Let’s play #51

[Ben Egbert]

The goal in this week’s Let's Play is to show how you would improve or fix this photo. Show us how you would render it and please explain the steps taken to get that rendering.

https://www.focalworld.com/index.php?resources/lets-play-51.78/

The embedded image is a small jpg of the raw, but use the DNG file for rework.

 

[JimFox]

A fun one to edit, I remember being there many years ago.

So most was done in ACR.
1. Shadow Recovery
2. Exposure raised by 2 stops. (I always recover the shadows first, because I would rather not have highlights blown by raising the exposure)
3. Highlight Recovery, and Whites Recovered.
4. Crop to lose the balcony on the right and the bench on the left.
5. Clone out the 2 people towards the bottom
6. Extend the canvas by .5" at the bottom
7. Auto Content Aware Fill it
8. Use the select tool and select part of that barrier at the bottom on the right and left and extend the barrier just a bit to make it meet.
9. Use Noiseware to both sharpen and remove that unsightly color noise.

 

[Ben Egbert]

Wow this going to be tough act to follower

 

[AlanLichty]

Nice job recovering the light Jim.

 

[Ken Rennie]

I like a challenge and I like to make it complicated but as Bob said "hard act to follow".
I decided that I was going to use double RAW processing and merge them using a luminosity mask.
Opened in ACR set sharpening
1st processing for outside
Col Bal to daylight
Exp-.95
Highlights -64
Whites +35
Clarity +3
Vibrance

Used transform to correct leaning verticals
Vert-20
Rotate -.7
Opened as a Smart Object into Photoshop

New Smart Object as a Copy Opened in ACR
This is for the interior
Set Col Balance using a white helmet
Exposure +1.9
Contrast +35
Highlights -76
Shadows +37
Clarity +18
Vibrance +13
Applied a grad over sky Exp -.9
Highlights -76
Brightened Phantom and Stealth Jet with Radial Filters
Opened in Photoshop
Applied denoise with Topaz de-noise AI
Applied Luminosity Mask to Merge both layers.
Cloned out a foreground woman
Put image back into ACR and brightened roof and blue and white jet.

It takes far longer to write than it does to do and I probably could have achieved 99.9% with a single layer. Ken

 

[Ben Egbert]

Nice one Ken, another hard act to follow, but with the workflow described, it might be possible to duplicate. I am going to learn stuff in this exercise

 

[Jameel Hyder]

Nice entries Jim and Ken. Here is my attempt.

Did most of the work in ACR. Started by straightening the image using the vertical grid.
Used a grad to pull down highlights with exposure @ -75 and highlights @ -70. Used a range mask to restrict the grad to highlights only.
Pushed shadows to +100 and black level +80 and reduced highlights further to -100.
Pushed exposure to +75 and warmed it just a tad.
Added clarity @ +15, texture @ +10 and vibrance @ +20.
Cropped to taste.
In Photoshop, used Topaz AI Clear to get rid of all the resulting noise.
Added some micro contrast using Unsharp mask (this is a nice technique I learned many years ago) using a small value and a large radius.
Finally added a bit of glow - why not.

 

[JimFox]

Ken and Jameel, both really good jobs. I didn’t straighten mine, but I can see by both of yours that’s a good addition.

 

[Ben Egbert]

Jameel, I really like the warmth you added. Nice job

 

[Ken Rennie]

Nice to see that someone else uses large radius, small value Unsharp Mask Jameel. For everyone who doesn't use, it behaves a lot like a controllable version of clarity allowing you to target the increase in contrast to shadow and highlight regions as well as the midtone contrast varied by clarity. I now only use it in monochrome work. Ken

 

[Jameel Hyder]

Nice to see that someone else uses large radius, small value Unsharp Mask Jameel. For everyone who doesn't use, it behaves a lot like a controllable version of clarity allowing you to target the increase in contrast to shadow and highlight regions as well as the midtone contrast varied by clarity. I now only use it in monochrome work. Ken

Another advantage of this approach is it can be selectively applied using masks.

 

[Douglas Sherman]

No way I can beat those images so far. I'm just going to sit back and learn.

