Monthly Critique And Edit
Copyright Peter West Carey
It’s time to offer up another photo for your critique and edits. This month’s photo will have some variety, I’m sure. The finished product in this case ended up being a panoramic photo (above, click for original size), but there are many options for your cropping pleasures with the original file, found here(Warning: 12MB download). The original is a Canon RAW file from a 5D (.cr2) and should be openable in most versions of photo editing software. If not, here are two articles on DPS describing the freely distributed GIMP photo editing software and UFRaw, used to convert RAW images. As a member of the DPS community, you are free to download the photo and edit it anyway you wish, posting your results here for all to see. Please do not distribute the photo outside of DPS.
Along with posting your final edit, please also post a bit of the tale on how it came to be. Which program did you use and what kind of edits were needed? This type of critique is most valuable when there are more descriptions of what was changed so we can all learn from each other. I look forward to what your editing mind develops!!
In my case, I used Photoshop Lightroom 2.5 for my edits. The image was first ‘leveled’ and then cropped accordingly. I upped the exposure by half a stop (it was shot intentionally at -1 1/3 to help ensure the glaciers did not get blown out) and increased the contrast to +41. Highlight recovery was adjusted to +21 to bring just a bit of detail into the snow and ice while black clipping was set to +8 for a sharper feel. Clarity was moved to +45, Vibrance +24 and just a bit of sharpening. I used the Adjustment Brush to mask off the upper and right third of the blue sky and increase exposure by one stop. Lastly, I changed three colors’ luminance values: yellow +43, red +36 and green +36 to bring out colors in the flags.
(Note: the original photo will seem crooked when first viewed, but I assure you, it was shot level with the horizon but with sloping ground)
112 Responses to “Monthly Critique And Edit” - Add Yours
February 2nd, 2010 at 9:03 am
This is my edit of the Nepal image. I brought the raw (first time using raw) in to photoshop elements (got this past Christmas) and changed the white balance, shadows, highlights, and fixed spots. I also adjusted exposure. I then took it into Picasa and refined the shadowing further and cropped. Enjoy!
February 2nd, 2010 at 10:21 am
Cropped it a little more than you did, converted to HDR and did a little tonemapping to bring up the sky. In Photoshop I did final leveling, added a small border, and did a little sharpening.
February 2nd, 2010 at 1:01 pm
Changed White Balance to Cloudy
Bumped the Exposure to +0.85
Bumped the Brightness +98
Bumped the Clarity and Vibrance +37
Bumped Saturation +19
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v133/MOmilkman/Blogspot%20Photos/Nepal.jpg
February 2nd, 2010 at 1:17 pm
Hm, evidently img tags don’t work? Anyways here’s a link to mine:
http://www.cornbread.org/Pictures/nepal.jpg
February 2nd, 2010 at 1:18 pm
http://www.ljplus.ru/img4/m/o/moontemple/Nepal.jpg
DxO conversion, added vibrance, cropped
February 2nd, 2010 at 2:44 pm
Anything you need to know about gimp http://photoandpictures.com/gimp-free-and-open-source-alternative-to-adobe-photoshop/
February 2nd, 2010 at 5:53 pm
Yay Nepal! That’s my country
February 2nd, 2010 at 6:38 pm
Here’s my take,Great picture but exposure and crop need to highlight the FG and Mountains…too much sky in the original. So first I did auto exposure in ACR then I adjusted the camera calibration setting to camera landscape. I then opened in CS3 and skewed it a little followed by a crop.
February 2nd, 2010 at 11:16 pm
I processed your RAW file as a “0EV” exposure even though you stated it was -1 1/3 EV. I then processed it 4 additional times as a -3EV, -2EV, -1EV and a +1EV. I ran the 5 exposures through Dynamic Photo HDR and saved the result using the program’s default settings.
In Photoshop Elements 7 I did the following:
1. Corrected vignette by lightening +35
2. Adjusted levels pulling down the white point from +255 to +194, and raising the black point from 0 to +13.
3. Cropped a bit off the bottom to eliminate the distracting light colored rock in the lower left corner.
4. Adjusted Shadows/Highlights: Shadows 10%, Highlights 5%, Midtone contrast 10%
5. Used the spot healing brush to clean up 8 sensor dust specks.
6. Used unsharp mask at 30%, radius 1 pixel and 0 threshold
http://ic2.pbase.com/g3/60/885260/2/121613434.TDfPQfUS.jpg
February 2nd, 2010 at 11:17 pm
This is what I did.
1. Leveling it up by pulling the two levels at the ends of the histograms
2. Add overlay 50% gray layer and did a gray to white gradiet to deepen the blue sky at the top and brighten up the flags and the foot of the mountain range
3.Add layer of curves adjustment with a very slight ’s’ curve to bring out the colour of flags.
4. Unsharp mask at 50% radius 2.0 threshold 0
5. Find that the curve of the flags actually add dynamism to the whole scene, and the foot of the mountain shows vastness so I left the whole scene as it is.
The link to the completed image (somehow the thing don’t work)
http://www.postimage.org/image.php?v=Ts19X9H0
February 3rd, 2010 at 1:53 am
Here’s my version of the original:
To view my changes, check out the EXIF data in the full size image on flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mel-n-dre/4324845997/sizes/o/
February 3rd, 2010 at 1:56 am
Not sure if my previous post worked at all…
Here’s my final product: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mel-n-dre/4324845997/sizes/l/
And you can see my changes in the Original Image’s EXIF Data:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mel-n-dre/4324845997/sizes/o/
February 3rd, 2010 at 1:57 am
Hi,
I just Lightroom 2.6
First I tried different profiles, I liked ACR 4.4 the most.
Then I found a pleasing white balance.
Next I applied auto exposure and auto black point.
I tweaked recovery and fill light until pleasing.
Then I changed the crop. I didn’t like the horizontal line, so I intentionally rotated the image and cropped, so
the lines go to the corners and there is some rising in the mountain ridge.
This also removed the most visible spots out of the way.
A graduated filter was applied to the bottom right corner to lighten it up a little.
I the tweaked saturation and luminance of different colors, to make the flags stand out more. and to lighten the orange in the mountain.
Finally with the adjustment brush I lightened up bottom of the mountain a little more, and darkened the middle flags a little.
Oh, and then some clarity, of course.
Here a the settings :
WB:
Temp 5350
Tint +6
Tone:
Exposure +1.45
Recovery 27
Fill Light 12
Blacks 12
Brightness +39
Contrast +79
Presence:
Clarity +62
Vibrance -5
Saturation:
Red +60
Orange +24
Yellow +24
Blue +27
Luminance:
Orange +33
Yellow -19
Green -43
Blue +26
Purple -43
Profile:
ACR 4.4
Regards, Tom
February 3rd, 2010 at 1:59 am
Hi,
I just Lightroom 2.6
First I tried different profiles, I liked ACR 4.4 the most.
Then I found a pleasing white balance.
Next I applied auto exposure and auto black point.
I tweaked recovery and fill light until pleasing.
Then I changed the crop. I didn’t like the horizontal line, so I intentionally rotated the image and cropped, so
the lines go to the corners and there is some rising in the mountain ridge.
This also removed the most visible spots out of the way.
A graduated filter was applied to the bottom right corner to lighten it up a little.
I the tweaked saturation and luminance of different colors, to make the flags stand out more. and to lighten the orange in the mountain.
Finally with the adjustment brush I lightened up bottom of the mountain a little more, and darkened the middle flags a little.
Oh, and then some clarity, of course.
Here a the settings :
WB:
Temp 5350
Tint +6
Tone:
Exposure +1.45
Recovery 27
Fill Light 12
Blacks 12
Brightness +39
Contrast +79
Presence:
Clarity +62
Vibrance -5
Saturation:
Red +60
Orange +24
Yellow +24
Blue +27
Luminance:
Orange +33
Yellow -19
Green -43
Blue +26
Purple -43
Profile:
ACR 4.4
Regards, Tom
February 3rd, 2010 at 2:27 am
My eyes went immediately from the colorful flags to the expanse of dull brown earth. Using the trim tool I remove most of the bottom and a little of the sky to re-balance it.
I changed the WB to Shade, Contrast (-1), Highlight (3), Shadow (-3), Color tone (1), Color saturation (4) and Sharpness I bumped up to (4). I finished it adding Brightness of 0.83.
February 3rd, 2010 at 2:33 am
I loved the composition of this image, but didn’t really care for the exposure. I chose to brighten it a little bit and add some more contrast using the “curves” tool and the “brightness contrast” tool. I wanted to keep the deep color of the dirt but make the sky more blue and the clouds more white (rather than grayish). I also burnt the edges a bit to add some more color. Here is my result.
February 3rd, 2010 at 2:44 am
Typed in my information, pasted in the link, saved and presto, it disappeared. Neat trick, huh? This happens often, I’m done with adding pics.
February 3rd, 2010 at 4:04 am
Hi,
A lot of peaks and a long clothes line.
I decided to crop it down and focus on the forward tall peak and the pole. Landscapes are often “landscape” but I chose portrait to give it some height and include the brown slope.
Here is what I did:
Photoshop Elements 7
In Camera RAW I adjusted white balance picking off a snow bank on the glacier.
Then I applied sharpening Amount 50, Radius 1.5, Detail 50
Opened file in Elements, cropped to portrait.
Added adjustment layer, Levels.
In RGB the original values showed, 0,1.00,255.
I increased the highlights by moving the slider to the left to 165
Mid-tones I changed to 0.90.
This is fun, thanks for the opportunity!
February 3rd, 2010 at 6:05 am
First of all, great picture. The raw materials were all there, pun intended
I’m not photography professional, so this is more of a viewer’s opinion than anything else, but I thought the main problem with the original was that it was too dark and the colors were a little dull. Here is what I did:
* Brought it into RAW.
* Cropped extra sky and ground, which coincidentally ended up fairly similar to the original edit.
* Increase exposure to +1.85.
* Increased blacks slightly to 10.
