Trying to get this to look good

[Colin Southern]

Thanks Colini; now if you would only spell my surname correctly...

Jeepers Munfreeed - ya expect me to do all the work!

OOps - sorry. Couldn't find it in your profile so a did a quick Google instead, and what came up looked about right. You could always change your name!

[Colin Southern]

Getting closer?

[bnnrcn]

I'm glad that you caught Colin's spelling mistake Manfred. He keeps catching other members' mistakes. So , now he is the one who got caught

Thanks Colini; now if you would only spell my surname correctly...

[bnnrcn]

I like it very much Colin. May I ask what ortonising is ?

Getting closer?

[Colin Southern]

I'm glad that you caught Colin's spelling mistake Manfred. He keeps catching other members' mistakes. So , now he is the one who got caught

Oh I've made thousands of mistakes ...

... and that's just this week!

[Colin Southern]

I like it very much Colin. May I ask what ortonising is ?

It's an effect by Michael Orton where - in essence - a blur is added to the highlights giving them a nice "dreamy"effect.

Just Google for "Orton Effect" and I'm sure you'll get one or two (million) examples.

Some people like it, some don't. I use it occasionally.

[bnnrcn]

Colin, I use PS as you do. Does PS have such an effect? If so, where, in the filters? I like the effect.

It's an effect by Michael Orton where - in essence - a blur is added to the highlights giving them a nice "dreamy"effect.

Just Google for "Orton Effect" and I'm sure you'll get one or two (million) examples.

Some people like it, some don't. I use it occasionally.

[chauncey]

Colin, I use PS as you do. Does PS have such an effect? If so, where, in the filters?

Just Google for "Orton Effect" and I'm sure you'll get one or two (million) examples.

https://www.youtube.com/results?sear...g+orton+effect

[bnnrcn]

Thank you Boyer, there are quite a lot of videos indeed !

https://www.youtube.com/results?sear...g+orton+effect

[Colin Southern]

Colin, I use PS as you do. Does PS have such an effect? If so, where, in the filters? I like the effect.

Here's a quick and easy procedure to follow ...

http://www.naturephotographers.net/a.../dw0106-1.html

[Manfred M]

Oh I've made thousands of mistakes ...

... and that's just this week!

Colin - you are much less error prone than I am. I find that unless I have made three mistakes by noon, I'm not working hard enough that day...

[Colin Southern]

Colin - you are much less error prone than I am. I find that unless I have made three mistakes by noon, I'm not working hard enough that day...

Usually my first mistake of the day is getting out of bed ... and it's a mistake I've make every day for 53+ years now. You think I'd have learned from my mistake by now!

[ajohnw]

It's an effect by Michael Orton where - in essence - a blur is added to the highlights giving them a nice "dreamy"effect.

Just Google for "Orton Effect" and I'm sure you'll get one or two (million) examples.

Some people like it, some don't. I use it occasionally.

I suspect the reason Colin used it is that the vegetation detail can be restored but it tends to look harsh and unreal. Been there and done that. I tried using a weak type of noise filter on it which helped with that but even reduced to only 1500 px wide it goes indistinct.

There are probably several ways of achieving an Orton effect. One is duplicate original image and sharpen, duplicate again and blur. From memory the layer mode for that one is multiply, the other normal. Then mess with opacities, blur layer in particular. Many people would use a film curve on the original image as well.

John
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[ajohnw]

I had to try using Orton on it with a 45px blur which I feel is a little too much. Thanks Colin for mentioning it's use like this.

On the way I obtained an unusual colour cast so chose a frame to match .

As another step I de Orton'd the main feature. Might be a way of leaving them in.

It's been fun playing with this one. I wont try converting from raw with ShowPhoto ever again - that's where the green came from. It looked like an under water scene.



Can't help feeling that this is mainly lens flare.

John
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[Carl in Louisiana]

I didn't like the edit before and I'm not sure I like this one any better but had to give it a try.

[ajohnw]

You seem to have managed to keep more cloud detail. I've found that cleaning up the detail in the greenery makes that difficult. More so for me as I have to make a judgement on how to leave things as they come out of raw and can't go back and change that aspect. Same problem tends to flatten the water too.

Getting the correct colour of green seems to be difficult. Can't say that I like Colin's in that respect. It's more surreal than real.

John
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[ajohnw]

I reckon this is about the best I can do with it. No Orton. Having a decent camera profile helps a lot. The "golden/warm" rays come out naturally and dropping the contrast on the bridge for some reason seems to have fitted in with that. Greens a bit surreal but ............. I knocked it up a bit. Really needs viewing full sized.



Fairly happy with this one but left the lens vignette in the corners.

John
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[Carl in Louisiana]

Manfred sure came up with a tough one for me, but it has helped me to learn my software a bit better I think. This one I warmed it up a little and bumped up the saturation in the green. I am finished with this one, can't take it anymore lol. I first got the sky with the detail in it which left the rest of the image quite dark. I then took it into Viveza 2 using the control points I began to do a lot of dodging and burning with saturation, contrast and structure where needed. then back to LR to get the rest of the finished look I thought I wanted.

[Manfred M]

Can't help feeling that this is mainly lens flare.

I have a few images where I allowed in some lens flare, so this is really the back-lit spray from the waterfalls. I don't have the images on the computer I'm on, but if I get a chance, I'll post an image where the flare is quite evident.

[ajohnw]

I had another go at the straight out of camera jpg. Very quickly done but as I mention the subject from time to time



Several differences. Reduced size image so can't do anything with the far bank detail really. The bridge could be selected and toned in exactly the same way as from raw. I had some posterisation problems with one adjustment in the bright area in the sky - makes me wonder if this is a best quality camera jpg as that seldom happens but on the other hand this shot is a bit extreme and the Panasonic jpg curve does look like it may chop some off. A colour balance adjustment also sent the sky on the left pink so had to settle for one more in between. That could be taken care of with local adjustments as could other aspects like the rather flat cloud.

Really it just boils down to needing a different workflow and at times more local work. The shot I posted last time was worked from a 90mB tiff that reached 120mb by the time I came to downsizing..

I did cheat a little on this version. Flatten brightness, contrast selective tone map as on the others but then used Fotoxx's Vodoo one time to many. Explains the green It's a PP sequence built in that tends to brighten images, increase saturation and on a good shot gives it a glossy holiday scene postcard look rather rapidly. I seldom use it but it does the right thing on this one and saves time.

I should add Rawtherapee could do a very similar job with much better control of the green as well. Local work would then have to be done with the GIMP.

John
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