Why I always kick myself when I leave the polarizer at home.

On 2012-03-30 17:11 , Savageduck wrote:
On 2012-03-30 13:28:02 -0700, Alan Browne
said:

On 2012-03-26 22:09 , Savageduck wrote:
On 2012-03-26 14:38:06 -0700, Alan Browne
said:

On 2012-03-25 19:57 , Savageduck wrote:
On 2012-03-25 15:03:24 -0700, Alan Browne
said:


Image with the two leaves.

http://www.dropbox.com/gallery/62816810/1/P?h=8aceac

Just noodling around with NIK Viveza 2, & Color Efex Pro 4. Here is a
comparison.
http://homepage.mac.com/lco/filechut...tleaf-comp.jpg

Very interesting - but has a "plastic" look that I don't like.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by "plastic" look, but I took a

Your first just looks unnatural and over textured.

I guess that I went about things the wrong way. ;-)


slightly different swing at it using your DNG.
http://homepage.mac.com/lco/filechute/LorrWS-comp.jpg

I like that a lot better. What procedure/s-w did you use?

Taking your DNG I started with ACR, warmed the WB to 5500, bumped the
clarity and vibrance, while dropping the saturation a bit.

Opened in CS5 and started with NIK Raw pre-sharpener with adaptive
sharpening set to 75% and slight edge sharpening.

Then I went to NIK Vivenza adjusting structure up about 15%, contrast up
about 8%, warmth up about 4%, and painted the effect onto the two leaves
only.

Then I moved to NIK Color Efex Pro 4 and with a little bit of trial and
error and experimentation, I layered several effects starting with a
polarizer set at 105º & strength of 20%.
Next I added a Low Key layer with glow at 50%, Standard low key at 30%,
Dynamic low key at 0%, saturation at 70% (that is saturation for the low
key effect)
Then came a Tonal Contrast layer with Highlights at 25%, Midtones at
50%, Shadows at 25%, & Contrast at 20%

All of the Color Efex Pro adjustments were applied masking out the two
leaves.

Merged those layers and duplicated the new background layer, set the
blending mode to "Luminosity" and applied USM at 90% with radius of 2.0
pix.

...and that was that.

Well - if you're just doing that...

Seems like a lot of trouble (and cost for the filters) when a simple pol
and maybe a sat boost in ACR would have done the job....


--
"I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did.
I said I didn't know."
-Samuel Clemens.

On 2012-03-30 15:17:46 -0700, Alan Browne
said:

On 2012-03-30 17:11 , Savageduck wrote:
On 2012-03-30 13:28:02 -0700, Alan Browne
said:

On 2012-03-26 22:09 , Savageduck wrote:
On 2012-03-26 14:38:06 -0700, Alan Browne
said:

On 2012-03-25 19:57 , Savageduck wrote:
On 2012-03-25 15:03:24 -0700, Alan Browne
said:


Image with the two leaves.

http://www.dropbox.com/gallery/62816810/1/P?h=8aceac

Just noodling around with NIK Viveza 2, & Color Efex Pro 4. Here is
a
comparison.
http://homepage.mac.com/lco/filechut...tleaf-comp.jpg

Very interesting - but has a "plastic" look that I don't like.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by "plastic" look, but I took a

Your first just looks unnatural and over textured.

I guess that I went about things the wrong way. ;-)


slightly different swing at it using your DNG.
http://homepage.mac.com/lco/filechute/LorrWS-comp.jpg

I like that a lot better. What procedure/s-w did you use?

Taking your DNG I started with ACR, warmed the WB to 5500, bumped the
clarity and vibrance, while dropping the saturation a bit.

Opened in CS5 and started with NIK Raw pre-sharpener with adaptive
sharpening set to 75% and slight edge sharpening.

Then I went to NIK Vivenza adjusting structure up about 15%, contrast u
p
about 8%, warmth up about 4%, and painted the effect onto the two leave
s
only.

Then I moved to NIK Color Efex Pro 4 and with a little bit of trial and

error and experimentation, I layered several effects starting with a
polarizer set at 105º & strength of 20%.
Next I added a Low Key layer with glow at 50%, Standard low key at 30%,

Dynamic low key at 0%, saturation at 70% (that is saturation for the lo
w
key effect)
Then came a Tonal Contrast layer with Highlights at 25%, Midtones at
50%, Shadows at 25%, & Contrast at 20%

All of the Color Efex Pro adjustments were applied masking out the two
leaves.

Merged those layers and duplicated the new background layer, set the
blending mode to "Luminosity" and applied USM at 90% with radius of 2.0

pix.

...and that was that.

Well - if you're just doing that...

Seems like a lot of trouble (and cost for the filters) when a simple pol
and maybe a sat boost in ACR would have done the job....

Perhaps, perhaps, but you didn't have a CP with you, and I don't
believe a sat boost in ACR would have helped much.
....and not really that much trouble. I kind of enjoy noodling about
with all the various goodies to see where it leads me.
After all, now that I am retired and have the social life of a stump,
what else am I going to do? ;-)

--
Regards,

Savageduck

On 2012-03-30 19:03 , Savageduck wrote:
On 2012-03-30 15:17:46 -0700, Alan Browne
said:

Well - if you're just doing that...

Seems like a lot of trouble (and cost for the filters) when a simple pol
and maybe a sat boost in ACR would have done the job....

Perhaps, perhaps, but you didn't have a CP with you, and I don't believe
a sat boost in ACR would have helped much.
...and not really that much trouble. I kind of enjoy noodling about with
all the various goodies to see where it leads me.
After all, now that I am retired and have the social life of a stump,
what else am I going to do? ;-)

Take over the SI?



--
"I was gratified to be able to answer promptly, and I did.
I said I didn't know."
-Samuel Clemens.

On 31/03/2012 9:29 a.m., Alan Browne wrote:
On 2012-03-28 06:51 , Me wrote:

On 27/03/2012 10:43 a.m., Alan Browne wrote:
On 2012-03-25 18:32 , Me wrote:
On 26/03/2012 11:03 a.m., Alan Browne wrote:

Image with the two leaves.

http://www.dropbox.com/gallery/62816810/1/P?h=8aceac

Because the reflected sky is both out of focus, and /reasonably/ even,
I'd give it a better than 50:50 chance that photo can be post-processed
to achieve damned close to what you probably hoped for (if you are a
bit
like me anyway - trying to replicate what the mind perceives, which may
not be exactly what the lens captures).
If you want to post a decent sized sample, I'd give it a go and re-post
my attempt.

The way to do what I wanted was to have the pol on.

Full size (and uncropped) raw he
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/62816810/Lor...20325_0001.dng

Warning: 20.5 MB (right click and DL - don't click on the link).


Ok - so I don't work with dng or adobe stuff generally - if I can
avoid it.
So converted from dng to tiff.
slight rotate (I found the white stone at top distracting), this also

When I first showed it I cropped that out - mostly to increase the two
leaves in proportion to the overall image.

Yes, but there's a DOF problem with the leaves not being entirely in
focus if it's cropped tightly and the intent was to print large.

crops a bit tighter.
selective contrast/levels to kill reflection using upoints.
selective feathered (exclude leaves) levels and gradient blend (kill
reflections more)
selective feathered (include leaves) wide radius high pass filter
oval feathered selection to create vignetting effect.
http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=htwrxs&s=5
Not sure about overall colour / levels as I was playing with the image
with my laptop - not using my calibrated system.
Can upload the full size tiff or jpeg if you want it.

No thanks. I don't like your results much. The 'duck did very well I
think with his 2nd (of 3).


Fair enough. My attempt was to eliminate the reflection, not to make
the image look better.