* Increased clarity and vibrance to 60. I love the vibrance tool, which allows you to bring out dull colors while leaving those that are already saturated alone.
* Chose strong contrast for the tone curve, which is more of a personal preference than something the photo necessarily needed.
* Added what I hope was subtle post crop vignetting.
No edits in photoshop itself, just converted to 8-bit and saved it as a jpeg.
February 3rd, 2010 at 6:10 am
Trying one more time in case it’s a problem with image size.
First of all, great picture. The raw materials were all there, pun intended
I’m not photography professional, so this is more of a viewer’s opinion than anything else, but I thought the main problem with the original was that it was too dark and the colors were a little dull. Here is what I did:
* Brought it into RAW.
* Cropped extra sky and ground, which coincidentally ended up fairly similar to the original edit.
* Increase exposure to +1.85.
* Increased blacks slightly to 10.
* Increased clarity and vibrance to 60. I love the vibrance tool, which allows you to bring out dull colors while leaving those that are already saturated alone.
* Chose strong contrast for the tone curve, which is more of a personal preference than something the photo necessarily needed.
* Added what I hope was subtle post crop vignetting.
No edits in photoshop itself, just converted to 8-bit and saved it as a jpeg.
February 3rd, 2010 at 6:11 am
Man, this is a very finicky commenting system. Here is the link that should’ve gone with my post above:
http://s817.photobucket.com/albums/zz96/v_roma/
February 3rd, 2010 at 6:13 am
At this risk of incurring the wrath of every viewer of this website, here is the correct link:
http://s817.photobucket.com/albums/zz96/v_roma/?action=view¤t=Nepal.jpg
Apologies for the three posts in a row…
February 3rd, 2010 at 7:29 am
pburd the same exact thing happened to me. And I usually copy comments just in case that does happen so I can try and resubmit them. Except this site said I’d just submitted a duplicate comment. So where in cyberspace did it go?
February 3rd, 2010 at 7:47 am
This image reminded me of one that my good friend Gary (Chiwalatta) showed me of his trip to a similar location. I dropped the RAW file in ACR and increased the fill light by +25, clarity +50 and vibrance +25. I also adjusted the individual saturation of the red, orange, yellow, green & Blue on the HSL tab (+25, +50, +20, +20, +25). I then opened in CS3 and tweaked the levels with a small amount of dodge & Burn and a final sharpen/crop.
February 3rd, 2010 at 7:50 am
February 3rd, 2010 at 9:32 am
Sorry,
I added my link wrong with my message.
Here is the link (hope it works)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/frankjcd/4325846050/
Hi,
A lot of peaks and a long clothes line.
I decided to crop it down and focus on the forward tall peak and the pole. Landscapes are often “landscape” but I chose portrait to give it some height and include the brown slope.
Here is what I did:
Photoshop Elements 7
In Camera RAW I adjusted white balance picking off a snow bank on the glacier.
Then I applied sharpening Amount 50, Radius 1.5, Detail 50
Opened file in Elements, cropped to portrait.
Added adjustment layer, Levels.
In RGB the original values showed, 0,1.00,255.
I increased the highlights by moving the slider to the left to 165
Mid-tones I changed to 0.90.
This is fun, thanks for the opportunity!
February 3rd, 2010 at 10:11 am
I’m gonna try this one more time. Basically I just had a few layers to make the sky deeper, the ground darker and added red to the ground then rotated and cropped.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/katesi/4325260622/
February 3rd, 2010 at 10:28 am
Here is my crop… First, i brought it into Adobe Lightroom 2.5, then i cropped it, applied the Creative – B&W Low Contrast present in Lightroom, adusted black clipping to -5, bumped the clarity to +100, then exported it to, ahemmm… Photoshop 6.0, cleaned up 2 spots at the top of the picture, resized it, uploaded it to my site, posted comment, and wait for Photoshop 6.0 jokes.
February 3rd, 2010 at 10:33 am
Here is my crop…
First, i brought it into Adobe Lightroom 2.5, then i cropped it, applied the Creative – B&W Low Contrast present in Lightroom, adusted black clipping to -5, bumped the clarity to +100, then exported it to, ahemmm… Photoshop 6.0, cleaned up 2 spots at the top of the picture, resized it, uploaded it to my site, posted comment, and wait for Photoshop 6.0 jokes.
February 3rd, 2010 at 11:05 am
I also added a dark vignette on the corners. It is not present in the photo i posted. (Do u guys think the mountains are 2 washed out?)
February 3rd, 2010 at 1:42 pm
Actually it is not a clothes line but buddhist prayer flags… just in case we got someone who is well versed in tibetan buddhism hot and bothered.
February 3rd, 2010 at 3:28 pm
Used Lightroom 3.0 (Beta) and my RAWDR presets to create 5 TIF exposures -2 -1 0 +1 +2 ev.
Used Dynamic Photo HDR to merge the 5 exposures and tonemapped using smooth compressor.
Used Paint.Net to set curves, resize, and sharpen.
February 3rd, 2010 at 3:48 pm
1. Used LR 3.0 (Beta) and my RAWDR
February 3rd, 2010 at 7:57 pm
Hi,
I used Lightroom 2.6
First I tried different profiles, I liked ACR 4.4 the most.
