The before and after thread

Eric

Eric

Mama's lil stinker
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We all play with post processing so I thought I would start a thread where we can show some before and after shots.

This is a goth looking church in SF, looks 3D game like but that was sort of the goal, as much as making it appear at night as well. All done in LRC.

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I'm a fairly minimal editor most of the time. WB/contrast/exposure fix. This image I pushed a little harder because I don't like the yellowness of spring greens and the whole image seemed kind of flat SOOC. I also wasn't a fan of the dead branches in the foreground, and I figure since they are dead, they'll eventually fall off anyway, so no reason not to clone them out.

i-qHzKvCn-X3.jpg


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mollyc said:
I'm a fairly minimal editor most of the time. WB/contrast/exposure fix. This image I pushed a little harder because I don't like the yellowness of spring greens and the whole image seemed kind of flat SOOC. I also wasn't a fan of the dead branches in the foreground, and I figure since they are dead, they'll eventually fall off anyway, so no reason not to clone them out.

i-qHzKvCn-X3.jpg


i-Bx2p4H6-X3.jpg
Click to expand...
Great job here, it really makes a difference that you were able to bring the bright sky down so the clouds stand out.
 
Eric said:
Great job here, it really makes a difference that you were able to bring the bright sky down so the clouds stand out.
Click to expand...
I usually try to expose for the highlights when possible; modern digital cameras have so much information in the shadows that there's no reason not to underexpose a tiny bit if necessary. 🙂
 
I was going to do a joke post with a before and after of my ratty dog and a wolf, but I‘m running out of options and I can’t afford to banned from here.
 
Early-morning views -- from the front lawn outside the Cameron Recreational Centre, across the street to Lougheed Mall, and surrounding area --- "what a differenc a (day) morning made" (thanks to Dinah Washington for that!!) -- 14 Jan/22 (the 'norm') and then 22 Jan/22 (the colourful one.

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This was my POTD today. I assume this is an Asian ladybug because he was quite orange IRL, but I wanted a red ladybug. After doing some contrast/exposure tweaks, I used an adjustment brush in LR to adjust the color of the ladybug more red; I also cropped it so he is on the ROT and then I added a grain layer in PS for a film look.

i-M3NTD64-X3.jpg


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mollyc said:
This was my POTD today. I assume this is an Asian ladybug because he was quite orange IRL, but I wanted a red ladybug. After doing some contrast/exposure tweaks, I used an adjustment brush in LR to adjust the color of the ladybug more red; I also cropped it so he is on the ROT and then I added a grain layer in PS for a film look.

i-M3NTD64-X3.jpg


i-fvjD9Z8-X3.jpg
Click to expand...

Such an adorable little critter!
 
Christmas time in the city, I deliberately underexpose most of my night shots so this is what it looked like coming out of the camera in RAW. I added a few radial gradient masks and brought up the exposure a bit.

Before:
Greenshot 2022-06-13 09.40.01.png


After:
Greenshot 2022-06-13 09.40.20.png
 
Eric said:
Christmas time in the city, I deliberately underexpose most of my night shots so this is what it looked like coming out of the camera in RAW. I added a few radial gradient masks and brought up the exposure a bit.

Before:
View attachment 14900

After:
View attachment 14901
Click to expand...

Eric, while the final result that you produced by editing is nice, I actually think that the original version has the promise and potential of a rather powerful and interesting impact if you were to lower the exposure even more, get rid of the buildings and lights coming from them, etc., so that in the end you'd have just the four small lighted trees and one large one glowing in the darkness, plus the lighting cast on the patio from the large tree, and nothing else to detract from them. Minimal, dramatic effect....Just my thoughts, of course.
 
Punching up a hazy photo of Mt Shasta, this is on the extreme side but that's what I was going for. A lot of manual work with masks to create the lighting effects, 99% of it was done in LRC, the only exception is the sky replacement done in PS.

Greenshot 2023-03-16 09.06.35.png


final.png
 
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