Submission for the post processing challenge

i noticed that quite a few people responded to james' suggestion for a post processing challenge, but no one went so far as to make a submission. So, i tried to submit a file. but it was the original RAW file, & this site apparently doesn't allow RAW files to be submitted.

so james asked me to send the file to him. i was quite fond of the shot, & rather pleased with my edit. but i would love to see this image if anyone can improve upon it. this challenge has produced some great stuff in the past, & i see no reason that we shouldn't see even better now. can't wait to see what everyone comes up with.

james asked me to start this thread with my original edit, so here you are. i guess james is going to somehow make the file available to anyone that wishes to participate - he'll have to let you know how to go about getting it.

jp

interesting shot. what's already been done to it? and why the very high noise level. Is that part of the challenge?

Thanks for posting the shot.

Here's 5 minute job. In my opinion, there's too much noise, in fact, the darker areas just cant be "fixed" in this shot, the noise already had blown them. I think my rendition is too blue. I like the original better then mine! But, I think the first shot was too warm, so I guess I over did it by cooling it too much. I'm not much of a PS guy, but when I have noise in my images its caused by either poor exposure, (wait for better light) or too high and ISO - (better camera, or better light). The noise in this shot leads me to believe that it's already been modified in PS and that it was a poor exposure to begin with, or that it was shot at a high iso. . .

I wish the flower in the foreground would bloom or leave, it really is a strong element. . .

Thanks for posting the shot. I hope other's can do a much better job that I did I'd like to know more about PS and how to rescue shots. . .

tony -

some of the noise you reference is probably due to my pp, but i'm sure it was there to start with, & the pp just amplified it. this camera was relatively new (around 5 months) but with very little usage. this was taken while on vacation to the pacific NW, & when i got back, i realized that there was some serious issues with the files & random excessive noise. & when i say excessive, i'm talking about almost obliterating the shot. so i have no doubt that it was generating noise on a number of shots where it is less visible but the pp would find it for sure.

i hadn't actually considered the noise factor for the challenge, but as long as it's there, if someone produces a better image than either of us, then we all can benefit.

i should also point out that if you look at the exif, the shot was taken @ ISO 1000. that was a mistake - i did not know that i was shooting at that ISO. however, this camera was supposed to be very strong at the higher ISOs w/ very little noise. the camera has since been sent in to canon to address the matter. they did find that something wasn't connected & made the repair.

you probably also noticed (don't know how you could miss it) that there were all kinds of dirt spots on the image. i thought they were sensor specs, & kept trying to clean the sensor. but no matter how much i cleaned, the specs were still there. i studied the lens, & all looked ok in that dept. however, i did some more serious checking after i satisfied myself that it was no longer the sensor & i got clean images w/ other lenses. then i KNEW it had to be this particular lens. it was very hard to see, but INSIDE the lens on the large end there was all kinds of crud. & this lens was purchased with the camera & had hardly been used. don't ask me how that stuff could have been in there from the point of manufacture, but it had to be. i sent the lens in w/ the camera, & canon took care of it.

so hopefully now, this kind of problem wouldn't occur again. i wonder if i could get canon to cover the cost of me going back

let's see what else is submitted. i agree that your blue is a tad stonger, but for the most part, it looks pretty much the same as mine, don'tchya think? hard to say for sure havoing to jump back & forth, but that's the way i am seeing it.

jp

Waiting for the RAW file to show up.....

:~)

Roman

Hey Roman,

Try this link:

http://www10.sendthisfile.com/d.jsp?t=KyXiKSxtvjYsRs8nQGvFAP4M

Got this message:
File download ... (128-bit SSL encryption)

This file has reached its maximum allowable downloads.

It seems that there are 3 downloads available per file upload.....Guess there are 3 people named Roman out there...LOL!!!

Roman

LOL. I am working on it. It is coming your way, Roman.

James

Got it....thanks!!!

Will work on it this evening.

Hi,

This is my first post so it's nice meeting up with all of you.

