Before and After #126

This game is to help those of us who are trying to learn new tricks when it comes to editing.

Here's the breakdown of the game. I will post a picture that I choose, resized to exactly 1024 pixels maximum on the long side. Outside of being resized it has to be unedited...meaning no adjustments to any levels, it has to look like it did as it came out of the camera.

The game will last 48hrs 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.

Also, please keep all comments, be they positive or negative, to yourself until after the game has ended.

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 and After #127".

This is all about having fun so have at it!!!
Any edit, over-the-top creative or subtle, is encouraged!

This game will end on Friday 5:00pm (EST)

here are 3 shots i shot, -2, 0, +2

all unedited straight out of the camera, lets see what you can do with HDR, or just use one of the shots, its up to you!

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Started by using the three images to generate an HDR in Photomatix Pro 3..
Tone Mapped using Details Enhancer..
Strength 77, Color Sat 47, Light Smoothing Low, Luminosity -3..
Played with other settings to get the right feel I was looking for..
Loaded in CS2 for additional work..
Desaturated..
Unsharp Mask 122%, .9 Radius, 46 Threshold..
Took the 0 Exposure and painted in the sky on the newly adjusted photo to get a more natural look..
Desaturated the sky a bit..

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Ok, here is my attempt.

I ended up using my DCE tools ReDynamix for the HDR effect.
I wasn't happy with the details or the sky after that so I ran the image through
B\W styler w\selective color which gave me the details I wanted in the mountains.
Back to the sky, what a pain it was, I couldn't get a nice sky for anything, So...I cut a bunch out cropping the bottom also.
I then selected the sky and used virtual photographers ambiance filter to brighten it up and soften it some, also did some cloning in areas.
I created another layer and ran my high pass filter, painting the effect back in on the foreground and mountains, applying more to the mountains and avoiding the sky.
added frame
I think that's it....

IMAGE IS A REDIRECT OR MISSING! HTTP response: 404 | MIME changed to 'text/html' | Byte size: ZERO

Ran the three images into DPHDR - with the eye catching preset
Took the original sky and copied it to a new layer on the HDR version with an opacity of ~50%
3:2 crop
Selected the sky and ran a slight noise reduction on it

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Here's mine:

-Photomatix with minor tone curve corrections
-Changed Exposure, Brightness, Clarity, Hue/Saturation, and Individual Color Saturations
-Went into PS, copied the BG layer and did noise reduction with very little detail preservation
-Made BG copy a mask and painted in the sky black
-Flattened image, used Smart Sharpen (as smart filter) on Luminosity BM
-Masked and painted in the sky black and inverted
-Flattened again
-Made normal corrections (cropped, curves, burned edges...)
-Added frame (I was lazy so I used the PS preset action for "Wood Frame")

Edit: Ouch, VSO didn't even do my crummy edit mercy. Too bad that "piece of garbage" resizer doesn't count for anything.

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-Photomatix (I don't know how to completely use it but yeah)
-Bleach Bypass filter
-Saturated it more
-Contrast
-Midnight filter for shadows
-brightened
-Blurred Sky
-added border

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So I've never tried HDR before so I really had no idea what I was doing so pretty much went with the standard settings....
But I opened adobe bridge and selected the 3 photos & used tools/photoshop/merge to HDR
increased contrast
wasn't crazy about what the HDR did to the sky... the left side seemed grey so I cloned sky from the right side...
then using layer mask I adjusted the sky using curves
used blurred frame action
added black border
I think that was it....

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1. Tone mapped in Photomatix Pro
2. Levels adjustment to correct lighting
3. USM 80%;1;1
4. Border using color from image
5. Drop shadow
That's all. ... Quick & Dirty

Used just the second photo.

1. Auto Contrast
2. Burned the sky
3. Selective color on Red First (for the red rock), then on the Cyan and Blue (to pull out the sky colors), then on the yellow (for the plants).
4. Did some personal touches to the contrast.
5. Cropped and added a border.

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I'm (Kyles wife) posting this for Kyle (ZeroOne) because I know he took a while to edit this photo but was unable to save it as a jpg for some reason. Then I found out how to save it but I have no clue what he did to it besides a tone mapping. So here is what he did.

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ok guys here are the results.............

blazin, this one looked like in needed some contrast and saturation pumping up a bit...

frenchfx, i like the work you did, i feel that you made some parts a bit dark however leaving the image a bit underexposed looking..

kab i think the image looks a bit flat and needs some umph

monty very nice edit, this is a well balanced hdr, very nicely done and not over done!

nistleroydude, i think too much on the contrast here....

bittersweet same again for you i think too much contrast...

silverhcic this one for my tastes are a little over saturated.....

neomike, really nice edit here, nice use of just the 2nd photo!

zeroone this too is a really nice edit also, but no explanation!

the winner this time for me is Monty, very subtle and very nicely done! it was real similar to my edit, which is here

https://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthre​ad.php?t=476933

well done monty and everyone else!

Woah nice.

I would actually buy that pano shot from you and hang up it.

thanks! you wanna

DonJuanMair wrote in post #6645486
thanks! you wanna

maybe after I move in to my place.

but it must be in a wood frame even before I consider it.

Congrats Monty, very nice everyone!!