Salvage Saturday

[Ben Egbert]

Time to pile on with your reprocessed images. Multiple images welcome

This image of the Great White Throne in Zion NP had such dark shadows that pulling anything out back in the day ended up with banding in shadows. DXO and ACR get the job done now without much ado. Makes me wonder if it's the cameras or software that have improved.

 

[AlanLichty]

Nice recovery Ben - I am falling in the camp of the software being a huge factor. The biggest camera improvements have been in how well the camera sensors work in low light but at the same time I have been more than a bit surprised at how well DxO and ACR/LR can yank back details in the shadows I didn't think my older cameras were capable of resolving.

It is hard to overlook what a modern sensor can do with higher ISOs in low light however.

 

[AlanLichty]

My salvage job for today was a somewhat lackluster shot from an evening at the Harris Beach marine garden. At the time I shot this I hadn't figured out that this wasn't the best spot to shoot a sunset in that park so the light angle was all wrong. Lots of deep shadows needed some more light and in the end I took some liberties with the overall color to give it a more pleasing palette.

Edit: As a point of comparison and reenforcement for current generation processing software here is a SOOC copy of the original RAW file:

 

[Ben Egbert]

Looks like a good place to me this is beautiful Alan

 

[AlanLichty]

Looks like a good place to me this is beautiful Alan

Thanks Ben - it looks beautiful as digital art after processing. I just added the SOOC original as a point of comparison.

 

[JimFox]

Time to pile on with your reprocessed images. Multiple images welcome

This image of the Great White Throne in Zion NP had such dark shadows that pulling anything out back in the day ended up with banding in shadows. DXO and ACR get the job done now without much ado. Makes me wonder if it's the cameras or software that have improved.


View attachment 56679

An awesome start Ben!

And yeah, it does make you wonder what was holding us back? The cameras back then did not have as much dynamic range or IQ as the ones do today. That's a fact. So today's cameras are better in terms of quality. But the software being able to go and now pull this amount of detail?

Maybe the question is which has improved the most in the last 20 years? The cameras or the software. I am thinking it's the software that has made the largest improvement. It would sure seem by your example here.

 

[Jameel Hyder]

Nice salvage operations, Ben and Alan. That comparison is quite dramatic.

 

[Jameel Hyder]

One from Glacier a long time ago shot on the original 7D handheld. Had not processed it before due to the noise which cleans up quite nicely with today's software.

 

[Ben Egbert]

Very nice salvage Jameel

 

[sweetgrass]

Beautiful work Ben and Alan! It does seem like the SW has advanced significantly more than the cameras, but I am not using the latest and greatest.

Here are a couple that I took at the Valle Vidal a few years ago, and did some reprocessing on.

 

[Ben Egbert]

Two beautiful images Sonny, or is it Sunny? Anyway your salvage works a treat.

 

[John Holbrook]

Redbuds, Knoxville, TN (March 2009) Nikon D300 Re-edited the RAW file to work with background fog and foreground colors.

 

[sweetgrass]

Two beautiful images Sonny, or is it Sunny? Anyway your salvage works a treat.

Thank you Ben, and it is Sonny.

 

[Ben Egbert]

Redbuds, Knoxville, TN (March 2009) Nikon D300 Re-edited the RAW file to work with background fog and foreground colors.

View attachment 56687

Love this scene with the beautiful redbud and the fog

 

[John Holbrook]

Time to pile on with your reprocessed images. Multiple images welcome

This image of the Great White Throne in Zion NP had such dark shadows that pulling anything out back in the day ended up with banding in shadows. DXO and ACR get the job done now without much ado. Makes me wonder if it's the cameras or software that have improved.


View attachment 56679

Beautiful image Ben—love the light!

 

[John Holbrook]

My salvage job for today was a somewhat lackluster shot from an evening at the Harris Beach marine garden. At the time I shot this I hadn't figured out that this wasn't the best spot to shoot a sunset in that park so the light angle was all wrong. Lots of deep shadows needed some more light and in the end I took some liberties with the overall color to give it a more pleasing palette.

View attachment 56681

Edit: As a point of comparison and reenforcement for current generation processing software here is a SOOC copy of the original RAW file:

View attachment 56682

Great editing Alan, love the resulting image!

 

[John Holbrook]

Beautiful work Ben and Alan! It does seem like the SW has advanced significantly more than the cameras, but I am not using the latest and greatest.

Here are a couple that I took at the Valle Vidal a few years ago, and did some reprocessing on.

View attachment 56685

View attachment 56686

Love both images—great skies in both. I like the subtlety of the moonlit landscape colors.

 

[sweetgrass]

Love both images—great skies in both. I like the subtlety of the moonlit landscape colors.

Thank you John, there was noise in both due to the low light, and Topaz removed it perfectly for my eyes. Thanks to the forum for the recommendation of both Topaz and DxO. DxO has made my IR processing so much quicker. Also to note, is that monsoon cell in the distance, hit us hard, with lightening and a torrential down pour that lasted for over an hour.

 

[dan swiger]

Garapatta coast, just after I got my 5DmkII
Shadow recovery

 

[Sunny Sra]

This is from 2003. For some reason I never worked on it, while updating the website with some larger files and reviewing for some additional content, came across this one.