[RainMan]

@rainman thank you. That helped. Fabulous lighting even with the mystery solved. Lol.

Sure thing. Hopefully it translates to something you have in mind.

Cheers,

RM-

[Rondec]

[acoufap]

When I walked along the shore I noticed this interesting tree. Late afternoon light was nice and pointed out the structure of the stem. Structure seemed to continue waves flow. Black and White would be nice. So I made the photograph. In post decided it will be a …

lowkeytree

... crosspost from K-1 thread.

[savoche]

Some with the FA28.

The last two were taken 2 minutes apart, the main thing done differently was the processing.

[UncleVanya]

Some with the FA28.

The last two were taken 2 minutes apart, the main thing done differently was the processing.

Fantastic work. Can you elaborate on the processing you are doing?

[savoche]

Fantastic work. Can you elaborate on the processing you are doing?

Thank you! Of course! It's not anything fancy. All of them get roughly the same basic adjustments in Lightroom. Approximately these values for these three:
Highlights: -90
Shadows: +70
Whites: +20 (careful not to clip)
Blacks: -10 (trying not to clip too much here either)
Sharpening Amount: 50
Sharpening mask: 70
Camera Profile: Embedded (rather than Adobe Default)
I see I had forgotten to lower the noise reduction for my ISO1600 import settings, so it got a Luminance reduction of 25 and Color reduction of 10. I wouldn't normally go that high until 12800 on the K-1.

Then bring them over to Nik's Silver Efex.
First one: Not sure, probably one of the Full Dynamic presets.
Second one: High Structure (smooth)
Last one: High Contrast (smooth)

I usually do some tweaking to the presets, but nothing much here (reduced the graininess a bit, I think, and probably pulled up the mid-tones somewhat in the second one). Although I didn't do that here I sometimes apply a colour filter or tweak the sensitivity to certain colours to brighten or darken certain elements (e.g. to brighten or subdue yellow highlights, or make a red tomato stand out better from the green background, that sort of thing).

In short, most of the work here was done by the Nik presets

[sergeremy]

In short, most of the work here was done by the Nik presets

Well, they wouldn't have gotten much work done without your images, would they? I haven't played with silver fx for a while, I may just have to get back to it.

A museum shot taken on a dreary - yet nicely lighted - september day:

[sergeremy]

Well, there we go! I finished this one off in silver fx - and it sure helped!

[goatsNdonkey]

Tamron Adaptall2 40A f3.5-4.5 35-135mm, wide open
K10D, iso 100
B&W conversion

[rayallen]

A museum shot taken on a dreary - yet nicely lighted - september day:

Oh, I like the high key approach here. Very pleasant.

[mattb123]

Blue Mesa Reservoir through the plane window

[savoche]

Well, they wouldn't have gotten much work done without your images, would they?

I should have been more specific: Most of the post processing work was done by the Nik presets

But you're quite right; no amount of post processing can save an image if the monkey behind the camera didn't do the job.

Well, ok, cheap trick if you got a slightly out of focus/blurred image that otherwise would have been good: Convert to high contrast b&w, add grain, and you might get away with it

[sergeremy]

Very pleasant.

.

Thank you, Ray.

[sergeremy]

Well, ok, cheap trick

Case in point, that view of Paris (terrible exposure - magical pp!)

[savoche]

Case in point, that view of Paris (terrible exposure - magical pp!)

Well, not quite. I agree that the pp brought out a lot more from those clouds than probably met the eye, but the info was there - you just "enhanced" it somewhat. Your nice image from Paris didn't need rescuing, just proper processing - obviously

My "cheap trick" is more to mask blur with contrast and grain - deflection, if you like. I used it with this "Daily" image from last year. Started out with a mixed colour cast to the lighting plus it's a bit blurry from camera shake (a snapshot done by pointing the camera upwards on an outstreched arm). Contrast and grain sort of save it.