Then I found a pleasing white balance.
Next I applied auto exposure and auto black point.
I tweaked recovery and fill light until pleasing.
Then I changed the crop. I didn’t like the horizontal line, so I intentionally rotated the image and cropped, so
the lines go to the corners and there is some rising in the mountain ridge.
This also removed the most visible spots out of the way.
A graduated filter was applied to the bottom right corner to lighten it up a little.
I the tweaked saturation and luminance of different colors, to make the flags stand out more. and to lighten the orange in the mountain.
Finally with the adjustment brush I lightened up bottom of the mountain a little more, and darkened the middle flags a little.
Oh, and then some clarity, of course.
Regards, Tom
February 4th, 2010 at 3:33 am
I am going to try and post this again, I tried three times but it didn’t show up. Any hew, from my previous post:
“Great picture but exposure and crop need to highlight the FG and Mountains…too much sky in the original. So first I did auto exposure in ACR then I adjusted the camera calibration setting to camera landscape. I then opened in CS3 and skewed it a little followed by a crop.” Then Topaz updated their Detail filter and ..it actually made it even better.
In case it doesn’t come up, here is the link:
http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s226/sjlarue/Bad%20Birds/Nepal_2.jpg
and here is the first one I did.:
http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s226/sjlarue/Bad%20Birds/Nepal_1.jpg
February 4th, 2010 at 4:24 am
Here are my edits. I converted the raw image using Adobe DNG converter (it’s free). Then I opened it using Photoshop’s Browser and a CTRL-R to make basic non-destructable edits. 1st I adjusted the exposure and blacks then some fill light. I then increased the brightness but just a little so as not to blow out the whites. I increased the clarity by 3, increased the contrast by 3, increased the vibrance by 3, and increased the saturation by 1 and then saved it.
After using browser I opened it in Photoshop. The final edits needed to be done of 2 different sections of the picture so I used the quick selection tool to separate the mountains from the sky and created 2 layers–one with each half in it. Then I used a curves adjustment tool on the sky to brighten it and increase the contrast. Then on the mountains I used Shadow/Highlight to brighten the dark areas while preserving the highlights. Then I adjusted the contrast and used smart sharpen.
Finally I merged the two layers, and saved it as a JPEG at 72 pixels p/inch and reduced it to 18×12. You can see the differences achieved by the incremental use of the browser on the dng and then the final photoshop edits. By the way, if you haven’t used Adobe’s DNG converter on raw images I would recommend it highly. What you can do then with the browser as an editor is pretty amazing and you can always take the image back to original with no damage to the original.
Not sure how to post the final images for comments by others. This is my first response.
February 4th, 2010 at 4:58 am
For everyone that is having trouble posting their images, the img tag, which you get by clicking on “You can add images to your comment by click here” text below the comment box, doesn’t seem to be working and will prevent your comment from showing up at all. In addition, if you use the “a href” tag, the link doesn’t actually show up. What eventually worked for me was just to type the url directly into the comment, without any tags.
February 4th, 2010 at 5:20 am
Ok, so here is my url listing. We’ll see if it works.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/33493933@N04/4327818147/
February 5th, 2010 at 3:11 am
Worked out in Lightroom & then photoshop.
February 5th, 2010 at 3:12 am
http://www.flickr.com/photos/yatiphotography/4330689154/
February 5th, 2010 at 3:13 am
I looked carefully at the original photo. Then I scrolled down through all of the suggested alternatives. I may be missing something, but to my eye, the original photo is not very well composed. The horizontal line of prayer flags conflicts with the jagged mountain peaks for attention. The bright colors of the flags gets muted by the background of mountains. Neither element seems enhance the other. There is the potential for an interesting and exciting juxtaposition but I don’t think this is it!
I would not spend any time cropping, tweaking colors or white balance this photo. I’d want an entirely different composition to work with.
February 5th, 2010 at 4:21 am
Its a bad photo that should be thrown, flags are cutting the mountains, looks like you put the camera infront of you and clicked then left. take more time and find good compositions that arnt dull,boring,ordinary,and not usefull either than a glance of an interesting place you wish was captured better.
February 5th, 2010 at 4:54 am
Why isn’t anything I post on here showing up on the Forum????
February 5th, 2010 at 4:57 am
February 5th, 2010 at 5:04 am
February 5th, 2010 at 5:09 am
Took the Flags out as I felt it was an Obstruction to the Beautiful Mountains and Lowered the Temp to give it a colder look.. I have tried to post the photo 4 times and it still don’t come up…
So here is the link to it…. [FLAGS REMOVED]
http://i838.photobucket.com/albums/zz302/TrumanPhotography/Temp%20File/MountSnowFlag-17.jpg/img
February 5th, 2010 at 5:10 am
Don’t seem to be able to download the original file. I’m using a Mac but clicking the link brings down pages of programming.