I realize that all of this is subjective so I gave this my best shot anyhow.

I removed the noise with Noise Ninja and adjusted the photo with Photoshop Elements.

I moved the horizon up to the upper third of the picture, removed that distracting plant, darkened the bright area near the rock on the right side as well as adjusted saturation and contrast.

Hope you like it!

is there a RAW file? Where is it? Why then post a jpg if there's a RAW file to be had?

I'm sorry for missunderstanding or not paying enough attention to what was going on here.

Keep up there Tony!!!! Geeesh...gotta spell every thing out to you!!! :~)

Donald...did you use the RAW file to get that....I am guessing now based on how much artifacts I see in the end result.

Shoot me an e-mail and I will get the RAW file to you this evening.

Roman

Can someone email me the RAW file also.....mine is missouriphotos@comcast.net

Thanks in advance.
Tommy Brison

Here is my go at it. I was hoping the flower would bloom - like Tony asked, but since it didn't I also whacked it out of there.

Here's my version. The big challenge was noise (likely the result of ISO 1000) and as a result my focus was on salvaging and producing an image that is believable and (hopefully) close to how the scene appeared. Additional concerns were avoiding sharpening artifacts in the foreground, balancing light and color, and editing with an awareness of how the viewer's eye might most easily move around within the image.

Hey Guys,

Looks like we have some very different views on this particular image. It is very cool, actually. I went several different directions on this, making one very natural, but decided to go back at the drawing board and try something a bit different. Here is my trial at this. I hope that folks find it acceptable.

Ok....here is my edit....I didnt fight the noise much....its part of the picture...so I did some selective noise reduction in certian areas of the image.

Then just put it through my normal workflow.



Roman

What did everyone do i norder to keep all of the detail in the sky? This was the area I struggled most with.

James

Selection with wand (feathered)...and a minor curves adjustment.

I think it is good for us to look at our work and see what we would have done to improve. Looking at mine, I notice after comparing to the others that I ended up with too much magenta throughout. This is something I did not notice until others were posted, and something I do a lot... I need to get better at this. Usually I just sit on a shot for a few days after I think I am done, come back and look at it, and wonder what the heck I was thinking the first time... I am not sure how to tell if there is an overall cast to the shot- I guess just more practice but if anyone has suggestions...

For what it is worth, I will tell you what I did to bring out the clouds.

1. I used Thresholds to find the lightest portion of the sky, and set a Color Info marker there.

2. Using curves I set the end point for RG and B channels to be 245 for each color (RGB) at that point.

3. For each RGB channel I then found the point of the curve that corresponded to the blue in the sky, and made a very steep slope from the end of the curve to that point in the curve.

3. That made a strong definition between the clouds and the sky, but the rest of the shot was then strange. This is where it would have been great to have done the selection like Roman suggested, but I didn't think about that. Instead I created a sharp turn on each curve to try to even out the rest of the shot.

This might be a flawed workflow, but it is what I did. I would like to hear what others did.

Dave

This is a wonderful sharing and learning opportunity so thanks to James and everyone who is making it happen.

Re the sky... In PSCS2, on a duplicate layer (pre-selected just the sky using the polygonal lasso):
1. Shadow/Highlight tool to set overall contrast between lighter and darker areas of the clouds
2. Select Color - blue
3. Hue/Saturation - enhance blue ...then deselect
4. Dodge - 10%, used a large soft edge brush to hit the highlights in each separate 'arm' of the clouds, in the center from which all the arms spring, and along the cloud/water/land line.
5. Switch layer to luminosity and adjust opacity to taste. This layer was merged as part of the finished image.

My wife looked at our pictures and said we should all ask ourselves if our overall lighting makes sense. After she and I talked about it and looked at the pictures some more I see what she's talking about. For reference, here's the original straight conversion from the RAW file:



The angle of the light source (sun, in this case) is tricky. It's in the middle above, but in front of the camera. The shadows make this plain, especially so with the large formation on the right. There seems to be a tendency to want to lighten up that area, possibly to avoid losing the detail that is there but in shadow. However, when that shadow is reduced too much it can be confusing to the eye/brain if the image no longer makes sense from a lighting perspective.

