Processing raw images exercise for May 2012: Ngorongoro landscape

[Roger Clark]

This month's raw processing exercise is a landscape image with a lot of potential of Ngrorongoro crater from Hilary Hann.

So show us your best on what you can do with this image. As with all images, BPN guidelines apply, so you will need to process the image and create a jpeg not more than 1024 pixel wide to show your work. The photographer retains all rights, so this exercise is only for posting on BPN unless you get written permission from the photographer for other uses. All posted examples need an explanation of what you did. The more detail you can give, the better, as it can help others understand better the processing steps. Examples are in the other raw processing threads (to which you may still contribute).

The raw image (a dng file) is here:
http://www.clarkvision.com/bpnraw/Ngorongoro_Hilary_Hann20120109_8760.dng

Roger

 

[David Kettings]

Hello Roger, could I ask about posting my version of the above image with my amateur attempt of editing. I am currently only registered as a user and not a member .

Many thanks
David Kettings

 

[Roger Clark]

Hello Roger, could I ask about posting my version of the above image with my amateur attempt of editing. I am currently only registered as a user and not a member .

Many thanks
David Kettings

Hi David,
You'll need to post the image on a web site and then include the link to the image in your post here. Alternatively, you could send me your result (at the BPN max size of 800 x 1024 pixels and no more than 250 KBytes) along with your processing flow, and I'll post it for you.

Roger

 

[David Kettings]

I have been learning photoshop over the last few months. With this image that has been posted I thought I would give it a go to trial my learning curve.
The image is on flikr link:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/26441221@N06/7213451956/in/photostream

What I did was: opened the image and saved to Tiff.
I noticed several dust spots and cloned those out on the original layer.
Saved that as the base layer.
Created another layer from the layers pallete with the intention of lightening the trees at the lower half of the frame.
Using quick selection tool, grabbed that portion and set the refinement to radius 1.0, Contrast 0. radius of 3 feathered to 225.
Then created a new CURVES adjustment layer from the layers pallette. Using an input of 65 and raised it to 110.
Next, I felt the crater was the key in the scene and wanted to empahasise its presence. I had tried selections etc to enhance in someway but decided I would choose GRADIENTS. So I made another layer, named it Gradient crater. Then I set the layer mode to Screen. Then added a layer mask and applied a Gradient from the tools pallette of a Linear gradient and a Black to White transition to that mask.
I then just wanted to add some more colour to the left side of the photo in the sky above the mountain peak, so I applied the Sponge tool set at 50% on a new layer. I gave it an even sweep across where I felt would enhance but not outdo the crater.
The next thing I did was flattened the image and gave it a medium contrast boost with some minor adjustment to taste using curves.
Finally I sharpened it using Unsharp Mask of Radius 0.8 and only used an Amount 50%. I didnt want to oversharpen as the image has quite a soft appeal to it.
I certainly think I can learn more from this exercise as I feel there is still more that one could do to the image.
Many thanks

David Kettings
(Davidjk-im49plus)

 

[Dave Curtis]

David your image is still set to 'private' on Flickr so it does not open. :-(

 

[David Kettings]

OOps. sorry have now fixed.

Cheers

David

 

[Dave Curtis]

Thanks David,

I like the increased feeling of depth in your image.

Dave

 

[David Kettings]

Thanks Dave. The limitations of working on a laptop in different lighting is a little bit of a pain, so I am hoping the editing has produced what I hoped.

David Kettings

 

[Ken Kovak]

This is my first try at one of these exercises. I processed in LR4 and then in Nik Software Viveza 2. I will show the info from each.

 

[Ken Kovak]

Here is the LR4 Develop Panel.

 

[Ken Kovak]

Here are the two Viveza panels. The one on the left is for the sky. I used 3 linked control points for the sky. The second panel is for the lower right to add some brightness and depth to the foreground greenery.

 

[David Kettings]

Hello Roger, I am looking forward to your processing of this image. I would like to see other options and improvements you would do.

Cheers

David

 

[John Chardine]

This is a fun one. Beautiful image to start with but it was crying out IMO for some HDR treatment as Ken has done too. I lightened the shadow areas an applied and gradient to darken the sky in ACR, which is the best place to do this because you are working on the raw data. In Photoshop I applied a Detail Extractor in NIK Color Efex (first preset), at a opacity of 30%, so pretty mild. I decided there was not enough of interest in the upper portion of the sky so I cropped that out. I upped the saturation a little in LAB colour and at the same time warmed up the image a little. A final sharpen after resampling and there you have it.