February 5th, 2010 at 5:10 am
Took the Flags out as I felt it was an Obstruction to the Beautiful Mountains and Lowered the Temp to give it a colder look.. I have tried to post the photo 4 times and it still don’t come up…
So here is the link to it…. [FLAGS REMOVED]
http://i838.photobucket.com/albums/zz302/TrumanPhotography/Temp%20File/MountSnowFlag-17.jpg
February 5th, 2010 at 5:16 am
I just enjoyed it in Photoshop and let the photo talk to me. I hardly ever remember the steps I take, however here I increased the exposure by +05. Balanced the colors. Vignette. I like it.
February 5th, 2010 at 5:20 am
My version.
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4071/4330912060_5e957240aa_b.jpg
Curves white balance and contrast
Duplicate layer in screen mode and mask
High pass sharpening using mask
High pass for the clouds to make them pop out (mask)
Hue/Saturation Layer mainly for red and blue/cyan
Lens distort vigneting adjust
Levels little adjust
Merge all and duplicated in soft light with mask at 20%
Curves light fixing
Landscape noise reducciòn with noiseware
February 5th, 2010 at 5:48 am
I opened it in Photoshop and the rest is a blur. I just enjoyed the whole process and stopped when I liked what I saw. http://www.visualreaction.com/gallery/Nepal.jpg
February 5th, 2010 at 6:01 am
I did not want to crop the image. I thought there was a nice balance between earth and sky and that the flags mirrored the mountains very nicely. I just took two approaches – one was an attempt to render the image as it might have been seen and the other was just to add a little dreaminess to the scene.
Here are the links if they do not appear.
http://i803.photobucket.com/albums/yy319/zidane9_photo/Nepal2.jpg
http://i803.photobucket.com/albums/yy319/zidane9_photo/Nepal.jpg
February 5th, 2010 at 6:10 am
You knew someone had to do, so I thought I would. I love the contrast of the bright colors and the dull tones of the mountains, so I thought this would be a great photo to do the B&W with some color. I did the edit with Photoshop CS4. I used the different adjustment layers and then masked the B&W layer where the colors were.
From Untitled Album
February 5th, 2010 at 6:11 am
I didn’t want to crop the image because I thought there was a nice balance of earth and sky with the flags splitting throught the middle while they were mirroring the mountains. I just chose two different approaches. One which I thought was how the scene would have looked and the other by duplicating the layer and adding gaussian blur while changing the blend mode to multiply.
February 5th, 2010 at 6:13 am
Sorry, I did the image embedding wrong.
http://lh3.ggpht.com/_JmqHl5dgYeM/S2soJMXHoDI/AAAAAAAAAXU/zFKyFODXj38/s400/Nepal.jpg
February 5th, 2010 at 6:17 am
I must have embedded the image wrong the first time. I’ll try again. Sorry, Lou
February 5th, 2010 at 6:18 am
I didn’t want to crop the image because I thought there was a nice balance of earth and sky with the flags splitting throught the middle while they were mirroring the mountains. I just chose two different approaches. One which I thought was how the scene would have looked and the other by duplicating the layer and adding gaussian blur while changing the blend mode to multiply.
Here are the links
http://i803.photobucket.com/albums/yy319/zidane9_photo/Nepal.jpg
http://i803.photobucket.com/albums/yy319/zidane9_photo/Nepal2.jpg
February 5th, 2010 at 6:31 am
Andrew, I couldn’t open it by clicking either. But I went into Photoshop: File: Open and put the link address in the File Name box instead of clicking on a file to open. I had to use the OS dialog.
February 5th, 2010 at 6:43 am
First I cropped to the highest peak as this is my favorite part of the photo. I then added a frame because I feel this finishes the art piece.
I used picnik in Flickr for editing. Saved under private so no one else can use the photo.
February 5th, 2010 at 6:51 am
Just to let all you know i am a beginner in photography and photo editing i only started last summer,
right for this picture i have used a free online picture editing site called picnik (www.picnik.com) and i have used only basic free tools (to get premium tools you have to pay £3.49GBP or $4.95USD for one month and so thats when it doesnt get free)
anyways i first used:
The Black And White Effect, then went over the colour bits with the paint brush so i could create a black and white picture with colour.
I then used a little effect call Lomo-ish which creates the look of a lomo toy camera..
And here is the final picture hope you like it…
February 5th, 2010 at 7:00 am
I chose to concentrate of the flags. Becuase of the great colors of the flags they are a strong focal point for they eye. I blurred the background to try and give emphasis to the foreground flags.
February 5th, 2010 at 7:55 am
First did minor editing in lightroom 2 clarity, exposure, contrast, did a ninor tonemapping in photomatrix, brought it back to lightroom2 once again did clarity, contrast. Used the brush tool to try and even out the sky’s color and bring out the clouds, then isolated the clouds with the brush tool and used only clarity and sharpening. The isolated the countains and changed the exposure, clarity and contrast. Isolated the flags and brought out the colors and added contrast. Cropped it down a little. I also messed with the color panels a tiny bit
February 5th, 2010 at 8:01 am
I dont know why my picture post didn’t show up but here’s the link
http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4042/4330488325_be8279cfde_b.jpg
I did minor editing in lightroom2 using clarity, contrast, exposure and the color sliders to brighten up the image and bring out the clouds, then moved it to photomatrix for minor tonemapping and brought it back to lightroom where I did some brush work to even out the sky color ( or try to anyway lol) then added another layer with the brush to the clouds and just added clarity. Then isolated the mountains adding clarity and contrast and a little exposure adjustment. Then isolated the flags adding clarity and saturation. I also changed the black setting a little. I think that is everything.
