Darkroom Challenge Digital Darkroom Derby #225 - Results posted

Zeus1

Zeus1

All-Pro
Supporter
Location
Small town, near Antwerp and Ghent, Belgium.
Name
Hendrik Demey
Start Date
Sep 3, 2024
End Date
Sep 6, 2024
This is Digital Darkroom Derby #225, 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.

At the moment we are traveling in the Eifel region of Germany. Today we visited Cochem town and walked around the "Holzmaar", one of the volcanic lakes in this region. Hence the next image for You to play with, taken with the wide angle lens on my iPhone.

IMG_3011.jpg
Join to see EXIF info for this image (if available)

RAW and JPEG files are here.

Derby closes on Friday 6th September at 2200 GMT hrs.
 
Interesting image. - I never cease to be amazed at the quality of photos my iPhone 14 Pro Max turns out when I switch it to save the ProRAW files and post process them later. It is no longer a major disaster when I leave one of my "Big" cameras at home by mistake. - Admittedly a very rare occasion. My raw file processor of choice is Capture One Pro, which included support for the Apple ProRAW format a few years ago. So I imported the DNG file straight into Capture One Pro and then........

Did a LOT of perspective correction and cropped to suit, before fiddling around with exposure levels. Added in a bit of Saturation and pushed up the Blacks a bit. Then masked out the mermaid statue and performed some additional HDR work (Shadow Recovery).

IMG_3011.jpg
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Beautiful scene! Edited DNG file in ACR that comes with Elements, then opened in Elements (with ON1 Effects and Topaz Photo AI as plug-ins) and tried to correct geometry and adjust lighting, cropped, etc. (DxO recognized neither the DNG nor the JPEG file).

IMG_3011 Copy-dciLL2.jpg
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#1
A beautiful spot with a wonderfully carved sculpture. It often needs someone from outside for drawing your attention to the beauty spots within your own country. Thanks Henry for choosing this.
Perspective corrections, some horizontal leveling of the bank, cropping to 16:9 format to get the sculpture in the thirds, tweaking the colors and tones, slight haze filter and contrast adaption. And I took the freedom to adjust the verticality of the sculpture.
I found it interesting how much information there is in this iPhone raw file and how nicely you can tweak it.
IMG_3011PP2.jpg
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#2
Looked how it works out in b&w, and I think it gives it a somehow more timeless atmosphere. I left the sculpture a bit on the darker side in both entries (without correcting the shadows) to stress the shyness expressed in its physical posture.
IMG_3011PP2.jpg
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Entry #2: i was going to submit a B&W version, but then I thought that my first entry needed more sunshine, so I applied the "Sunshine" filter in ON1 Effects for what it's worth. Re-edited entry to reduce green saturation and cropped it to a more pleasing aspect ratio.

IMG_3011 Copy-dciLL3sunshine4.jpg
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Zeus1 said:
Winner: @gecko entry#1 (would have chosen Your non-entry BW version, though)
First runner-up: @wee-pics color version
Second runner-up: @griffljg

Over to You, Rashid, to host the next derby.
Click to expand...
Many thanks, Hendrik. A surprise win, considering all the many superb entries. I'll try to find something to post, although I may have trouble finding something suitable, I just want to add that the photo is very beautiful to begin with.
 
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