 

[Douglas Sherman]

Nice to see that someone else uses large radius, small value Unsharp Mask Jameel. For everyone who doesn't use, it behaves a lot like a controllable version of clarity allowing you to target the increase in contrast to shadow and highlight regions as well as the mid-tone contrast varied by clarity. I now only use it in monochrome work. Ken

I'm going to try this, Ken. Thanks for the info.

 

[Ken Rennie]

I'm going to try this, Ken. Thanks for the info.

Doug, Tonal Contrast in Nik Color Efex Pro produces much the same effect as Large Radius Small Amount Unsharp Mask and is far easier to use. Being a Nik/ Dxo filter you can use U point to selectively apply it or use a mask. With LRSA Unsharp mask working out the radius that effects the tonal range that you wish is very much hit and miss although you can always use BLEND IF to fine tune it as well as masking. Good luck with the experimenting Ken

 

[AlanLichty]

OK - here is my effort at this one. Most of the light/color balancing was done in Lightroom.

I started with adjusting for perspective with -7 for vertical and followed that with -0.81 for angle. I cropped a bit to remove the now distorted lady down in front and the partial people on the balcony.
Next I used a graduated filter with a luminosity mask to drop the exposure to -0.74 and highlights to 029 for the brights.
Overall I had the Exposure at +0.95, Highlights at -33, Shadows at +100, Whites at +6, Blacks at +100, Texture at +28, Clarity at +30, Vibrance at +23, and Saturation at +4. I used the white stripes on the small barriers down in front for white balance.
I used a brush tool for some additional highlights in the ceiling as well as some other areas I wanted to brighten up. Settings were Exposure at +0.68, Shadows at +38, Whites at +13, Texture at +14, and Clarity at +25.
In Photoshop I used Topaz AI Clear with max noise reduction to clean up the color noise. I then used Topaz Studio for Precision Contrast and HSL color tuning to tweak the contrast and brighten up the colors a bit. I followed that with Topaz Adjust AI for a little bit of Clarity fine tuning.

 

[Ben Egbert]

Wow, this is getting interesting. Been working on senior pictures for my grand daughter, but when finished I will try my hand at this with all the great tips I am learning here.

 

[JimFox]

OK - here is my effort at this one. Most of the light/color balancing was done in Lightroom.

I started with adjusting for perspective with -7 for vertical and followed that with -0.81 for angle. I cropped a bit to remove the now distorted lady down in front and the partial people on the balcony.
Next I used a graduated filter with a luminosity mask to drop the exposure to -0.74 and highlights to 029 for the brights.
Overall I had the Exposure at +0.95, Highlights at -33, Shadows at +100, Whites at +6, Blacks at +100, Texture at +28, Clarity at +30, Vibrance at +23, and Saturation at +4. I used the white stripes on the small barriers down in front for white balance.
I used a brush tool for some additional highlights in the ceiling as well as some other areas I wanted to brighten up. Settings were Exposure at +0.68, Shadows at +38, Whites at +13, Texture at +14, and Clarity at +25.
In Photoshop I used Topaz AI Clear with max noise reduction to clean up the color noise. I then used Topaz Studio for Precision Contrast and HSL color tuning to tweak the contrast and brighten up the colors a bit. I followed that with Topaz Adjust AI for a little bit of Clarity fine tuning.

View attachment 27543

This sure looks very nice Alan. I like it a lot.

So... did you leave that guy in the image that has his back to the jet and is staring at the blank wall as a bit of visual incongruity?

 

[JimFox]

I noticed so far that I am the only one who has cloned out the guy who is looking out of the frame in the lower left. Am I the only one bothered by that?

 

[AlanLichty]

This sure looks very nice Alan. I like it a lot.

So... did you leave that guy in the image that has his back to the jet and is staring at the blank wall as a bit of visual incongruity?

Thanks - I think he is looking just above the wall up at the planes on the next level.

 

[Jameel Hyder]

I noticed so far that I am the only one who has cloned out the guy who is looking out of the frame in the lower left. Am I the only one bothered by that?

That didn't bother me as much as the power cable in front of him That I did clone out.