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pfm theme: 'tarting-up a photo..' #02

Straightened up the horizon, took out the red blob, darkened the sky with a mask, deepened the blacks to make the road seem less bland, added some 'clarity' and 'dehaze' and a touch more vibrance in Lightroom, sharpened to whole image a touch but denoised the sky. Cropped to get the roadway more central and added a small amount of post crop vignette.

53555709652_8ebe4735c5_o.jpg
 
OK my attempt

As mentioned above, I wasn't a fan of the sky and I felt the image benefited from a significant crop, in my case a 65:24 (cinema ratio). This gives much more focus to the stones and the cottage in the background (IMO). I also:-

Gave a little twist to straighten things up.
Removed the thin man-made post, cone, and one of the long blades in the foreground
Increased the shadows a smidge and graduated the sky a little.

The image is quite noisy, and any major lifting of exposure/shadows shows a dramatic increase in noise, and I felt (after trying) that removing the noise caused excessive softening especially of the foreground grass.

I also did not mess with the colours, it was all too easy to play with sliders and edge up with a severe 1970's postcard look! Its a gentle scene, it needs to remain that way.


Tarting Up A Photo #2 - Martin Clark by David Yeoman, on Flickr
 
MartinC said:
Straightened up the horizon, took out the red blob, darkened the sky with a mask, deepened the blacks to make the road seem less bland, added some 'clarity' and 'dehaze' and a touch more vibrance in Lightroom, sharpened to whole image a touch but denoised the sky. Cropped to get the roadway more central and added a small amount of post crop vignette.

53555709652_8ebe4735c5_o.jpg
Click to expand...
Yes, leaving more of the sky gives it a bit more context.đź‘Ť
Also like @Mr Perceptive idea to remove that pole and leave field to the standing stones.
Its on the tip of my memory that I know where this place is.... @martin clark - Where is this!
 
So time for a change of scene by waving a magic wand to remove objects using some content-aware fill. There are now no distractions in the foreground.

UiP6DdM.jpg


Spot the difference...
 
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cosimoss said:
So time for a change of scene by waving a magic wand to remove objects using some content-aware fill. There are now no distractions in the foreground.

EMVsBNx.jpg


Spot the difference...
Click to expand...

Unless I'm mistaken, the most conspicuous of the foreground distractions is/was an ancient menhir, and thus a vital component of the composition.
 
Marchbanks said:
I've just returned from a presentation by the creative team at Marchbanks Foster Arup where they unveiled this inspiring interpretation...

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Click to expand...
Ah yes, that's the sustainable housing development proposal using blended brownfield land. Prices start from ÂŁ600,000. Glasgow only 120 miles by road.
 
alanbeeb said:
Its on the tip of my memory that I know where this place is.... @martin clark - Where is this!
Click to expand...

It's the view back towards the Stones of Stenness, from the causeway between the Lochs, halfway to the Ring of Brodgar; Orkney; late Sept 2003.

I was camping on the islands for a week as part of a 3-week grand tour of Scotland; visited in daylight, took better pics; re-visited because I could, and this, was for dusk one evening a couple of days later.

The sheer atmosphere, and to have two megalithic Stone Circles a short-walk apart , entirely to yourself from the golden hour into late Night ... intoxicating.

(@Big Tabs' 'full-send' version, is not inappropriate there...)
 

Menhir2 by Poopy Floopy, on Flickr

In Capture One: straightened, then I cropped taking some compositional notice of the rule of thirds and to have the verge emerging from the corner.

Turned saturation down, then made a mask for the mist and upper sky and completely desaturated that.

Got rid of fenceposts and red thing in the middfield.

Brought up the blacks in the fore to midground. Shifted the white balance in the sky down to the mist a little towards blue.

Decided the water needed more colour - violet and red, and lightened exposure slightly, and then lightened the blacks a little too.

Drew in a little lightness in the road centre to make it less uniform.

Decided the crop was so low res, hazy and grainy that I needed to make a virtue of that, so added some grain.

Added some vignette.

Exported to Photoshop. Tried if vignetting keeping the edges the same but bringing the inner up was an improvement, decided in this case it wasn't.

Added a border using the stroke tool, used a colour from within the picture. Saved as a jpg.
 
Last one from me, even softer and grainier similar process to last one but added a white gradient to the bottom third as I found the road a bit dark, removed anything that I did not like looking at. Shame the file size was not bigger......still it is interesting to seeing other peoples ideas shame Amar is not about at the moment - it would be good to see his view.



DCP_4543_oct-2003 v2 by idomy best, on Flickr
 
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