9 replies to this topic

[Merco_61]

Here is the start of round 9 of the exercises.

 

First a message from this week's file submitter, bani12.

This is the upper Pericnik fall from Triglav National Park, Slovenia. The image was taken around midday and therefore sun light is very harsh. I hope you have fun editing it.

 

Dropbox file:

https://www.dropbox....T16622.NEF?dl=0

 

And then the rules:

The exercise is weekly, a new thread with a new raw (preferably) or jpg fine file for each week.

The exercise officially runs until midnight between sunday and monday pst (UTC-8). Even after the official deadline, the exercise is still open for new interpretations.

This is a round-robin exercise, the order of submitting the week’s raw file is based on an alphabetical list of applicants’ user names. If the next submitter on the list is unable to post at his/her turn he/she may ask the thread master to be moved down the list no later than friday morning. Late applications will be added at the bottom of the list.

We will revise this when every applicant has had a go, and perhaps change this model.

 

The submitter for the week must make the file along with any specific text for the post available to the thread master during the weekend preceding the challenge week. The thread master will then copy the file to a Dropbox location for the challenge and make the starting post for the week.

 

The exercise is open to all members, not only the file submitters.

 

Images provided, as well as the images resulting from the exercise remain the sole property of the photographer who took them. Those participating in the editing exercise may not use or display the photo outside the exercise thread.

 

It is allowed to make derivative interpretations on other participants’ work (a collaborative approach). If you base your take on someone else’s work, you must indicate what you started from.

 

The owner of the photo comments on the work done, highlighting what he liked best (both the interpretation itself and the technique used to get there) after the original week is over.

 

As this exercise is a tool for learning and inspiration, multiple entries are not only ok, but encouraged if a participant gets a new idea for how to present or interpret the photo, including artistic interpretations.

 

Participants must share how they have achieved their take on the photo.

 

 

Participants are explicitly not limited as to what software is used for the exercise.

 

 

[Bart]

I like the mood of this image, Urban.

It makes me feel like I'm right there in the forest.

 

I'm still getting acquainted with Capture One v9 and I thought this image would be a good candidate to try to process it in C1.

 

I applied these settings and removed some needles from the left border.

 

 

 

 

I decided to check the b&w possibilities of C1 as well.

Created a virtual copy and changed these settings:

 

 

 

With this as result:

 

 

I didn't find a possibility for split toning in C1, so I used the one in LR for a cooler variant.

(I noticed I forgot to add my screenshot for this)

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for lending us this image to work on, Urban.

I'd love to visit this place.

 

 

[Malice]

A lovely spot and such a nice exposure of it!

 

Since I didn't have too many ideas, what I could do to improve this image, I decided to take a different kind of training topic for me. I reverted to an early idea of mine to get to know some software better, which I usually don't use for processing photos.

 

Generally speaking, I found the piece of rock on the lower left corner a little too dominant, even though it adds some depth and a more interesting perspective to the image. So, I cropped the image down to lose this part, sacrificing the trees above the main waterfall along with this. The upside in my opinion is, though, that the focus of attention is drawn stronger to the actual waterfall shooting out of the rocks.

 

The first version I processed in Nikon's Capture NX-D with the following settings:

Exposure: +0.33

Active D-Lighting: "normal" strength

Picture control: "vivid" (or "brillant" in my german version)

Tone details - Highlights: 50

Tone details - Shadows: 75

 

...to come up with the following result (after exports as JPG and resizing the image with Apple's Preview to just below 1 MB file size):

 

 

 

I've tried a few times now, but Capture NX-D is just driving my crazy with its GUI layout. I'm glad I haven't spent any money on it. The possibilities are great and it's probably your best bet in terms of picture quality as it it's straight from Nikon, but all of this doesn't help me, if I can't get the software to do what I want, because I can't find the correct controls without googling them first.

 

Anyway, I wanted to see if the final result is so different compared to Lightroom (4) and therefor I processed the image again (after converting it to dng, because LR4 can't handle the D750 NEFs).

