Retouch and Revisit

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Taken in a place with no name (See more photos or videos here)

This is an image processed for a photo contest at Camera Porn.net, a great photo blog (and NO, it's not porn site). Check it out here.

Read my comments on what I did below.

Photo by : Ryan Goodman

Comments

billhurlburt says:

I find this type of assignment very difficult, in that I want to create a final image that is unique however I cant help but be inspired and possibly even influenced by the other submissions, they are all excellent, great job to all who entered. With that said, my intent is to be "original " and create an image that is representative of my photographic style (even tough I did not take the photo).

So here’s what I did.

I started by using CaymanFuelDepot-2EV, I found that this provided me with the most detail, especially in the water. This was due in part to the fact that is was shot with a shutter speed of 1/15 sec. the other images had longer exposures.

Here is what it looked like right out of ARC.

CaymanFuelDepot-2EV - Directly from ACR

I then ran my typical workflow on the image -- adjusted color balance, saturation, luminosity, applied a series of custom curves and I ended up with the photo below.  

CaymanFuelDepot-2EV - Post Processing Photoshop

This was an okay start but there was still a lot to do. The darks and shadows were really muddy, especially within the rocks and water, in fact the water began to look odd, like it had been run through some serious High Pass Filter ( but at the same time, it provided me with more detail than the longer exposures). To to take care of these issues, I took the CaymanFuelDepot2EV and ran the same processing on this file that I had on the -2EV image - so I ended up with a file that had properly exposed darks and shadows ( and blown out midtones and highlights ) see the image below.

CaymanFuelDepot2EV - Post Processing Photoshop

I then added this as a separate layer and then blended the 2 together using a layer mask so I could regain that rock detail and start to address the funky looking water. I repeated this with the 0EV file too, to selectively resolve other problem areas.

I then added two additional adjustment layers (with different curves and saturation) to the water and blended these with a series of layer masks to give the water a nice sense of motion, color and pop.

I then dodged and burned some other areas, eg: the gas tanks and sky using a soft-light Neutral color 50% gray layer.

I touched up some serious blemishes and spots in the image and resolved some modeling that had occurred as a result of processing in the upper left side of the sky.

Lastly I applied some selective sharpening to the photo especially the rocks and tanks.

And, here you go...View On Black
Posted 4 months ago. ( permalink )

phillyDesignr says:

cool man!
Posted 2 months ago. ( permalink )

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Additional Information

Taken with a Canon EOS 30D.
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Taken on November 3, 2006

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