Editing Challenge

[art frames]

Originally Posted by Jim Ford

The major verticals on the large portion of the castle look way out to me.

Jim

This is a crop out of my submission. It doesn't look so wrong to me.



But I do see that the internal walls look not to be square to outer, perhaps that is why it fell down.

And this was supposed to be a bit of fun.....

[Jim Ford]

I see. I think it's the internal walls that give the impression.

The castle 'fell' down because Cromwell's troops slighted it to prevent it being used by Royalists.

Jim

[OM USer]

Originally Posted by art frames

Thank you to everyone who voted for my fairly safe and direct approach to the challenge. I hope those that chose to be creative and dramatic will be winners in subsequent challenges.

Let me give my own views on the entries and why I did what I did.

Firstly, I agree with OM User on his view of the starting image. A good challenge, lots of issues and a nice image in there but quite well hidden.

[see original post for comments by Art Frames]

If I have said something too bluntly then I apologise. Please feel free to tell me off!

Thank you for adding your comments on all the entries Peter. I agree with all of them to some degree and with your assessment of the original image. I had not thought of cloning out the large gravestones and you had done it so so well I that hadn't noticed. Perhaps the others who voted would add their comments as well.

Originally Posted by art frames

I have re-run my edit and although it isn't exactly the same it is near enough to try and share what I did and why. I made it bigger here but apologise that it is so big!

Step one was to find the crop to establish what image I was looking for. I tried many things but it worked best when I lost the 4:3 format. I also tried to correct the verticals and gently increase the height. Some of that may be in the submission, but I went simple for this rerun.

Step two involved some work in lightroom. These settings are quite strong but the image was soft and washed out so I needed to push more than I would normally do. The cloning was done at an early stage to remove gravestones etc. Plus it needed sharpening to give a sort of focus. Not standard for me.

Step three involved taking the image into photoshop to sort out the colour and sparkle. I still haven't quite managed to achieve the original blue in the sky

Final steps were about dealing with noise using a plug-in and sharpening the tiff after noise reduction.

Good to know how you did it. I wonder how many people use a number of editing applications on a tricky image - does this mean that there is not one app that rules them all?

[art frames]

Originally Posted by OM USer

does this mean that there is not one app that rules them all?

The one that did it all was aperture. But Apple stopped updating it.

Lightroom and photoshop was OK but I don't want to pay a monthly fee and I am not sure that they will not increase the cloud dependence. So I am pulling back in stages.

I cannot get used to DXO. Luminar seems to be full of gimmicks.

So I would say not yet for me. But maybe next year....

[wornish]

Originally Posted by art frames

The one that did it all was aperture. But Apple stopped updating it.

Lightroom and photoshop was OK but I don't want to pay a monthly fee and I am not sure that they will not increase the cloud dependence. So I am pulling back in stages.

I cannot get used to DXO. Luminar seems to be full of gimmicks.

So I would say not yet for me. But maybe next year....

Agree Luminar is becoming too full of gimmicks. I like Affinity Photo it seems to me to be the best Photoshop competitor and very reasonably priced. I decided to buy it for myself this Christmas and will then stop my Adobe CC membership when it comes up for its annual renewal.

[Wee man]

I am amazed at the editing skills shown by site members in working on an image. Some excellent results I cannot decide which one I like best.
Well done to all.
Ed

Sent from my LG-H870 using Tapatalk

[Phill D]

What a brilliant thread this turned out to be. Well done Peter it was my favourite too. Really good to see what was done. Certainly more complex than I'd anticipated. Looking forward to the next one.

[timboo]

Thanks everyone for embracing the thread. I loved all the different approaches people took with their edits. This thread has massively broadened my horizons.
Interestingly not only from an editing perspective.
I found the different compositions (crops) very interesting and subjective. Made me realise I need to take various compositions of a single scene and not rely on the one. Think it also provides an opportunity for the original photographer to improve on an image. Speaking personally I liked this image I took.

The constructive nature of this thread is absolutely fantastic. I'm really looking forward to the next specimen.

Thanks to the winner Peter for his step by step commentary on achieving his final edit. I may even change my final edit to a blue sky for printing.

[Graham_of_Rainham]

Thanks to Peter, the process of selecting a new RAW file for people to work on is underway and will be made available for all those that don't get a new camera to play with at Christmas