Post Processing Challenge #3: Nemrut Crater

As a lot of you know, I take quite a lot of aerial shots at work. Processing them is quite difficult, as there is often haze, causing a limited dynamic range. As I am shooting through about half an inch of laminated glass, there is also sometimes distortion, reflections and prismatic effects, although I think this picture is fairly "clean" in that respect. I am always looking to improve my technique in processing these pictures, and look forward to seeing other people's methods!

I took this shot a few weeks ago. It is of the Nemrut Crater in Eastern Turkey. The pic is straight from the camera, no processing at all, using AWB, which doesn't work very well on aerial shots, and always needs adjusting. I've not had much luck with Jpegs, I think there's too much processing needed for them, but there's links here to both the DNG file (I don't use PEF) and a Jpeg converted straight from the RAW with no processing.

DNG link

JPEGlink

The original file:



I look forward to seeing your entries, and here's hoping for a few more than the last one!

Closing date 7pm UK time Tuesday 18/04/11.

My effort:

[IMG]http://i807.photobucket.com/albums/yy358/thoughton/IMGP77082.jpg[/IMG]

Applied PHDark&LightBW preset in Lightroom, then reduced clarity, sharpening and noise reduction. Left a touch of beige. Cropped to a 16:9 'widescreen' ratio.

Tim and Peter, a quick rundown of what you did if poss?

Whoops sorry! Levels adjustment for the haziness/colour, colour temperature and tint adjustments until it looked realistic to my eye, slight rotation, crop, highlight recovery, minor sharpening.

Re-posted with PP details.




Processed entirely in Lightroom 3.3.

Started with Auto Tone, set a more realistic WB, tweaked contrast, clarity, vibrance, saturation, black clipping, highlight recovery, increased aqua saturation, cropped. Saved as JPG sharpened for screen viewing, uploaded to Picasa web albums and shared from there. The image has darkened somewhat having gone through the Picasa stage.

PS: I think it's worth posting a copy of your original image as well as the links in the initial topic so that those who might not want to take part can at least see what we've had to work with.

Oh I also increased the blacks quite a lot.

My go

[IMG]http://i227.photobucket.com/albums/dd72/geordie2831/IMGP7708copy.jpg[/IMG]

with the jpeg
pse7
enhance
auto levels
adjust in curves
slight sharpen
layers
a bit of contrast
and knock back the saturation


I think

Here is my attempt:

[IMG]http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t5/Prieni/Pentax%20user/Nemrutcrater.jpg[/IMG]
In SilkyPix changed WB, Gamma, black level, contrast and contrast centre, CA. Then output as TIF. TIF image loaded in PS. Export as 8-bit TIF, in Corel PhotoPaint applied local equalisation and imported that as another layer on top in Photoshop, layer mode soft light, 25% opacity.
Curves adjustment layer (mainly pulling down the dark bits a little further), gradient layer from a very dark yellow to transparent for the top portion, layer mode soft light, 49% opacity.
Another curves layer for the top portion again and a colour balance layer on top to adjust some discolouration in the top portion (selected by the layer mask).
Converted to sRGB, re-sized, sharpened.

Prieni

This is mine
[IMG]http://i941.photobucket.com/albums/ad254/weldingblues/Photo%20for%20comments%202011/Nemrut.jpg[/IMG]

Used PSE8 to create an old monochrome type shot;
Auto colour, auto levels
Fill layer (hue) adjusted shadows, highlights & mid-tone
Levels adjust
Then a new layer for noise and vignette

Apologies for the late posting, I haver just got off a 16 hr flight to Houston! Thanks to all who entered, it was very interesting to see some different takes on processing this shot.
A quick run-down of my thoughts on each entry.

Mannesty: I like this version, the colours look right, but I feel it could be a bit brighter, especially the snow.

Thoughton: You've got the WB just right, the snow looks nice and bright without being burned out, and the darker patch bottom left has some nice detail in it. This actually looks very similar to a version I did of this shot.

Dr Orloff: Nice to see a mono version of the picture, but overall it is very dark, with no detail at all in the botton left.

geordie01: Good detail, but the WB does not look quite right, there is a reddish tinge over the whole picture.

Prieni: You have managed to get more detail out of the picture than I thought was there. The method you used seems quite complicated, and I don't have Silkypix or CorelPaint, but maybe I will have to give them a try! The picture also looks very sharp.

CoDa: Another mono, with a bit more detail than Dr orloff's version, but I am not overly keen on the amount of noise in the picture.

Thanks for entering your versions, it has been both interesting and informative! I will put my top three here, but all the have merit, and it is very interesting to see different takes on the same image.

So, in reverse order:
3rd favourite Mannesty
2nd fvourite Thoughton,

and the winner: Prieni.

So, over to you Prieni, and hopefully you can provide a shot that attracts a few more entries than mine!!

First time lucky...

Thanks ag!
Right now I'm sitting in a workshop in Venice and I will have to go through some RAWs when I'm back on Sunday. So sit tight until Easter-Sunday...

Enjoyed seeing the different versions, good fun and well done everybody!

Prieni