Darkroom Challenge Digital Darkroom Derby #218 (closed, results posted)

[WhidbeyLVR]

Start Date

Aug 4, 2024

End Date

Aug 8, 2024

This is Digital Darkroom Derby #218, 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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The Cathedral of Barcelona (in what may be the absolute worst possible lighting conditions). I think you may find this a worthy challenge, though perhaps not an easy one. Good luck!

The RAW and JPEG files are here.

The challenge will close at 12:00 (noon) Pacific Daylight Time on Thursday, August 8th.

 

[griffljg]

Entry #1:

Wow! The lighting conditions were challenging. So........

Back to my standard procedure of: Raw file -> DxO PureRAW 4 (Mainly for lens correction purposes) -> DNG file -> Capture One Pro (For further modifications).

The "Further modifications" consisted of maxing out Highlight and Shadow recovery, fiddling around with Black values, Contrast and Clarity. Then Keystone correction, but not too much, as I still wanted the building to appear as tall as I thought is was. Finally some cropping to include as much as possible of the building and its surroundings. I did fiddle around with White Balance a bit, but finally went back to the "As Shot" values.

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[Zeus1]

Pup is sleeping, time for a bit of fun with Photoshop.

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[griffljg]

Entry #2:

As for Entry #1, but performed a 100% Keystone Correction and then cropped the image to get the steeple in the centre of the image.

I still can't decide which one I prefer.

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[RobD]

#1. ACR & PS

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[Irene McC]

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[doobs]

Oi....

I played with stuff in ART that I've never touched before. Even loaded it in Capture One to see what I could do with it. C1 wasn't any better than ART at dealing with this.

The Perspective Correction tool in ART wanted real bad to discard about half the image if using guidelines. So I played with the vertical adjustment until it was less distorted, but the majority of the image was still "available".

Lots of tweaking and futzing in the Tone Equalizer and Exposure Compensation settings. My standard 0.4/0.2 Texture Boost, and a modicum of contrast adjustment.

Anyway, here is my take.

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[gecko]

A beautiful cathedral and a very difficult Challenge (I could not get a satisfying edit, and I did not know even what to aim for-- as usual, edited raw file using DxO PL7 then tweaked using Elements). Edit: Cropped a bit more from top and bottom.

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[gecko]

Entry #2: "Enhanced red" in entry #1.

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[WhidbeyLVR]

About 20 hours remaining. Any more entries?

 

[Peano]

Not competing. I couldn't get excited about this one.

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[kae1]

Edit #1 Nice challenge. DXO PL7 then Elements and fiddling beyond my skillset

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[kae1]

Entry #2

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[WhidbeyLVR]

The challenge is closed. Results will be delayed until late tonight or (probably) tomorrow.

 

[WhidbeyLVR]

I am away from home (attending a niece’s wedding), so I’m reviewing the entries on my old iPad this time. This will undoubtedly affect both my commentary and my selections, but I hope you will forgive me.

When I first attempted to process this image, I didn’t expect how difficult it would be to simultaneously mitigate the sun flare and the high contrast (deep shadows) to get a natural looking result. For the purposes of this challenge, I decided to be more forgiving of adjustments to the flare and looked more to how the shadow detail was lifted — I was willing to embrace the sun but not the silhouette. I also decided that perspective correction was a matter of choice and not necessity. I found that modest enhancement of details looked best to me, with neither high nor low local contrast feeling right.

First, I want to thank Ken for an entry that highlighted the clown. I thought he was an interesting character.

My picks:

Winner: @Zeus1 . The colors were much warmer than reality, but the image feels more Spanish somehow. I liked the lifting of the shadows and the detail enhancements. I also liked that the red head in the lower-right was gone.

2nd Place: @kae1 #1

I couldn’t pick a third place. Entries by @RobD , @griffljg , @Irene McC all looked good.

@doobs : something in your processing introduced a strange pincushion distortion.

@gecko : your local detail enhancement was a bit too crunchy for me.

@Peano : sorry this didn’t excite you. Thanks for posting anyway. Replacement sky for the flare was a good idea.

Thank you all for participating. Over to you, Hendrik!

 

[Zeus1]

Appreciated, Lyle! I used lots and lots of masks in ACR mainly using clarity and dehaze.

DD#219 is live and can be found here. An easy one with lots of potential to adapt the picture.