60 hour post processing challenge #634 - Winners announced

[WhidbeyLVR]

Entry 1

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Mrs. Mallard? A lot of those fem ducks look alike.

In DxO PL4, I cropped, adjusted exposure to lighten it up, adjusted white balance to what I thought was a more natural color. I used local enhancements to sharpen up the plumage, and exported to a 16-bit tiff.

In Gimp, I did some more sharpening and local contrast enhancement on the subject using different sharpening algorithms (octave sharpening, Richardson-Lucy), tweaked color and exposure again. Then I softened the busy detail of the ripples, scaled to 1600 pixels, sharpened one final time with wavelet sharpening, and exported the final jpeg image.

 

[WhidbeyLVR]

Entry 2, Telltale Signs When Good Birds Go Bad

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[Fred S]

Entry No 1
My usual HSL, Selective Color, Brightness/Contrast, Denoise and Sharpen

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[RichardC]

Morning everyone. Challenged is now closed to entries. Results shortly.

 

[RichardC]

Thanks as usual to everyone who had a go.

Tight, as usual and difficult to separate.

In the end, I focused on a few things.

• The crop, I prefer little or no crop on this one.
• Sharpening, not too much unless for effect.
• Tone, I want to see the bird.
• Colour - I know what I like (@BosseBe - great, but too dark for me).
• I don't like smoked duck, sorry @WhidbeyLVR

So -

1st place awarded to @Zapp DJR #1
2nd @todd phillips
3rd @Rob Rider #1

Darek's turn to host

 

[Zapp DJR]

Thank you Richard.
Looking at my images I think my choice of those two would be #1, with the water from #2

I have to find some time for selection and posting the next one. Not later than tomorrow morning (I hope - a lot of snow to remove first...).

 

[Zapp DJR]

635

 

[WhidbeyLVR]

I don't like smoked duck

I do like smoked duck, but much prefer cherry or applewood smoke and a honey-balsamic glaze, rather than a stale ashtray bird with smoker's emphysema.