Post Processing Challenge #1 The Mayor's Car

Welcome to the first post processing challenge which will run until Tuesday March 8th, 18:00 UK time. I will then select my favourite entry and assist that person to set up the next challenge.

This photo was taken in a village destroyed in the second world war and left untouched since as a monument. This was the car belonging to the village mayor.




Click the following files for the download page and then click on the download button:

1600 pixel wide JPEG, 1.4Mb

Full sized JPEG, 8.4 Mb

Full sized raw file, DNG format, 14 Mb

I think is a photo that suits a variety of different looks and I don't have any preconception as to what the finished article should look like.

Please post your entry to this thread together with a brief outline of the processing technique.

I hope this is a good opportunity for us to learn from each other and the emphasis is on participation rather than competition.

Should anyone wish to use their processed version of the image elsewhere then that is fine, provided that prior consent is requested and it is not used for commercial gain.

Please reserve this thread for photos only and post any discussion items or comments to this thread

I'll have a go then.

[IMG]http://i679.photobucket.com/albums/vv154/bforbes/CMQ_0242BF.jpg[/IMG]

Started with the raw file. Adjusted Colour Balance, Brightness, contrast, Clarity, Sharpen, Noise Reduction.
Opened in Elements 9. Straighten, Vertical Perspective crop to suit, clone out black dots on wire, Darken highlights.

Raw file into Lightroom ... cropped and straightened to suit, applied auto and punch presets.
Saved into PS9 and converted to B&W, run through Topaz 4 and then sharpening applied.

[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v188/Sockpuppetuk/CMQ_0242.jpg[/IMG]

My effort, processed only in Lightroom 3.3, uploaded into Picassa Web Albums.




Cropped, straightened, B&W, added vignetting and film grain effects, tweaked contrast, brightness, sharpening etc. to give it an old world look.

Another effort: converted RAW, straightened and cropped to taste, b+w conversion, added local contrast, resize and sharpen.

[IMG]http://i140.photobucket.com/albums/r35/digitalCG/CMQ_0242.jpg[/IMG]

Aperture to straighten, crop, adjust white balance, increase definition, adjust levels, reduce magenta saturation, edge sharpen and a little vignette.
PhotoShop Elements to distort, ( get most of the verticals straight ), crop a bit more, clone out dust spots in the sky, a little unsharp mask, and apply a black border.

HDR in Photomatrix pro, Then exported to CS5 curves and dodged also selective de-saturation, then sharpened.

Loaded into camera RAW with a couple of minor adjustments, changed to greyscale and one of the presets in duotone within CS4 used. Loaded that image into photmatix light and then used ACDSee3 to age the image slightly. After that a crop and sharpen. I only have CS4 as a demo at the moment as I'm still trying to work out what I want to use long term.

[IMG]http://i121.photobucket.com/albums/o212/kushtibucket/CarAgain.jpg[/IMG]

Not very creative, but an attempt to reproduce what the photographer might have thought he saw ..........




* PSE8/ACR 6.2 used to process DNG and blend 3 exposures -1,0,+1 (sort of mini-HDR)
* PT lens used to correct verticals a bit
* Clone out dust spot and a bit of telephone wire
* Cropped
* Brightness upped by +25 and contrast by +20
* High pass & USM (80,0.3) sharpening

Andrew

I notice the Photomatix route has struck a few of us and I think this image needs it to perk it up. I would have used an ultra-wide lens to make the car much more dominant. So I've used Transform>Distort instead to make it more surreal and then through Photomatix done tone mapping, choosing the Painterly preset.
[IMG]http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff250/johnriley1uk/PPChallenge1JohnRiley.jpg[/IMG]
This was done from the 800px wide image - I'm not convinced we need the full sized files to show what we need to on the web.

My effort
Used the smaller image straightened in picassa and then used pse7 to crop and played with layers to alter levels contrast and hue etc and then curves to alter colour and then auto sharpen.

[IMG]http://i227.photobucket.com/albums/dd72/geordie2831/CMQ_0242-3_edited-1-1.jpg[/IMG]

Always meant to visit that village maybe this summer

[IMG]http://i1098.photobucket.com/albums/g370/jimbo_609/CMQ_0242-3copycopy.jpg[/IMG]

Open jpeg file in PSE9. Filter to correct camera distortion. Custom fine rotate and crop.

Run High Impact action, convert to B&W.

Add vignette and dodge and burn

Final crop

that car needed a little love. That is all.

(edit: Stole a car, cut paste, levels adjustments, applied guasian blur, soft mode blend, then sepia toned.)

RAW into Lightroom 3, brightness, crop, verticals, tonal contrast in Color Efex, back to LR3 for BW conversion and vignette.

[IMG]http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/thoughton/CMQ_0242-Edit.jpg[/IMG]

Remembrance Day at Oradour

[IMG]http://i772.photobucket.com/albums/yy9/i_berg/Pentax%20User%20Forum%20Images/CMQ_0242R.jpg[/IMG]

Raw into LR 3.3.

Crop

Clone out one splodge in sky, the wires and a plaque in the BG

Adjust exposure, recovery, fill light, blacks, contrast, clarity, vibrance, saturation, tone curve, split toning, sharpening

Add grain and vignette

Correct distortions manually in Lens module

Change profile to 'Embedded', tweak primary colours

Output to Irfanview, resample / resize and save for up-load.

Edit - change to title - 1.11 (as per EXIF date) is when we celebrate Remembrance Day