Challenge - Optimise this

[Dierk Haasis]

It has to look like this (without the spaces around the URL):

Also, the URL seems to be wrong, I get a 404 on opening it.

 

[Tudor Caradoc-Davies]

Thanks, used the "million monkeys" approach !

Tudor.

 

[StuartRae]

As the author of this humble holiday snap, I was fascinated to read Alain's assessment. Cropping gets rid of the distracting rucksack mid right, as well as the ruined building (part of the old mine office and loading platform for the narrow guage railway that took iron ore down to the coast).
It did need straightening as well - I'm convinced I have one leg longer than the other

What about the gateway? There's a path leading down to it, so it must go somewhere. Don't you want to lean on the gate to see what's on the other side? I know of course, but aren't the rest of you the least bit curious? And where does the path come from? The answer might be stranger than you imagine.

Stuart

 

[Jerry P'Simer]

Hello Everyone,

As a result of my post in the HDR Tone Mapping thread, Asher has suggested I issue this challenge.

Using the RAW converter and PP software of your choice, do your best with this shot

If I'd known it would escalate to this extent, I'd have chosen a better photo! In reality, it's a bit like making a silk purse........ But what's done is done.

What I'm aiming for is to bring out the detail in the stone wall, bushes and foreground shadow, and to see what's on the other side of the gate, while preserving the sky and clouds.

I suggest in order to save bandwidth for those with slower connections that files are limited to 800x600 medium quality jpegs.

No prize was mentioned, but a nice bottle of vin rouge would go down well ;-)

Regards,

Stuart

HI all, I ran across this thread through a link provided by Andrew Rodney on the Colortheory List and was intrigued by the results so I thought I would give it a shot based on the quoted request.

This is basicly what I did:

1) Straight convert from Adobe Raw converter (default settings) using the ProPhotoRGB profile.
2) Sized to the above mentioned size requirements.
3) Assignend a new profile ProphotoRGB with a 1.4 gamma.
4) Converted to LAB
5) Built an inverted mask using Calculations based on the L and the b channels
6) Using curves through the mask I beefed up the shadow end while holding the midtone values from the conversion from the 1.4 gamma pofile.
7) Removed the mask and did a follow up curve to set the graybalance and color contrast to what I thought would look the most natural while preserving the most detail.
8) Sharpend the file through same mask mentioned above.
9) Additional sharpening w/o mask to finalize the result.
10) Converted to sRGB and saved for Web

If his were my image I would probably crop and rotate the image but it is not so I'll just leave it as is.

Total time 7 minutes.
Click the link below to see the final.

Regards,
Jerry

 

[Asher Kelman]

Jerry,

Welcome again!

I like your version. It brings out some of the subtle differences in the hues of the leaves. This is like Stephen Eastwood's scene in march, after two weeks of rain!

Asher

Slick to get the smaller image as a link! If the image itself is on the page, saves one click!

 

[Alain Briot]

What about the gateway? There's a path leading down to it, so it must go somewhere. Don't you want to lean on the gate to see what's on the other side? I know of course, but aren't the rest of you the least bit curious? And where does the path come from? The answer might be stranger than you imagine.
Stuart

I don't think there is enough of the path behind the gate showing in order to make me curious about where it leads!

 

[Jerry P'Simer]

Jerry,Slick to get the smaller image as a link! If the image itself is on the page, saves one click!

Thanks Asher,

You can still save by Click and save Link to hard drive.

Just saving bandwidth.

Jerry

 

[Asher Kelman]

Thanks Jerry!

Asher

 

[Don Lashier]

Lightzone:
Could someone help me with posting the image ? Thanks.

If you need someone to host it, email it to dl at newportnet dot com.

- DL

 

[Tudor Caradoc-Davies]

Hi Don,

Thanks, I uploaded it to my website and linked to that, the image is on page 7 here.
The main issue was getting the correct URL to the image.
Regards,
Tudor.

 

[Jerry P'Simer]

What about the gateway? There's a path leading down to it, so it must go somewhere. Don't you want to lean on the gate to see what's on the other side? I know of course, but aren't the rest of you the least bit curious? And where does the path come from? The answer might be stranger than you imagine.

