Show Us Your RAW Conversions, BEFORE And AFTER

Thanks for the interesting photograph, tonylong. It's amazing!. I had lots of fun practicing my processing on it as I am taking a quick break from studying for finals .
Here's my take on it:
(PS: I have a weakness for low key, low contrast, and smooth processing)

hxpham, that's pretty impressive! I like that stark contrast. So cool to see what can be done with the "Raw materials"! Thanks so much for posting this...it bet it will inspire people!

Well, here I am bored at work, so of course I had to test my new brush knowledge out Tony! I may try a B/W conversion, although I'm pretty bad at those when there's a big near-white subject.

I tried to pull the detail out of the rock behind the ice/waterfall, as well as sharpen the whole scene.

Good work, Scott -- the "actual" lighting was closer to your rendition than mine -- I just wanted to brighten things up!

It just occurred to me that my edit is probably dark on your screen, since I'm at work on a crappy TN monitor that rarely calibrates correctly.

Menelaus wrote in post #9178849
It just occurred to me that my edit is probably dark on your screen, since I'm at work on a crappy TN monitor that rarely calibrates correctly.

That may be Scott -- how do the tones on yours compare to the tones on mine? Do mine look overly bright to you?

It's true that most consumer monitors have a hard time adjusting to a decently low level of brightness -- I have an HP monitor that does quite well, and then a Panasonic monitor that goes belly up when you try to lower it to a decent level, so I leave that one uncalibrated and use the HP for "final" stuff. Sometimes I forget and post something on the Web before I realize it's off and have to rework and reload!

Yeah, yours looked very blown out on my monitor.

You'll just have to trust me when I say that my edit looks fabulous on this screen

Menelaus wrote in post #9179145
Yeah, yours looked very blown out on my monitor.

You'll just have to trust me when I say that my edit looks fabulous on this screen

Heh! Well, tone down the brightness as much as you can. A good way to check out your brightness is by printing on a good photo printer if you have access to one. Your first attempts will probably come out too dark, and then you juggle adjusting the brightness of the monitor as well as the brightness in software to get a close enough match. That way, when you post on here, you will have at worst an image that looks too bright to an unadjusted monitor, but to the rest of us it'll look fine.

tonylong wrote in post #9179261
Heh! Well, tone down the brightness as much as you can. A good way to check out your brightness is by printing on a good photo printer if you have access to one. Your first attempts will probably come out too dark, and then you juggle adjusting the brightness of the monitor as well as the brightness in software to get a close enough match. That way, when you post on here, you will have at worst an image that looks too bright to an unadjusted monitor, but to the rest of us it'll look fine.

What about when customers look at their proofs? Most would have an unadjusted TN panel at 110% brightness, and they'd think that all of their photos are blown out.

Menelaus wrote in post #9179282
What about when customers look at their proofs? Most would have an unadjusted TN panel at 110% brightness, and they'd think that all of their photos are blown out.

Like they even know...

Touche, sir!

Heh! I've never heard a working photographer argue against using a well-adjusted calibrated monitor. Remember for one thing that the "proof of the pudding" will be in the print. If a person sees a shot a bit bright on the monitor but the prints look great, you won't get complaints. Maybe a question, which could be ansered with the simplest way of passing on the information that we learn here and then producing a great print. On the other hand, giving them a shot that looks "great" on their monitor but, when it gets printed looks dark and gloomy, will likely lead to some grumpy clients!

OK, here's another try from me.... instead of DPP, this time with LR2

a little extreme I suppose, but I wanted to try and give a B/W a "old timer" appearance... Bumped up the exposure a little, added a LOT of "fill light and blacks"

Mostly I was just playing around with LR2 to find out what I could do within the first 10 minutes or so of having it installed on my computer, lol...

Hey, I'm trying

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That's not bad, kawboy! Very high contrast can have an appeal to it! B&W conversions are pretty cool in Raw, aren't they?

Oh I'm deffinately having fun with it! I'm not even viewing any of my photos unless it's in RAW and in LR now. Not so worried about those JPG's anymore