The light to me comes from the right....soft and diffused. Remember the human eye has better DR than a camera which exaggerates the shadow area. I lightened the shadow area (cliff on the right...and the beach it shades) to give it detail...but left it dark compared to the foreground (which should be unblocked)

Roman

Understood, thanks Roman. I really like your edit of this image. The sky is especially nice.

Re the lighting issues - It seems to me that the relatively darker area there on the right helps balance out the very bright sky above and upper left. If one darkens that area too much, it's blackness dominates over the sky. If it's too light, the sky dominates.

The shadow areas in the unedited conversion from RAW provide a reference for preserving that balance which, from a workflow perspective, is the kind of thing that must be done before any other color or detail work.

I guess it begs the question about whether it really matters to preserve the original light/shadow relationship (this gets into luminosity) or not. The only reason I think it is, is that in this case (and in any outdoor sun-lit scene), the brain will attempt to apply it's understanding of what the scene should look like and constantly stop to fill in the blanks. So it affects the ability of the image to really capture a viewer's attention.

Otherwise, like if the image was ultimately meant to be an artistic interpretation, then breaking rules is what it's all about.

Am I off base by thinking in this way?

Also of interest is how different the various editing paths are - not a lot of duplication, which confirms what we all know - that Photoshop is one deep,deep program with numerous good ways to do any one thing.

Hey, this is a lot of fun!

I thought I might throw my attempt out here, I didn't have the RAW file but used the converted one that was posted here, Don't really remember what all I but did lighten it quite a bit and increased the saturation. Still learning photoshop. DAve

Here is mine. I created two files with Lightroom and then simply followed Romans HDR blending techniques to pull it all together. A few other minor adjustments...voila.

to all who participated in this challenge - THANX!! i think it is good to see the different approaches & the results for each of us to determine which we feel produces the most realistic image (or artistic, i suppose, if you didn't prefer realistic)

for me, as it was my picture, i learned at least 1 thing - to be more sensitive to the noise level. i don't know if i should be ashamed to admit it or not, but when i looked at this picture, & even when i submitted it, i wasn't consciously aware of the noise. although, the particular area that i wasn't happy with in my own edit was the rock on the right hand side - & that is where the noise showed up the most (at least to me)

buddy interjected some thoughts via his wife about the lighting of the scene. not surprisingly, roman depicted the correct source of light, but he was also spot on when he described it as "soft & diffused". the sky that is seen in this shot is very deceiving to the rest of the sky. by that, i mean, this was about the only portion of the sky that looked like this. the rest of it was extremely milky. i could show you a few shots & you'd see what i mean. even a few that are essentially in the same direction. so roman's assessment was right.

buddy (or anyone else that would be interested in the future) i didn't do it, cuz i know where the light was coming from, but i would think if you had a question about it, with the sky in the scene, use the threshholds & slide the bar to the right, & i'm willing to bet that the right hand side of the sky will be the last to turn black.

compositionally - i have to admit that i didn't take as much time as i might have. so yes, there are some points to the shot that aren't ideal. but this challenge was mostly about the post processing, so i wasn't as concerned with those aspects here. in the future, if i were more in tune with the sky as it was, i would probably have attempted to lower the horizon a bit more to the lower 3rd. the plant i might have tried to move to a different location in the frame. but frankly, it doesn't bother me as much as it did for some - so maybe not.

for the most part, i like this shot a lot. & i knew that there was more to get out of it than my edit. i appreciate seeing some alternatives here, & it motivates me to see where i can grow & learn.

if no one objects, i'm ready for the next file. when it becomes available, include me to send it to. if i need to provide an email, let me know. otherwise, i'll look for whatever instructions for getting it.

jp

Hmmm... Sounds like "the discussion is over"