Stuart

There are some visual clues in the image like the chicken wire unrolled across the top of the stone wall to the right of the gate. The path leading out just ends for no apparent reason. There appears to be a cloths line on the inside of the gated area with something hanging from it. Possibly some underthingies flapping in the breeze? ;-)

Would you care to enlighten us?...Im listening.

Jerry

 

[Don Lashier]

Originally I had considered this an exercise in tonality and ignored WB. Here's my "evening" interpretation. I just altered the WB and EC in the raw conversions somewhat and replaced the images in my previous attempts - same mask, just contrasted a bit more. One thing I discovered in this exercise is the power of the contrast adjustment on the layer mask. Adding adjustment layers was a hugh step forward for PS, adding the ability of have adjustment layers for masks would be another hugh step.

I should add that normally I don't alter images to this degree - if I want an "evening" image, I shoot it in the evening, but this thread has certainly gotten me thinking a little more creatively regarding image adjustment.

- DL

 

[Asher Kelman]

Don,

It is said that the camera doesn't lie! Monet could have done all his paintings in one afternoon if he had photoshop! You really pushed the evening golden light!

Asher

 

[Don Lashier]

Don,
You really pushed the evening golden light!

Asher

Yeah, to 8600k aamof, 7800 probably would have been more realistic, but in a thread such as this you've got to make a statement or the differences get lost

- DL

 

[Dierk Haasis]

Don, your rendering has the look of a classical (Dutch school) painting. And that's a compliment.

 

[Juergen Koslowski]

Hi,

I only found this interesting thread today. Here's the link to my version:

http://www.iti.cs.tu-bs.de/~koslowj/PHOTOS/Aut05-0010b.jpg

Raw conversion: silkypix: exposure -1/3; WB 6000, 3; sharpness a little strong; tone a little strong; color
vivid; custom tone curve (011,022), (128,128)

Finishing touches: PS CS2: shadow/highlight with shadow 10, highlight 6; contrast +2; curve RGB (64,64),
(124,132), (192,192); unsharp mask 20, 50, 0; resize; smart sharpen 33, 2.3, remove lens blur

Quite faszinating to see the wide scope for possible solutions!

-- Juergen

 

[Fred Spencer]

If I may, I'd like to submit a proxy conversion.

It was made by a friend of mine on the RS forums who's not a member here.

It demonstrates a slightly different approach to the problem, and was achieved with free software (Picasa)

It was exposed for the foreground in RSP and then had auto contrast, a bit of sharpening and a blue graduated filter applied in Picasa.
To my eyes, and memory, it's pretty close to the original in terms of light and colour.

Hello all,

I have now signed up here and worked out how to put something on a site so that I can link to things myself. So, here are my versions (daylight and moonlight). Conversions were done in RSP and finished off in Picasa. http://www.fredspencer.homecall.co.uk/Aut05-0010-wall/

Fred

 

[Asher Kelman]

Welcome Fred,

Glad you joined and jumped in and even a night version.

Asher

BTW Your 3rd from last penguin picture, would be interesting on a snow b.g.

Also could you add a copyright notice on your versions to Stuart Rae

 

[StuartRae]

Would you care to enlighten us?...Im listening.

Jerry,

Sorry about the 'noise'.

Just trying to add a bit of local info about the shot.

Through the gate is nothing startling, just the small hamlet of Boot

It has a corn mill, a pub, a shop, and most importantly a church.
The path does continue beyond the paved area - it curves round behind us to the right and climbs over the desolate expanse of Burnmoor before descending into the next valley, Wasdale.
Prior to 1901 Wasdale had no consecrated ground, and so no burials were possible. The gate and the track leading down to Boot marks the end of the Corpse Road, over which the dead of Wasdale were carried on horseback for burial in St. Catherine's Church.

 

[Jerry P'Simer]

Thank You Stuart,

Your discription and added photos add depth and much greater interest to the original shot.

Jerry

 

[Asher Kelman]

... and a sense of a community with real lives and history.

Who but an educated Englishman would write, "Prior to 1901 Wasdale had no consecrated ground"?

This is the beginning of a great novel.

Asher

 

[StuartRae]

Also could you add a copyright notice on your versions to Stuart Rae

Asher,

That isn't really necessary. Fred and I have been swapping photos for so long now that we're not sure what belongs to who I've helped him with technical problems, and he's helped me look at my photos in a new light.

This is the beginning of a great novel.

One day when I retire (14 working days and counting) I may write it.