February 5th, 2010 at 8:02 am
I edited this first in ACR to get colour and tone. Then in photoshop elements i cloned out the ragged flags and dodged and burned and saturated. Finally re-sized and sharpened in PSP pro x2.
February 5th, 2010 at 8:05 am
Processed in Bridge. Used the Camera Landscape Camera Profile. I cropped to level to focus on flags with mountains in the background. Lightened the ground up to show a strong sun. Settings were:
6500, +10 temp
Exp =.65
rec 25
fill 11
Blacks 10
bright +66
Clarity +56
Vibrance +47
Curves Highlights -18, lights -7, darks +28, shadows +16
Sharpening amt 116, radius 1.3 Detail 31, masking 55
Luminance Oranges and Yellows +84, Greens +37
February 5th, 2010 at 8:17 am
Not sure why mine is awaiting moderation…
I chose to concentrate of the flags. Becuase of the great colors of the flags they are a strong focal point for they eye. I blurred the background to try and give emphasis to the foreground flags.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/remijanphoto/4330375939/sizes/m/
February 5th, 2010 at 8:22 am
Took this to Photoshop, Camera raw 5.0 Adjusted the light and balance to get whitest peaks and blacker blacks (without going overboard) Sharpened and removed chromatic aberrations. Imported to Photoshop some more chanel work and knocked off the complete blacks then added a vibrance mask over the prayer flags. Cropped to use them as a leading line to look at the mountain and as the photo used the pole to point to the highest mountain it draws you to the picture and then down and away to the left.
February 5th, 2010 at 8:24 am
I chose to concentrate of the flags. Becuase of the great colors of the flags they are a strong focal point for they eye. I blurred the background to try and give emphasis to the foreground flags. I put the top of the pray flag pole in the bottom right 3rd since that’s the 3rd intersection point which has the most emphasis.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/remijanphoto/4330375939/
February 5th, 2010 at 8:24 am
(once more for the photo issue)
http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e131/MattyC76/NepalHP.jpg
February 5th, 2010 at 8:30 am
I used Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo X2
I realigned the photo to get the flags line straight
I cropped the image
Then I played around with the following settings:
Brightness = 29 points lighter
Shadows = 60 points darker
Highlights = 10 points lighter
Saturation = 18 points more colourful
Focus = 72 points stronger
I then duplicated the layer and set the Photo Effects to Black and White Film
I erased the foreground layer over the flags
I think I managed to get the effect that I wanted. I wanted the snow caps and the flags stand out, but at the same time I wanted everything to be really sharp.
What do you think? Did I manage it? Did I go over the top?
From DPS posts
February 5th, 2010 at 8:32 am
Used photoshop cs3 with ‘level adjustments’ to the three colors and lightened. Used ‘curves’ for better color depth. To get a better looking focus, moved the high mountain, on the right, forward.
February 5th, 2010 at 8:34 am
The image:
February 5th, 2010 at 8:34 am
Adobe Camera raw : Targeted adj. tool, HSL luminence blues full right. Exposure +1.65, recovery +10, blacks +13. Crop right side and top and bottom.
CS4 converted to LAB color and L channel set to rectify histogram. Color channels set levels to 40 and 215.
Nik pro sharpener set to 25%. Converted to RGB used gradient filter to brighten top of sky and set shadows/highlights to reduce highlight slightly.
February 5th, 2010 at 9:13 am
Photo available at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/26734445@N03/4331308748/
sorry I left it out
February 5th, 2010 at 11:45 am
Ok :
First on layers in PS4 I distort, shrink copy paste and adjust perspective..:-)
Then blend edges.
It was time for a color of the grass…well I liked green..:-)) in replace color.
Then adjust color balance in Lightroom..And that is the final outcome
February 5th, 2010 at 12:25 pm
For some reason I couldn’t open the RAW file so I edited it as a JPEG just for fun. I added a faded photo preset that I had already created previously to give it that vintage look I am so addicted to, then added a little more blue and orange, added a little more recovery, a little more clarity and added a vignette.
February 5th, 2010 at 12:28 pm
For some reason I couldn’t open the RAW file so I edited it as a JPEG just for fun. I added a faded photo preset that I had already created previously to give it that vintage look I am so addicted to, then added a little more blue and orange, added a little more recovery, a little more clarity and added a vignette.
February 5th, 2010 at 12:29 pm
For some reason I couldn’t open the RAW file so I edited it as a JPEG just for fun. I added a faded photo preset that I had already created previously to give it that vintage look I am so addicted to, then added a little more blue and orange, added a little more recovery, a little more clarity and added a vignette.
My image won’t post, don’t know why on that one either!
