and adjusted contrast. Added kayaker for 'human interest':).

 

[igord]

Levels, shadows/hilights, sky replacement and smart sharpening in PS..

[Leslie Reid]

This was a challenging and fun one, Tom. I decided to aim for verisimilitude here, which basically meant encouraging the water to stay in the lake and dealing with the sky. I started by adjusting the exposure (and white point and black point and contrast and vibrance and a few other things) in Lightroom. Then, in Photoshop, I warped and liquified until the lake shore started looking like a lake shore that subscribes to the law of gravity. I replaced the sky with one from the northern California coast, then added an adjustment layer to the sky to modify the blue hue until it more-or-less matched the flavor of blue in the rest of the image; I moved the sky around until the whitest clouds were above the lightest reflection in the lake. Then I noticed that even though I'd gotten the shoreline to look OK, the waves were still headed downhill, so I did a bit of liquifying of waves (seems redundant) so that they were more consistent with my new lake shore. Finally, I had several bouts of refining the exposure (and all that) in Lightroom, and eventually reset the refinements to pretty close to where I'd initially set them.

 

[Rick Bortnick]

Looking for a different vibe ...

[michaellinder]

Excellent challenge image, which encouraged a variety of treatments. Bravo to y-all

[tom_r]

Leslie--I agree, this photo is a distortion nightmare, taken from a moving boat no less. I do have the raw to work on, but I'm still not sure things are sorted out as viewed in person.

 

[Leslie Reid]

as viewed in person

I like your shoreline better than mine, Tom, especially since the image was taken from a boat. Mine would only have worked if the photo were taken from about 20 or 30' above water level, which doesn't jibe with the look of the near waves. I went astray by not paying more attention to the original shape of the shoreline (while ignoring the slant). Your sky is beautiful.

[c_watson1]

Rookie view camera shot, 1924. Scratchy contrast, iffy plate, leaky holder-look after a quick trip thru Nik Silver Efex:

 

[Glenn McCreery]

Like Leslie, I used "warp" in Photoshop to nudge the lake surface into a more horizontal orientation. Then I selected the sky using "magic wand" in Photoshop, selected the inverse, and pasted the result over an Idaho sky. Then I added two friends who were paddling my canoe on a different lake. Finally, I increased "tonal contrast" and added a border in NIK ColorEfex.

Edited June 13, 2022 by Glenn McCreery