 

The settings in LR4 are:

* Crop as before

* Exposure +1

* Highlights -50

* Shadows +75

* Saturation +20

* Application of the lens correction profile for the Tamron 24-70

 

...which leads to the following result (after the same downsizing routine mentioned above):

 

 

 

Capture NX-D brings out the small details better than LR4, but unless I'm in dire need of preserving as much of the details as possible, I'm not going back to this application. It took me about 1/10th of the time to process this exposure in LR4 compared to NX-D. Of course this has also to do with being familiar with one application and not with the other, but in my opinion it just takes too long to familiarize yourself with NX-D. It's stuff like "hiding" the controls for highlights and shadows in the tone details section -  as opposed to grouping them with the exposure settings - that makes it really hard for me to memorize the layout.

 

So, thanks to Urban for providing a beautiful picture to play with and thanks for reading.

[Bart]

I have to agree that learning the ins an outs of another software is not an easy thing.

There's the knowing but then there's the remembering and most of all, the getting accustomed to the other software. The 'logic' of one software can agree with our own a lot better.

Inevitably this takes time. Lots of it.

But then, long ago (?), we had to go through the same process with the software we're now familiar with.

Question is, is there enough incentive to go through the same learning process again 

 

For me there is with Capture One. I need it to process some of my images that DxO Optics can't read.

As a bonus, I get the rendering of Capture One in my catalog program as well (Media Pro). The rendering of the OS that is otherwise used, is lacking.

 

Later this afternoon, I found the split toning in C1 as well. I'll be using it for the next exercise 

[Malice]

The incentive to use NX-D is there, as the quality is clearly better. But then again, I haven't tried a more contemporary version of LR, yet. Maybe LR6 or CC would do better than my old version 4 does.

 

I downloaded Capture one some time ago, but haven't installed it yet. It's the next software I want to try out.

[Bart]

I have about the same reaction to it as you have towards NX-D. The results are good (I think) but the interface takes some getting used to 

[Merco_61]

NX-D still doesn't make any sense, but after using nothing else as a raw converter since new-years, I am faster with the PM + NX-D solution than I ever was with LR. 

Malice, you can skip the resizing with Preview step by using 80% jpeg quality and 1500 pixels on the x-axis or 900 on the y-axis, whichever dimension comes closer to a 1500x900 bounding box on export in NX-D. I don't use it myself, but then I use PM as a DAM solution and the adaptive algorithm that PM uses gives very predictable sharpness and contrast in the resulting downsized .jpg.

[Malice]

Okay, good to know.

 

For this exercise I did the resizing with 'Preview' on purpose, because I wanted to treat both versions as similar as possible. I.e. export at maximum quality out of the RAW-Converter and then resize afterwards.

[Merco_61]

I like the basic photo, even if the light is hard.

 

Here are my takes:

Basic edits in Capture NX-D.

ADL set to high.

Picture Control set to [LS]Landscape.

Tone details Shadows set to 25

WB lowered slightly to 5200K

 

 

Over to PS CC for some further tweaking.

CEP to this recipe:

Crop

 

 

The monochrome version is made in SEP from the basic edit with the same crop as the colour version.

 

 

What I was after was taming the hard light and rendering a warmer, later in the day feel to the colour version. I could have done it without PS by sending it to CEP directly, but I wasn't sure how the crop would turn out before I rendered the filters so it was easier to apply the filters from PS and crop after.

 

I hope you like what I have done to it, I had fun playing with the photo even if it took some thinking to find a way to improve on a good capture SOOC. Thank you, Urban, for letting us play.

[bani12]

Peter,  what I like the most about your editing process in monochrome version is the preservation of details in the shadows. I also think it is well balanced edit.

 

Malice, I like your natural look to the image and I also like the crop. I feel like I am in the water completely, even though I was not

 

Bart, I like the cooler b&w version, but I prefer your version without split toning applied to it. It is a very dramatic image and the waterfall really stands out.

 

Here is my take:

 

 

I used these settings:

 

 

I would like to thank everyone who participated and edited my image.