February 5th, 2010 at 12:34 pm
February 5th, 2010 at 1:59 pm
I’m Board…. LOL
February 5th, 2010 at 2:10 pm
here’s mine, i didn’t want to crop.
February 5th, 2010 at 2:11 pm
here is my version
February 5th, 2010 at 2:13 pm
here’s my version
February 5th, 2010 at 7:13 pm
Hi,
I agree with kylewein , it wasn’t a very good picture – unbalanced, difficult to look at , not clear as to what the main subject was supposed to be – was i supposed to be looking at the mountains or the flags? But rather than binning it, Michael Remijan has done a wonderful job by focusing onto the flag pole and blurring the background. In that edit he has lost none of the information i.e. we still get the sky, the mountains , the clouds, the colours. Know I know its apicture of the flagpole. so as someone said once “dont be afraid to crop!”.
good work everyone.
Harjit
February 6th, 2010 at 3:18 am
Wow, you guys are amazing…this is my first time to check this out but I have to say I’ve learned a lot. I have only attempted to use Lightroom Beta 3 and not figured it out too much, yet. I use PS CS3 and LOVE it but I am just amazed at all the different ways to see a single photo. I loved some of the B/W adding the flags back in in color and the cropping the photo to see more flag and blurring the mountain, total B/W and then bumping levels and colors for better sky and mountain, etc. Love the eye opening of this forum.
February 6th, 2010 at 10:54 am
I’m struggling to get the photo posted… this is another try (please bear with me):
http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/QZ-bT89EdOfldi4A2bITfg?authkey=Gv1sRgCMXnm7vO9vysgAE&feat=directlink
February 6th, 2010 at 11:00 am
Last try……..
From
February 6th, 2010 at 11:19 am
Sandra …i think posting photos on this forum is possible only from flicker….and even, after you post it you have to wait at least 24-48 hrs…to appear on forum so please relax spend time with your family ant check on Monday. It works for me…..
))))))) or perhaps other idea..??? Anybody????
I wonder if we can have discussion on how to make this work better…:-)))
On my forum I Administer we use a PostImage.org plug in for a blog or forum like this one and it works perfect because you do not need resizing, sorry not correct it is size limit but is at least 15mp…only 7D photos I have to resize .
So Administrator can you please look in too….Photo Forum with the Photos..
February 6th, 2010 at 11:42 am
Thanks for the input Richard. I managed to post this: from Picasa Web Albums and it was immediate…. FAQs also speak of Picasa, Flicker, etc… one would expect they should all work OK, so I am very surprised that it is not working this time….. I’ll be following any discussion around this with interest…..
I liked your green grass. Thank goodness you did not favour blue…..
)
February 6th, 2010 at 4:48 pm
Converted to jpg and opened it in GIMP 2.6.
Used levels to lighten highlights and darken midtones a bit.
After a bit of indecision, cropped it.
Made a layer of the flags, saturated them to 45.
Desaturated background (luminosity) and Gaussian blurred it, radius of 10.
Unsharp masked the flag; radius of 5.0 and amount of 0.50.
Bit of a rush job….
February 6th, 2010 at 7:28 pm
Unable to get the original to download – so worked on the jpeg. Worked in Photoshop CS4 – and applied 2 filters from Nik Software ColorEfex Pro. First is Tonal Contrast filter set at 50% for midtone and shadow and 60% highlight. SEcond is Pro Contrast filter at 40%. Layers then flattened.
February 7th, 2010 at 2:42 am
Another thing that would help this Forum and all the clutter & Duplicate post, do to: When we can’t, or what we think isn’t working and make this a lot more enjoyable to look at is a DELETE/EDIT button to get ride of unwanted up loads or make correction on what we already posted……….
February 7th, 2010 at 4:30 am
10 points you have my vote…DELETE/EDIT button…for me that will be live sever…how many times I will love to fix misspell words….Please..:-))
I wonder if administrator read this posts???
February 7th, 2010 at 5:10 am
I sent an email on the DELETE / EDIT button to Management… Not sure it will do any good, but worth a try…
February 7th, 2010 at 5:24 am
Thanks..:-)) Will probably do not work..unless you have to be log in to leave comment..but that will be better any way….Plus can you mention “Pictures”…please..:-)) The easy way..:-))) and we promise to post only nice ones.:-)
So can you tell us on the end which pictures you like the best and why????
February 7th, 2010 at 6:04 am
Well Do-It Richard… LOL I think the more of us the write in with this problem, the better our chances are of getting this option installed on the forums…
SO PLEASE, anyone that reads this, click on the CONTACT button at the top and suggest this DELETE / EDIT button be installed…
“Rain Rain Go Away, Little Tommy Wants To Ply”
February 7th, 2010 at 7:29 am
..:-)))) and pictures too…
February 7th, 2010 at 11:42 am
Basically just B/W filter in the inverse selection of flags.. and increased saturation in flags.
February 7th, 2010 at 2:11 pm
I worked in two layers; the bottom layer being the color-corrected image and the top layer being the contrast-corrected layer.