 

[Asher Kelman]

No odd inferences intended

My comment on © refers to reposting, so we don't get creeping use rights problems from others who find the images!.

Any discussion goes here:

http://www.openphotographyforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=597

We've never had any problems and with this crowd, we're all comfortable and it's great!

Asher

 

[StuartRae]

No odd inferences intended
others who find the images!.
Asher

Understood, but I can't imagine who'd want to claim this one as their own!

Regarding the history of the gate, it's what prompted me to make my moonlight submission
Here we are, sitting in the shadow of the mountains watching the pale moonlight shining on the gateway and the distant fields. What's that noise behind us? Is it the sound of a hoof striking a cobblestone............................................

 

[Diane Fields]

Yeah, to 8600k aamof, 7800 probably would have been more realistic, but in a thread such as this you've got to make a statement or the differences get lost

- DL

LOL--I understand. I lIke this one--and I love the different 'takes' on the same image.

 

[DDAVIES]

Hi everyone.

Couldn't resist a challenge so...I hope I've followed the rules
The result is a little over-saturated but that was the idea. Ideally I would have liked some darker areas to increase the "chiaroscuro" but no painting and time ran out...

1) max time taken 10 minutes
2) Three RAW conversions for highlight/midtone/lowlight areas
3) Sky select/feather/mask/gradient tool/hue and sat/levels
4) select inverse and do pretty much the same on all the layers. No special painting.
5) Flatten and a touch of smart sharpen.

 

[Bob Walker]

Another conversion using Picture Window Pro

I used PWP to develop and edit this image. The RAW development used default settings, and the postprocessing (using 48 bit color) applied the 3-tone enhancement workflow popularized by den
http://www.ncplus.net/~birchbay/3tone/3tone.htm

This procedure processes the image in 3 (masking) steps -- first for highlights in HSL space (which deepens the sky and protects the clouds), second for shadows in HSV space (which brings up the exposure in the shadows), and finally for midtones in RGB space (which increases contrast and saturation)/ The final image was downsized and sharpened....

Total time less than 10 minutes, as requested.

-Bob

(copyright text added to image ... RBW)

 

[Asher Kelman]

Jim,

I liked your contribution and tried to get it to show up here. I'm puzzled!

Reminder: make sure you have © original photographer!

Asher

 

[Dierk Haasis]

If image does not show, it is also at http://www.pbase.com/image/65284106...he BBcode URL is [url=actual link]description. To embed an image you need the code IMG; you have to use the actual image file as an URI (the last three letters have to be the file extension of a browser-compatible file, like JPG, GIF, SWF).

In your case:
NCPlus

or:

PBase

 

[Ferenc Harmat]

As usual, LATE to the party...

...Well, just found this wonderful thread, and wanted to provide some input.

My interpretation of the scene calls for an image as crisp and natural looking as possible, with a touch of "film-like" contrast. Not subdued, but not overdone / "steroidized", either.

It also calls for recovering the dramatically ill skies, in which the blue channel has been skewed to the far high-key end, as product of the strong "backlight" created in the left corner, by the sun.

So our mission here is to recover as much as we can from the sky, making it BRIGHT BLUE (not pale, not dark), while still retaining the tonal crispness/brightness that the scene lends itself for,with MAXIMUM possible dynamic range in the 48 to 255 value-range.

As a side note, the sky on its original capture offers a complex, concentrically-aligned gradient of midtones-to-highlights, which needs to be carefully handled and preserved during post-processing. Also, the B&W version tries to mimic, to some extent, the balance of dynamic range/contrast/sharpness and overall "character" found in Ansel Adam's book "The Making of 40 Photographs", which is a must-have, for sure.

Having said that, here is the first version (COLOR):

http://www.pbase.com/feharmat/image/65323230/original

The above was produced with the following workflow:

a. FLEXRanger (for DR expansion and blue-channel optimization).
b. FLEXTone (for tonality and density boosting, particularly of mid-tones)
c. Curves in PhotoShop (for final "interpretation" of contrast. I chose to be particular aggressive on the 0-48
range).
d. FLEXSharp (for bringing as much detail as possible)


Here goes the second version (B&W):

http://www.pbase.com/feharmat/image/65323231/original

Exact same workflow as above, with the exception of B&W output mode in FLEXTone, and a slightly different curve.

Thanks for sharing the original files!