Darkroom Challenge Digital Darkroom Derby #145 (closed, results posted)

WhidbeyLVR

WhidbeyLVR

All-Pro
Supporter
Location
Whidbey Island
Name
Lyle
Start Date
Aug 27, 2023
End Date
Aug 31, 2023
This is Digital Darkroom Derby #145, a digital image editing/processing challenge.

These challenges are open to everyone. If you have any interest in practicing or improving your image editing and post-processing skills, please feel free to join in!

Please read the rules here. Short version: Host provides the challenge image and selects the winner, who then becomes the next host.

DDD145-web.jpg
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A hazy, late afternoon in Venice -- a rooftop view overlooking the Grand Canal and a bit of the Rialto Bridge.

The RAW and JPG files are here.

The challenge will close at 12:00 (noon) Pacific Daylight Time on Thursday, August 31st. Enjoy!
 
Thank you Lyle for presenting this challenge image.

Could I also suggest / request that participants in this challenge also say what tools they have used and what editing has been done? - Nothing too detailed, but much like I have done below. That way the rest of us also have the opportunity to learn.

I am going to use this challenge to experiment with masking and dealing with haze.

Entry #1:

As usual, first fed the ORF raw file through DxO PureRAW 3 mainly for lens correction and sharpening purposes, before importing the resulting DNG file into Capture One Pro 23 for further processing.

Performed perspective correction / keystone correction to make the verticals "vertical" or near to vertical. Then fiddled around with Exposure and Brightness, added some Contrast, before performing a lot of Highlight recovery and Shadow recovery. The image still looked a bit hazy and so fiddled around with Dehaze and Clarity (using the "Punch" method). Masked out the sky and fiddled around with White Balance to give it a natural-looking blue colour, before separately masking out the canal water to also give it a blueish colour in keeping with what I would have expected it to be reflecting a blue sky.

DDD145-ORF.jpg
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Lovely shot which brought back happy memories (x2). Consequently my approach now is to make this scene look as I saw it when I was there. That means brightly colored buildings, some deep shadows and a bright blue sky!

#1 Lens correction and denoise in DxO PL6 > DxO Viewpoint to straighten perspecive distortion > Luminar to apply a filter and replace the sky > Topaz sharpen

FastFix+sky copy-SharpenAI-Standard.jpg
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I am sensing a common theme here and I want to comment now rather than waiting. If you look at the first three entries, you will see strong Moire patterns (rainbows and curved stripes) emerging on the tops of the nearest water bus terminals. This is usually a result of over-sharpening the image too early in the editing process. Specifically, if you sharpen at full-resolution, then down-scale and sharpen again, you are asking for trouble on small lined patterns.

A lot of us (me, included) like sharp images, so we will increase sharpening on our images. But even if you think you aren't introducing extra sharpening, it can sneak in. Cameras will typically sharpen their JPEGs (unless you can adjust that setting). Most RAW processing software will apply some amount of sharpening by default so the images don't look too soft compared to the camera JPEGs (that is the case with the JPEG I provided, though I think you all used the RAW file). And it looks great on your huge 4K monitor at full resolution, so you say, "finished", then down-scale it and post it. But the down-scale algorithm adds its own bit of sharpening. Or you post the full-scale image and let the forum software scale (and sharpen) it for you. And you end up with the mess in the lower right corner:

DDD145_01 Moire.jpg
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There is some slight Moire even in the upper-right image. It is probably a result of using my default-sharpened JPEG version as my source for this example.

So my advice when you see this problem is to scale it down yourself, and do your major sharpening filters as the last step in the process. Mask off troublesome areas before sharpening, or even apply a slight Gaussian blur to those areas before down-scaliing.
 
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WhidbeyLVR said:
I am sensing a common theme here and I want to comment now rather than waiting. If you look at the first three entries, you will see strong Moire patterns (rainbows and curved stripes) emerging on the tops of the nearest water bus terminals. This is usually a result of over-sharpening the image too early in the editing process. Specifically, if you sharpen at full-resolution, then down-scale and sharpen again, you are asking for trouble on small lined patterns.

A lot of us (me, included) like sharp images, so we will increase sharpening on our images. But even if you think you aren't introducing extra sharpening, it can sneak in. Cameras will typically sharpen their JPEGs (unless you can adjust that setting). Most RAW processing software will apply some amount of sharpening by default so the images don't look too soft compared to the camera JPEGs (that is the case with the JPEG I provided, though I think you all used the RAW file). And it looks great on your huge 4K monitor at full resolution, so you say, "finished", then down-scale it and post it. But the down-scale algorithm adds its own bit of sharpening. Or you post the full-scale image and let the forum software scale (and sharpen) it for you. And you end up with the mess in the lower right corner:

View attachment 408484

There is some slight Moire even in the upper-right image. It is probably a result of using my default-sharpened JPEG version as my source for this example.

So my advice when you see this problem is to scale it down yourself, and do your major sharpening filters as the last step in the process. Mask off troublesome areas before sharpening, or even apply a slight Gaussian blur to those areas before down-scaliing.
Click to expand...
Lyle,

I noticed when I posted my entry. So I went back and looked at the image on my big 27" 5K monitor. - No Problem! I then turned down the sharpening on Capture One until the curved striped went away from my image displayed on this site. In this I was successful, but the overall sharpness was unacceptable to my eye. So I decided to live with the problem for Entry #1.

For Entry #2: As this is a generic problem, I would like to keep clear of masking out the problem areas, but rather find a generic solution. So....... Next step is to switch off the "Lens softness" in DxO PureRAW 3 and see what happens. If this solves the problem, then great! If not, then I'll keep fiddling around with the Shapening values in Capture One until the problem goes away.

I am now going away to play.
 
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#2 On one of the 2 occasions I was here, it was evening and warm light was on the builngdings on the LHS of the frame - so I thought I would try to emulate that memory

Workflow: Dxo PL6 as before, save as DNG to retain the dynamic range > Aurora HDR (warm landscape filter) > ShiftN to correct perspective > Luminar for sky replacement and final tweaks

N.B. I find that one needs a huge collection of sky images for successful sky replacement. In this I tried about 6 before settling for this one

P.S. I find that I loose less of the image when using ShioftN compared with DxO Viewpoint

Warm Landscape_Rvening copy.jpg
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Many thanks to all participants! I hope you had a good time working on this image. @Peano -- I would be interested to see some of your other Venice images, if you're not restricted from posting them.

This challenge presented as difficult a choice as I have had to make in awhile. There are many good entries! My preference is for the warmer late afternoon/golden hour renderings.

3rd Place (tie): @griffljg #2 and @RobD #2
2nd Place (tie): @Stiga #2 and @kae1 #1. Stiga's feels like a painting (with a beautiful sky) and Kens was a nice, warm, realistic rendering of the scene
Winner: @RichardC . A lot of the busy detail at the bottom of my source image isn't really important to the scene, and Richard's solution has the added benefit of skirting the moire problems by means of a crop.

Richard, it was great to see you here again, as you don't visit quite as often as you used to. I look forward to seeing what you bring us for the next challenge.

Maybe we can get a few more of the regular participants to join in, too. I'm looking at you, @BosseBe. Also @Zeus1 , @betamax , @Irene McC and @Herbert Hound are encouraged, as well (nudge, nudge).
 
WhidbeyLVR said:
Many thanks to all participants! I hope you had a good time working on this image. @Peano -- I would be interested to see some of your other Venice images, if you're not restricted from posting them.
Click to expand...

Sure. I found a couple of them. I think I've done more, but my filing "system" is pretty haphazard. And sometimes I do an edit just for practice and then delete it.

venice-1.jpg
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venice-2A.jpg
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venice-2.jpg
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WhidbeyLVR said:
Many thanks to all participants! I hope you had a good time working on this image. @Peano -- I would be interested to see some of your other Venice images, if you're not restricted from posting them.

This challenge presented as difficult a choice as I have had to make in awhile. There are many good entries! My preference is for the warmer late afternoon/golden hour renderings.

3rd Place (tie): @griffljg #2 and @RobD #2
2nd Place (tie): @Stiga #2 and @kae1 #1. Stiga's feels like a painting (with a beautiful sky) and Kens was a nice, warm, realistic rendering of the scene
Winner: @RichardC . A lot of the busy detail at the bottom of my source image isn't really important to the scene, and Richard's solution has the added benefit of skirting the moire problems by means of a crop.

Richard, it was great to see you here again, as you don't visit quite as often as you used to. I look forward to seeing what you bring us for the next challenge.

Maybe we can get a few more of the regular participants to join in, too. I'm looking at you, @BosseBe. Also @Zeus1 , @betamax , @Irene McC and @Herbert Hound are encouraged, as well (nudge, nudge).
Click to expand...
Thank you Lyle. I need the practice.

Bit of family stuff been going on this year so I haven't had as much time to myself as I would like.

I would have liked a couple of clouds in my version, but somehow couldn't make it look right - but at least by adding some blurry content there was something to attach some colour to.

I'll find something from the archives and post today.
 
WhidbeyLVR said:
Many thanks to all participants! I hope you had a good time working on this image. @Peano -- I would be interested to see some of your other Venice images, if you're not restricted from posting them.

This challenge presented as difficult a choice as I have had to make in awhile. There are many good entries! My preference is for the warmer late afternoon/golden hour renderings.

3rd Place (tie): @griffljg #2 and @RobD #2
2nd Place (tie): @Stiga #2 and @kae1 #1. Stiga's feels like a painting (with a beautiful sky) and Kens was a nice, warm, realistic rendering of the scene
Winner: @RichardC . A lot of the busy detail at the bottom of my source image isn't really important to the scene, and Richard's solution has the added benefit of skirting the moire problems by means of a crop.

Richard, it was great to see you here again, as you don't visit quite as often as you used to. I look forward to seeing what you bring us for the next challenge.

Maybe we can get a few more of the regular participants to join in, too. I'm looking at you, @BosseBe. Also @Zeus1 , @betamax , @Irene McC and @Herbert Hound are encouraged, as well (nudge, nudge).
Click to expand...

Many thanks for the second place


Martin
 

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