[tmlawes]

PP Challenge #342

Welcome to Post Processing Challenge #342!

Letting this run for a week, so you have until the 31st of August to submit your entries.

Thanks to Graeme for hosting the last round, and thanks for the opportunity to host this week.

I stayed with the water and land theme for this round too. I took this photo of Astoria, Oregon while renting a K1-II to test out the low-light performance, and I ended up buying the K1-II shortly afterward. I know that there is a lot going on in this image, and I'm curious to see the various editing approaches.

An unedited preview is included, and the .DNG download link is below.

IMGP0303.DNG

For the next host:
The mediafire website is: mediafire.com
The login name is: ppchallenge@tmphillips.com
The password is: postprocessing

Attached Images

View Picture EXIF

File Date

 

[graeme83]

Quite a tricky one that, the blurry gulls dominating the central frame were bothering me. Spent a good while staring and trying various crops to get something I was happy with, ended up removing a few offending birds completely and slightly adjusted the position of the upper one, settling on this much more minimal approach to the scene. Quick run through Analog Efex for a bit of texture to hide the noisy sky.

[aure45]

This is the first time I take part to this challenge, and I don't have a lot of experience with PP. But I'm here to improve, and I thought it was a good opportunity for this!

After having looked closely to the image, I found that I wanted to crop around the bridge and the boat. It's a 16:9 crop, and it does not include the leftmost part of the bridge. The two gulls on the right share the subject with the bridge.
I played a lot with the colours but I wasn't satisfied with the results. Then I thought that I should try black and white. And I liked it.

The original image seems to have been taken at dawn or dusk. In the version I propose, we couldn't tell what time of the day it is (at least to my eyes) and it looks that it is a bit foggy (especially in the hills). It makes me think of a damp weather day in autumn.

[jmacias]

Here's my version. I tried to keep the colors mostly untouched and I removed a couple of blurry seagulls as well.

---

Last edited by jmacias; 03-07-2021 at 08:25 PM.

[Tas]

I went looking for a new way to develop a version and started with a crop into a 16:9 framing then looked to tidy the scene and balance out the gulls and the background scene. Interestingly I'm not the first to go with this selection of birds but with focus in this area the distractors become obvious I guess. I didn't know which way to go with the tones and exposure but found some options to create something different to the others in the challenge.




Tas

[tmlawes]

Thanks for the submission this week. The photo was taken on a hazy July evening looking back at Astoria, Oregon over a large Caspian tern colony. Although some gulls are in the image, most of the birds are Caspian terns. I knew the image was going to be challenging, but hopefully, everybody found enough to work with using my selected photo.

graeme83 - I like the almost retro color choice in your edit. I think the heavy crop works well and you were definitely able to get rid of the "offending" birds. It is a much more minimalistic approach than I had in my mind for the shot, but I think it really works with the colors, grain, and minimulism.

aure45 - Welcome to the PP Challenge and a great first submission. I do think the photo works well in BW, and I like the tight crop on the bridge as a subject. The two terns on the right give the image a little more depth.

jmacias - Part of the reason I selected the image for the PP Challenge was because of the colors. I like that you retained those colors. You did a great job of removing some of the distracting terns and leaving those that framed the bridge. I think there are some districting bright reflections on shore that could have also been healed/cloned out as well.

Tas - A very similar framing as jmacias, but with a 16:9 aspect. I like what you did with the colors, but the effect highlighed some of the distracting reflections on shore. Overall, however, I think it worked.

It was a difficult desision, but I think I am going to go with the image submitted by graeme83 as the winner of PP Challenge this week. graeme83, I know you hosted last week. I hope you don't mind hosting again so soon.

Thanks for all of the entries.

Below is my take on editing the image.

[graeme83]

Thanks for selecting my edit as the winner and for hosting this weeks challenge, as usual a nice selection of images. Unexpected to be host again so soon but that's fine with me.
As you said quite a challenging image to work with, but once I found my vision of it, it was an enjoyable process to make it work.

I will have a scan through the back catalogue tonight and get one up tomorrow.

[graeme83]

#343 is up.