Before & After 493

The game will last 7 days and whoever can produce the best edited image (as judged by me) will be picked and it'll be their turn to post their unedited picture for all of us to take a crack at.

The participants must have their "Image Editing OK" turned on and they must provide at least a simple breakdown of how they edited the image, some entrants are a little vague on this point, please give us all details so we can learn and share tips. For instance if you use the unsharp mask tool or Smart Sharpen, provide us with the adjustments you used so others can try them out.

You can post multiple images, but the first image you post will be the one that is judged - all other images will be considered for knowledge and tip use only. Feel free to comment and/or ask questions at any time. This is a good competition for learning new methods, so let's make it a bit more dynamic. I will be judging edits, not comments. Feel free to comment on the original image as well.

If you happen to be the winner of the game please start the next one with the title of the game and the following number. For example…the next game should read "Before & After #494".

Submissions end, Monday, October 28th, 2013 at 7:30pm UK time and a winner will be announced.

Here is a link to a RAW file for those that prefer it :-

https://www.dropbox.co​m …2smfo0lth3ii/DS​CF0950.RAF

Don't you have a canon RAW file ? because this one seems to be a fuji raw file and I can not open it with DPP...

Sorry it's a Fuji X20 file I'll try to post another file in an hour or so

EDIT: Sorry - a bit longer than an hour but here's a link to a TIFF file instead.

https://www.dropbox.co​m …9uekk67k/B%26A4​93tiff.tif

Sharpened, straightened, cropped original. Added clarity and vibrance. Dropped in new sky and merged it in. Flipped image to create reflection of new sky. Added warming filter.

HTTP response: NOT FOUND | MIME changed to 'text/html'

Also dropped in sky and transform flip horizontal for water, played with tonality focusing on high and dark channels, Destroyed all of my previous wb and exposure work with a curve adjustment and "tanish" color overlay to give a vintage/worn feel. Straightened.

IMAGE LINK: http://s1157.photobuck​et.com …mpy1_zps3dff168​1.jpg.html

Here's my take on the windmill. Nice photo Nigel.

LR4;
straighten
crop to recompose
white +52
blk-55
contrast +45
temp +5
tint +5
exp +12
shadows +55
clarity -31
vibrance +7
aqua and blue +hue and sat, -lum
sharpen +69
lum noise reduuced +25
remove CA
post vignette -45
gradient from top to lower highlights is sky
PS5;
clone red and white arms out
new layer as overlay @40%
resize
USM +115

Sorry I'm a bit late folks - PC problem.

I'm impressed with the quality of edits as well.

john123 : welcome to B&A and well done on a conversion that looks like it came from an old Dutch history book. Great tones in it.

M_Six : Lovely moody sky, well straightened and good colour to the windmill.

Dawicka2 : ethereal feel to this one - subtle colours and unusual but well worked sky and reflection to match.

Colt4570 : Painterly feel to this but well done. Certainly good work on the cloning out although I'm not sure it needed it.

I think M_Six just has the edge this week - I really like the sky.

In case anyone is wondering - the image is at Kinderdijk in The Netherlands, where you'll see a great collection of windmills restored.

Over to you Mark and thanks to everyone who had a go.

Thanks, Nigel. Nice work everyone. I'll have new one up in a bit.

BNA #494 is here.

Congrats M_Six, nice edit. Welcome john123, nice B&W.

Nice work, everybody!
Congrats, M_six.

Lots of skills here. Thanks for the welcome .