Post-Processing Challenge #394 - (Closed, Winner announced)

[BosseBe]

This was taken on the road down from Mt. Washington, NH a couple of years ago.

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Links to picture:
JPG: Dropbox - P1020723.JPG
Raw: Dropbox - P1020723.RW2

This Challenge will close in three days at midnight, Sunday, May 27rd.

72-Hour Post-Processing Challenge Rules

1. The Challenge Master provides an image or images to be "improved" upon by way of post-processing, as well as a closing date for entries.
2. Entrants are to post their entries, visible in this thread, at a resolution of 1000 to 1600 pixels in the longest dimension, prior to the closing date.
3. Each entrant is allowed two entries in the Challenge.
4. At the close of the Challenge, the Challenge Master will select a Winner and Runners-up.
5. The Winner of the challenge is honored as the Master of the next Challenge.

Notes:

• Any/all source images used for the challenge must be the Challenge Master's own images. They are posted solely for the purpose of this Challenge; not to invite critique or criticism nor for other uses. If Entrants post their entries at a photo sharing site, they should credit the owner of the original image.
• "Improve" is a subjective term, and may include many creative ideas, as well as traditional "fixing". The Challenge Master agrees that Entrants may make any changes they deem fit in their entries.
• Entrants are strongly encouraged to share the tools and techniques used for their entries, however this is not a requirement for entry.
• As we all know, beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. The Challenge Master is encouraged (but not required) to state the criteria used to decide upon a Winner. While we may not all agree with the result, the Challenge Master's decision is final. Please refrain from posting adverse comment.
• If the Winner is unable to post a new Challenge within five days, the honor passes to the next Runner-up.

 

[RyanM]

Fairly basic edit; just added some punch. The left side of the image felt flat, so I cropped a bit to focus on the leading lines that guide the eye towards the valley.

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[rkaijus]

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[relic]

Almost no "manual" processing: opened .RW2 file in DXO 11, applied landscape preset, exported to a tiff file which I opened in Elements, cropped, downsized, a slight vignette in Perfect Effects, and saved as final jpeg.
Entry #!

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Entry #2: Modified Entry #1 by increasing contrast, shadows/highlights, further increased brightness of foreground area, reduced blue slightly, and increased green a tad.

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[mossie]

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[Zeus1]

Two possible views.

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[Sawdust]

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[Mountain]

Something a little different than the other entries. Mainly a big crop to highlight the foreground cairn and the distant stream. Original was underexposed, so I increased brightness. I warmed the image up considerably, just for fun, if it were my personal photo I probably would have kept the cooler tones to reflect the scene I saw.

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Edit: forgot to mention that i added a local spot adjustment to the cairn to increase brightness and contrast, applied some post crop vignette to further accentuate the cairn, and tried to crop in approximate thirds (mountain, valley, sky) as it seemed to balance the image a little better.

 

[Sawdust]

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[WhidbeyLVR]

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This image was very challenging! I tried several other approaches that went from bad to much worse.

All the major work was done from the raw file in DxO PL, with a few small tweaks in GIMP.

 

[Hendrik]

And yet another version-
Done in Adobe Camera Raw and Photoshop
This is a challenging image. Trying to find a good exposure and saturation balance between the immediate foreground, the close, middle and far distances not to mention the sky called for three smart objects and some unusually precise (for me) layer masks. I love cloud-dappled landscapes like this, so I took the opportunity to clearly the display the foreground as not being in sunlight. I like the V formed by the ridgeline in the immediate foreground and the cloud, upper right.

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[WhidbeyLVR]

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Another take, this time from the JPG. Trying to be a little more conservative. All in GIMP + NIK tools.

 

[BrentC]

Lightroom

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[BosseBe]

According to my clock it is now about 3 hours before midnight on May 27th, but since I will be asleep when the clocks turn further west keep the posts coming until your midnight.
Since tomorrow is a working day I will try to determine the winner and runners-up tomorrow evening.

 

[BosseBe]

Thank you all for participating!

This was hard (for me to judge). But it was fun to see what other people saw in the picture and what you all did too it.

Second runner up: @Mountain Post-Processing Challenge #394
First runner up: @WhidbeyLVR Post-Processing Challenge #394
Winner: @relic Entry 2 in Post-Processing Challenge #394

 

[relic]

Many thanks @BosseBe. I did not expect at all to win. I enter because I always learn from these challenges. This was a total surprise. I'll try to find something to post in the coming day or two (hard, but not nearly as hard as the judging, as you have already experienced!)

 

[Cederic]

Well done everybody - the initial image wasn't shabby to start with, very hard to do much to improve it.

 

[relic]

Post-Processing Challenge #395 is here: Post-Processing Challenge #395