Where does post processing end and art techniques start?
Posted: Thu Jun 30, 2016 3:13 pm
I promised Yildiz (Aster) I would put up something on my post processing (or art technique) methods. Here goes.
The camera club I belong to has a monthly set subject. For one of these I needed an image of an abandoned dwelling. I had previously taken a number of shots of just such a ruin, but most had other people in the image. Also, the shots were taken at about 13:30 on a bright day - not ideal. Anyway, I chose an image with a reasonable composition and no evidence of spectators, although my vehicle can be seen in the background.
I started with the raw file that had previously been imported into LR.
In LR I did the following:
-Enabled the lens profile.
-Removed the chromatic aberration
-Exported it into CS2 as 16-bit TIF file in ProPhotoRGB colour space.
This is a copy of the file in question:
In CS2 I did the following:
-Flipped the image horizontally to improve composition.
-Replaced the sky with something more interesting from my collection of sky images. This required a mask of the horizon/upper portion of ruin (made using Topaz Remask 3). Later on this mask was adjusted slightly to get rid of sharpening artefacts.
-Cloned out the vehicle utilising the bush on the other side of the ruin.
-Distorted bottom left corner so that road now comes out of that corner.
-Used Tony Kuiper's Triple Play luminosity mask actions to improve local contrasts.
-To bring the main ruin out from the background it was necessary to adjust the values of the ruin's various walls. This required a mask of the ruin, and then some masks of parts of the ruin.
-To enhance the brickwork, made a "pen & ink" sketch layer, changed blending mode to multiply, and then used a mask to selectively darken the mortar in places.
-Used Topaz ReStyle to shift the colours. Three different ReStyle settings were used, one for the sky, one for the ground, and the last for the ruin itself. The previously made masks (usually stored as alpha channels) were used to combine the three layers.
-Applied some minor adjustments using the clone tool, burn tool, hue/saturation layer, brightness/contrast layer, etc.
-Sharpened the topmost summary layer prior to storage.
-Saved the various layers in a PSD file for possible later changes.
-Flattened the image and saved as a TIF file in LR.
Below is the resultant image:
The camera club I belong to has a monthly set subject. For one of these I needed an image of an abandoned dwelling. I had previously taken a number of shots of just such a ruin, but most had other people in the image. Also, the shots were taken at about 13:30 on a bright day - not ideal. Anyway, I chose an image with a reasonable composition and no evidence of spectators, although my vehicle can be seen in the background.
I started with the raw file that had previously been imported into LR.
In LR I did the following:
-Enabled the lens profile.
-Removed the chromatic aberration
-Exported it into CS2 as 16-bit TIF file in ProPhotoRGB colour space.
This is a copy of the file in question:
In CS2 I did the following:
-Flipped the image horizontally to improve composition.
-Replaced the sky with something more interesting from my collection of sky images. This required a mask of the horizon/upper portion of ruin (made using Topaz Remask 3). Later on this mask was adjusted slightly to get rid of sharpening artefacts.
-Cloned out the vehicle utilising the bush on the other side of the ruin.
-Distorted bottom left corner so that road now comes out of that corner.
-Used Tony Kuiper's Triple Play luminosity mask actions to improve local contrasts.
-To bring the main ruin out from the background it was necessary to adjust the values of the ruin's various walls. This required a mask of the ruin, and then some masks of parts of the ruin.
-To enhance the brickwork, made a "pen & ink" sketch layer, changed blending mode to multiply, and then used a mask to selectively darken the mortar in places.
-Used Topaz ReStyle to shift the colours. Three different ReStyle settings were used, one for the sky, one for the ground, and the last for the ruin itself. The previously made masks (usually stored as alpha channels) were used to combine the three layers.
-Applied some minor adjustments using the clone tool, burn tool, hue/saturation layer, brightness/contrast layer, etc.
-Sharpened the topmost summary layer prior to storage.
-Saved the various layers in a PSD file for possible later changes.
-Flattened the image and saved as a TIF file in LR.
Below is the resultant image: