Darkroom Challenge Digital Darkroom Derby #213 (closed, results posted)

[WhidbeyLVR]

Start Date

Jul 11, 2024

End Date

Jul 15, 2024

This is Digital Darkroom Derby #213, 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.

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I had to travel all the way to my front door to capture this back in 2020, when most of the world was shut down with Covid-19. Mount Baker looks so small in this view!

This should be easier than my last challenge. Have fun!

The RAW and JPEG files are here.

The challenge will close at 12:00 (noon) Pacific Daylight Time on Monday, July 15th.

 

[RobD]

#1. What a spectacular view from the front door! ACR & PS

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[griffljg]

Entry #1:

What a lovely photo! For me the only question was how much sky to leave in. For starters, I adopted my usual procedure:

ORF file -> DxO PureRAW 4 (Mainly lens Coirrection) -> DNG file -> Capture One Pro (Vertical Correction, Crop to 3:2, warmed White Balance, Exposure adjustments coupled with HDR adjustments and then some Clarity) -> JPEG file.

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[griffljg]

Entry #2:

As for Entry #1, but cropped the image to the 65:24 XPAN aspect ratio to add some emphasis to the mountain range in the background.

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[kae1]

Entry #1 Lovely image - DXO PL7 then Elements and PhotoAI

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[kae1]

Entry #2

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[Peano]

Not competing, just an experiment to make the distant snowy mountain the center of interest. I'm not exactly wild about the result, but it was good practice.

EDIT: Substituted a revised version. Moved the moon down a little and cropped the top.

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[gecko]

A truly beautiful view! I did not find this easy at all, and I'm not very happy with the result I got, but I don't think I can get anything better. As usual, I edited the raw file in DxO PL7, then tweaked using Elements; almost all the tweaking consisted of light levels/contrast and color. After resizing to 1600 pixels I sharpened the image using Photo AI.

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[gecko]

Entry #2: I simply darkened entry #1 very slightly and cropped it to 64:27 aspect ratio (thus approximating the rule of thirds).

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[WhidbeyLVR]

There is a day left. I know that I will be out at midday tomorrow, so I am extending the challenge by a few hours. Call it 3 pm (15:00), Seattle time, or 22:00 UTC.

It would be great to have a few more entries! Thanks!

 

[Zeus1]

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[doobs]

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My pathetic attempt.

Cheers,

 

[gecko]

View attachment 482443

My pathetic attempt.

Cheers,

Nice work: not pathetic at all!!!

 

[Zeus1]

ˆˆˆDefinitely not true, Chris. Nice one!

 

[WhidbeyLVR]

Thanks to all participants! The challenge is now closed. I'll post the results soon.

 

[WhidbeyLVR]

It was a frosty December morning and we had a glorious mother-of-pearl sunrise. I took a sequence of 4 shots with generous overlap and stitched them together in hugin:

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The challenge used the third image in the set.


You all submitted beautiful entries! I think the sky colors in DxO got away from Rashid a bit, but the results were sill interesting. There was certainly nothing pathetic about anything here, in my eyes.

I enjoyed David's practice-only, day-for-night conversion, although I don't remember a full moon that morning.

I was just looking for the most pleasing results in my ranking. This is what I came up with. . .

Winner: @Zeus1 . Hendrik, I thought you made great use of the source material with your chosen crop. Nobody needed to see the end of my driveway. I also liked your color and contrast processing.​

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2nd Place: @griffljg #2. Nice bright color, Pleasant crop. The morning felt like that.​

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3rd PLace (tie) @kae1 #1 and @doobs . Both are very nice interpretations of the scene!​

Thanks again, and over to Hendrik.

 

[Zeus1]

...and I only wanted to announce my return to the forum after a holiday, just 2 minutes work in Photoshop... Next time I'll post a black frame

Give me some time to find a picture from my recent trip to Italy.

 

[Zeus1]

DD # 214 is live and can be found here.

 

[gecko]

I think the sky colors in DxO got away from Rashid a bit

Thank you, Lyle: I know that when I fiddle too much, things get further away from where they ought to be. I should have started anew and done less fiddling.