Darkroom Challenge Digital Darkroom Derby #107 - Closed - Winners announced

[griffljg]

Start Date: 21 Mar 2023. End Date: 24 Mar 2023.

This is Digital Darkroom Derby #107, a digital image editing/processing challenge.
Please read the rules here. Short version: Host provides the challenge image and selects the winner, who then becomes the next host.

The photo below is one that I took at the Japanese Gardens in Toowoomba, Qld, which I took during the 2022 Toowoomba Carnival of Flowers, which is held during September each year. I felt that the image was just too 'flat' and that the colours were too dull and din't really do the scene any justice. I would be interested in seeing what you can do with it.

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Here's a link to both JPEG and raw files: DDD #107

The competition finishes at 06:00am on Friday 24th March 2023 Brisbane time (08:00pm GMT on Thursday 23rd March 2023).

 

[RobD]

#1. ACR & PS

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[Hendrik]

Exposure and local adjustments in Adobe Camera Raw. Crop, monochrome, tint in Photoshop with a Curves layer to tweak the contrast.

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[Peano]

Not competing, just experimenting with colors. I decided to un-muddy the water to see how that would look.

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[BosseBe]

Entry #1:

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[BosseBe]

Entry #2:

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[betamax]

LR - mostly just hsl changes.

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[WhidbeyLVR]

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Raw processed in DxO PL6. Sky replacement and mild tweaks in Gimp.

 

[griffljg]

Oh dear! I can see that, with the high standard of entries here, I am going to have some difficulty in judging.

 

[Rose McGillicuddy]

Crop, and some fiddling in DxO PL6

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[Piano]

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[bdbits]

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[betamax]

cropped, and put into Topaz Studio v1 - A Basic Correction filter.

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[griffljg]

There are still 12 hours to submit entries for this challenge. Keep 'em rollin'.

 

[Musat]

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[Musat]

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[griffljg]

This challenge is now closed. Thanks to all who submitted entries. I'll announce the winners when I have considered all the submissions.

 

[griffljg]

Thank you all who entered this challenge. When I took the photograph, I thought that it was such a pretty scene that I just had to photograph it. When I saw the SOOC image, I was disappointed. - It appeared so 'flat' and uninteresting. So I fiddled around a bit with the image in Capture One and came up with a version that I found acceptable. I'll post my attempt below. For this challenge, I just thought that somebody could do a bit more with the image than I had........ I was not surprised!

The sky was always going to be a problem. So either do something about it or crop it out. It looks like most decided to take the easy way out and crop it out, as I did too. The muddy water in the foreground hadn't bothered me much, until I saw what Lyle (@WhidbeyLVR ) had done..... And for the sky too!

Then came the cropping. I can see that I should have cropped a bit more tightly on the left to get rid of the people partially obscured behind the tree. But I still quite liked @bdbits idea of opting for a more panorama-like aspect ratio. Was that 65:24 / XPAN?

Finally the colours. - They obviously needed a bit of brightening up. But how much was too much? At what stage did the image become more of a work of art than a photograph? And did this matter? @BosseBe 's second entry was interesting.

Decisions. Decisions. But finally I opted for my time-proven method of scrolling up and down through the images taking note of which ones "hit me in the eye".

Results:

• Second Runner-up: @bdbits - I liked your treatment of the colours. Some saturation, but not too much. I especially liked your panoramic crop (Was it 65:24?), which focused attention on the bridge, while cropping out the worst of the muddy water in the foreground.
  
  
• First Runner-up: @WhidbeyLVR - Lyle, I really liked your treatment of the water in the foreground in turning it into black from a muddy brown. Although I liked your sky replacement, I felt that you could have cropped out the sky completely, ending up with a slightly more panoramic image.
  
  
• Winner: @betamax - Alan, your second entry fits in with my definition of turning the image into a work of art. Sure, many of the adjustments were a bit 'over the top', but it's an image that I would be happy to print and hang on my wall.

Congratulations Alan (@betamax ). Over to you now.

 

[griffljg]

Just for good measure, here is my own attempt. You'll notice that most of you did better than I did.

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Japanese Gardens by Laurence Griffiths, on Flickr

 

[betamax]

Wow, that must have been a tough one to judge Larry! Thank you.

I thought the bridge warranted something different, a little surreal, so I went to topaz studio to see what I could do with the filters there.

A new challenge will be up shorly!