Opened in Camera Raw
Applied settings: Exposure +1.45
Blacks +12
Brightness +78
Contrast +46
Vibrance +33
Opened in Photoshop CS3 and tweaked colors in LAB mode.
This gave me the color-corrected image.
Onto the contrast correction:
Converted to RGB mode to correct contrast:
Dupe color-corrected layer and deleted blue channel
Apply image-Red channel to replace green channel
Adjusted contrast in red channel with curves
Set the contrast-corrected layer to luminosity (with color corrected layer below).
http://www.flickr.com/photos/47167239@N05/4335943803
Now I can finally see the little houses of the city on the slope.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/47167239@N05/4336690626
February 7th, 2010 at 7:55 pm
Tom T/Robert. Have just done my bit by sending email via contact link and asked for: 1. a delete facility and 2. an easier way to post photos/tutorial in weekly newsletter.
I’ve had a little look around too and found this [url=http://digital-photography-school.com/forum/general-chit-chat/]Forum[/url]
Perhaps a place to start a discussion thread. What do you think?
February 8th, 2010 at 4:49 am
This is what i did with the photo.
I used Silver efex pro at photoshop CS4.
February 8th, 2010 at 6:01 am
eduardo………….. Silver efex pro………… I wondered if anyone would pay $200 for this Plug-in, Guess they would?????????
Is it a DVD it comes on? and can I buy a copy of it from you? Cheap!!! LOL
February 8th, 2010 at 2:16 pm
It was a tough one. I didn’t like the colorful rags, but didn’t want to take them out, as I figured they are there for a reason. I focused on reducing the effect of distracting red rags on the image instead.
The description of what I did (not too complicated) can be found here:
http://www.korwelphotography.com/2010/02/08/nepal-dps-monthly-edit-february-2010/?preview=true
and the final image can be found in the above post or directly here:
http://www.korwelphotography.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/nepal1.jpg
February 8th, 2010 at 4:09 pm
Iza, I would never guess this crop is possible. I like what you did with it.
February 9th, 2010 at 2:26 am
I am new to this and I am not sure if I am posting it correctly so bare with me.
In Camera RAW
Exposure +1.05 , Recovery 30 , Fill Light , 4 , Blacks 16 , Brightness +65 , Contrast +58 , Clarity +48
Vibrance +27 , Saturation +8 , Sharpening 76 , Radius 1.3 , Detail 32 .
In Photoshop CS4
Dodge and Burn the shadows and highlights for added depth. Dropped the levels in shadows and mid-tones to increase contrast some more for more depth. I bumped up the exposure in the levels box on the color blue. I added a filter from Topaz Adjust 3.0 “Portrait Drama” and then masked the sky down to 50% back in photoshop. If you have more questions you can contact me at shaynew@ymail.com and I would be happy to tell you anything you wish to know.
Shayne
February 9th, 2010 at 12:58 pm
I focused on the summit, calling this image, “I Think I Can…” I could not get the sharpness as crisp as I would like. The cropping, sharpness, and drop shadow were done in FastStone Image Viewer.
http://www.photoshop.com/accounts/d49f9a44ff7f49ee8a9f8d4a06bc098b/px-assets/89c6ebac27a74bdba2b8256c3cc391d9/img
February 9th, 2010 at 1:01 pm
Sorry about that invalid link. Try this one. It should work.
http://www.photoshop.com/accounts/d49f9a44ff7f49ee8a9f8d4a06bc098b/px-assets/89c6ebac27a74bdba2b8256c3cc391d9
February 11th, 2010 at 1:59 am
Croped and tilted a little, auto tone, reduced vibrance, added graduated filter to sky and ground, to darken foreground and lighten upper part of the sky, added dust spot removal, to clear two sensor dark points on the upper part of the sky, increased saturation only on the “flags”. Think it was all I’ve done!
February 11th, 2010 at 6:09 pm
It was just a puzzle for me to see the original image. Later, the edited photos opened for me a horizon of understanding of photo editing. Great!
February 11th, 2010 at 6:19 pm
I prefer to edit a photo while I take one: frame, color, the theme of the photo why I should take one. Making a new image from the original one, after manipulating it, I don’t consider it to be the job of a photographer. However, if someone find it ejoyable to create something new pasting together differents parts of different photos, of course, that might be an ART WORK, but probably not the job of a photographer.
February 13th, 2010 at 4:57 am
I decided to crop to the line of prayer flags and to make them the horizon. I think it works better with the flags horizontal. Lightroom settings then the picture.
BASIC:
Temp: 4500
TInt -50
Exposure +1.33
Recovery 87
Fill light 29
Blacks 27
Brightness +100
Contrast +100
Clarity +88
Vibrance 0
Saturation 0
TONE CURVE:
Hightlights 0
Lights =5
Darks 0
Shadows 0
SPLIT TONING:
Balance 0
Shadows 215
Saturation 83
VIGNETTES
Lens Correction
Amount +29
Midpoint 73
February 20th, 2010 at 10:33 am
I think the cloud should be the main subject, I can see the queen wearing a crown, looking down to the rock, which resemble the king (to the left)
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