 

[Jerry van Dijk]

First: beautiful image, Hillary!
I followed a more regular approach. First I cropped the image, then I adjusted the WB with Temp of 5900 and tint 0. I added 0.1 exposure and 22 fill light to brighten up the FG. Added a little contrast and lots of clarity (42). Used vibrance +19 to get some more color. I increased the saturation of the oranges with +6 to get some more color in the sky. I used the grad filter to add slightly more contrast and lots (100) of clarity on the sky to bring out the details in the clouds.
Removed noise and sharpened, using radios 1.0 and detail 34, using masking to not increase noise in parts of the image without details. I had some trouble getting the small details to look nice and sharp, because the focus point seems to be on those front bright green leafs. I may have focussed on the big tree or even a bit further away.
I took the image to PS CS5 to remove some dust spots with the cloning tool, used USM to add some more sharpness and saved for web.

 

[Linwood Ferguson]

EDIT: I'm sorry, I see this was for May, it was at the top and I did not read carefully. Since I'm not sure how to actually delete a post am going to leave it, but apologies for continuing an older thread.

I have never posted here so I hope this is within the guidelines. I processed this (as one photo) with SNS-HDR. I had just bought it for learning some HDR processing, and found for sky/landscape shots I liked its tone mapping. It's a nice blend between realistic and some drama.

This was done by the "night" preset in SNS-HDR, deepening the blue and orange a bit, add a bit of sharpening. Out of SNS as a TIF it had horrible dust spots, so I took those out with Photoshop's healing brush but otherwise did not change tone with photoshop (other than to convert to sRGB for posting). I'm torn over whether to crop out much of the sky as others have done, but since others have, I'll be contrarian and leave it in - with the tone mapped in constrast and structure it catches the eye (maybe even too much).

 

[Roger Clark]

EDIT: I'm sorry, I see this was for May, it was at the top and I did not read carefully. Since I'm not sure how to actually delete a post am going to leave it, but apologies for continuing an older thread.

Hello Linwood,

There is no time limit on any of the raw processing threads. Everyone is welcome to contribute to all the raw processing threads at any time. I am late in getting up the June example because of some heavy travel. So thank you for posting and I am glad you did not find a way to delete it. Very interesting result. Actually waayyy cool!

I would hope that if someone finds a new method, they might demonstrate it on some of the raw images in these threads, regardless of when the thread was started.

Roger

 

[Ed Cordes]

Here is my try at this. In ACR I used the following: WB Daylight, Exposure +0.25, Recovery and Fill 0, Blacks +4, Bright +14, Contrast +25, Clarity 0, Vibrance +60, Sat +12. I then went to PS and cleaned up a lot of dust. Then did a shadows Highlight adjustment. Then I created a Sat layer and used +54 but used a 30% eraser on all non sky and the blue part of the sky on the right. I then dodged the sky on the right using a shadow brush. Then I created a brightness Contrast layer and applied brightness -7 and contrast + 53, but using the 100% eraser erased all but the far rim of the crater resulting in this layer only affecting the appearance of the mountains of the crater rim. I then sharpened with PK sharpener with a medium edge 1.

Hope you like it.

 

[John Chardine]

Hi Ed- Your repost is stunning. However, I know it doesn't resemble the original scene because of the saturation. I see this a lot in landscape images- over-saturation to make an impact. Why is it that landscape photographers feel the need to do this?

(Hold on while I seek some cover for the flack!)

 

[Roger Clark]

Hi Ed- Your repost is stunning. However, I know it doesn't resemble the original scene because of the saturation. I see this a lot in landscape images- over-saturation to make an impact. Why is it that landscape photographers feel the need to do this?

Because we really love that Velvia look:w3

Ed, Very impressive!

Roger

 

[Ed Cordes]

Thanks for the comments on my repost John and Roger. To answer the question on saturation I guess I wanted to reproduce the scene as I remember my visit to "The Crater". While this image is not mine, my mind has wonderful memories of the location and the mood/emotion the location evokes in me. Hilary's image had much of this feeling subdued in the original RAW file (no criticism intended). I wanted to try to bring out as much of this emotion as possible.

So, I guess this is also a reflection of other discussions on this forum. Should we process our images to reflect what we actually see or to present the "vision" of what the scene stimulates our inner self to see before us. Obviously I try to present the artistic, emotional aspects of the image and location.

I processed this image this without adding anything that wasn't already recorded by camera's sensors. I simply emphasized specific aspects of the sensor's information to convey my vision. Some will like it some won't. The important thing is that I like it.

Thanks again for your input.