RAW challenge #3

OK folks, after many gremlins & obstacles I'm posting this next round of the RAW challenge here.

Rules

1. You can edit this as much as you see fit - no holds barred, and post an 800x600 max resolution jpg into this thread.

2. You can composite other images of your choosing to enhance the shot if you think its necessary.

3. Competition closes Sun 24th may at midday.

I've chosen a photo that holds some appeal to me, but I've not been able to make a pleasing image from it. So I'm letting you lot show me the way forward. It's also a different type of image from the previous 2 challenges & variety is the spice of life as they say.

DEFAULT CONVERSION

[IMG]http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q105/RR76/pentaxuserraw3.jpg[/IMG]

LINK to RAW file (compressed DNG format)
Thanks to Brian for hosting the RAW file on his server.

Have fun all, Bob

A very fast one, it had the same postprocessing as my windmill photo.
[IMG]http://i282.photobucket.com/albums/kk244/Anvh/pentaxuserraw3.jpg[/IMG]
90% of the effect done in Lightroom 2.3
10% in PS CS4 to enhance the effect and get it ready for the web.
I was thinking about cropping so that you end up with a piece of the sky and the monument/art thing but didn't do it in the end, it's harder to do the whole photo then a small piece of the sky.

edit: just see it now how vibrand it is

My take, sorry I don't like fish eye photos.

[IMG]http://i453.photobucket.com/albums/qq253/jackitec/Image1.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i493.photobucket.com/albums/rr298/lime501/pentaxuserraw3.jpg[/IMG]

Silkypix with Digital Shift and numerous other adjustments

[IMG]http://img35.imageshack.us/img35/6028/pentaxuserraw3.jpg[/IMG]

UFRaw + Gimp. UFRaw: a bit of exposure decrease, curves. Gimp: bit more curves, crop, save.

I was tempted to do one entitled "Obese City"! But then I spotted the people...

[IMG]http://i696.photobucket.com/albums/vv328/MGraley/pentaxuserraw3fieldblur.jpg[/IMG]

I dunno...

Ok, a dissappointing number of entries after the last comp produced so many.
I hope I haven't managed to single-handedly kill off this fledgling competition

Just a quick comment on each from me.

Anvh: I'm guessing you tonemapped this one as you've produced alot of detail in the shadow areas. Unfortunately the blues seem a little posterized & the telltale halo around the tower is evident. Nice vibrant image though.

jackitec: I like the straight sides to the tower in your version, the correction of the barrel distortion has led to an increase in perspective distortion though, which I find less pleasing. But on the plus side it does make me look thinner !! A good side-effect of the corrected distortion is that you've cropped off the blown highlights to the left.

iceblinker: You've one a very nice job on the Raw conversion, nice tones & plenty of detail brought out in the shallower shadow areas. A small crop has got rid of some of the blown highlights, but those that remain still draw the eye. I'd have liked to have seen a little more saturation but overall a good job.

piotro: You've gone for a tight crop here which doesn't work for me, the edges of the tower are just out of frame & my eye follows the line down & out of frame which doesn't hold the attention long enough. Tones are rich but the image seems a little flat & doesn't pop at all.

MGraley: A very original take on the image. The Blur vignette has isolated the subject well & brought it out from the background, unfortunately as it has blurred the edged of the tower also it does look unnatural. If you had managed to blur the foreground & background but keep the tower sharp (to appear as tight DOF) this would have been a great image.. The image isn't straight either, ok there aren't any straigh lines to go off but it seems to have a slight tilt to it. Great idea, had it been a little more polished, it would have been unbeatable.

kemp: An even closer crop, very creative as it highlights the great architecture, reflected & distorted by the mirrored tower. The processing which has led to different tones of blue in the tower & background is great, but it has led to a blown area of cloud which is just too off-putting for me.

Winner: iceblinker, I would have liked to have seen a slightly more imaginative crop, but as an exercise in getting the best detail from a RAW file, iceblinker has shown us the way. A well deserved win & over to you iceblinker to provide the next RAW for us to play with. I also hope the participation will increase once more in the next RAW challenge. Thanks to all who entered.

Bob

Congratz Pete, they were all different and nice to look at to behonest.

About my image, it was all done in lightroom 2.3 you have the same options as Adobe Raw converter 5.3 if you don't know lightroom.
I didn't had the option to tonemap so couldn't do that, all was done within a raw converter so I can putt the settings back as the original and get the same image back.
I simply wanted to go full out here with the possibilities off RAW and that was what I did.
I would have wanted to pull the blue back a bit but I already posted it.

What!? I thought this comp closed later today! I didn't get chance to add an entry! ... anywho, well done to iceblinker, if you need me to host the file again, just let me know.

Thank you Bob. I wasn't expecting to win, if "winning" is what I've done I will set the next challenge as soon as I've decided on an image.

Thanks isdky for the offer of hosting. I'll take you up on that.

Regarding the saturation in my entry: I deliberately toned down the orange/red/brown quite a lot in an attempt to make the building on the right less distracting. The blues are maybe a bit too subdued as well though. I also tried to reduce the harshness in the highlights by using Silkypix's highlight controller and also a custom tone curve.

isdky, sorry. Competition was posted as closing at midday. I didn't judge until past 16:00 so there was a window for latecomers.

Thanks for offering to host the RAWs for this comp.


I hope I didn't do too bad a job of commenting & I look forward to playing with iceblinkers RAW on the next rainy day

You did a great job commenting RR don't worry about that

I've worked out how to host myself. Challenge #4 to be set shortly.