Darkroom Challenge Digital Darkroom Derby #246 -Winner announced

[kae1]

Start Date

Nov 30, 2024

End Date

Dec 3, 2024

You may, or may not, be pleased to know that I spent a couple of hours photographing my favourite seaside town (Scarborough) yesterday with my usual care and attention so, if I'm lucky enough to host, I have some new images to challenge you over the winter months. I spent five minutes in this lovely church (St Martin on the Hill) which is full of pre-Raphaelite goodies and deserves more photographic thought than it got from me.

This is Digital Darkroom Derby #246, 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.

If you feel that you may be unable to provide an image for the next challenge, please submit your entry with the words "Non Entry" at the top.

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RAW and JPEG files are here.

Derby closes on 3rd December at 08:00UTC

 

[Irene McC]

#1 - Colour

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[Irene McC]

#2 - B&W

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[Zeus1]

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[RobD]

#1. Aurora, ACR & PS

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[Zeus1]

Entry #2 B/W

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[griffljg]

Entry #1:

I used my usual combination of DxO PureRAW 4 for lens correction and de-noising purposes, before exporting the resulting DNG file into Capture One Pro for further processing / editing.

Edit: I uploaded the wrong file.

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[Piano]

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[griffljg]

Entry #2:

I got a bit irritated with Capture One's licencing model and decided to look at alternatives. This was all done using ON1. This is the first time I have used this package.

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[Irene McC]

Entry #2:

I got a bit irritated with Capture One's licencing model and decided to look at alternatives. This was all done using ON1. This is the first time I have used this package.

View attachment 513737


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Wow - I am equally irritated with C1's licensing model and must say, the detail you got out of the stone work here is very impressive indeed

 

[Rob R]

#1
Very nice but a challenge for the windows.

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[Rob R]

#2

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[gecko]

A very nice (and difficult) Challenge. As usual, edited raw file in DxO PL7, then tweaked in Elements (with ON1 Effects plug-in).

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[Peano]

Not competing. My strategy was to "bring the light down" from the upper reaches to bathe the warm wood of the pews.

FOOTNOTE: This image illustrates the power of selective (localized) editing vs. global editing.

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[wee-pics]

Non Entry (both). I'm away from home starting December 2nd.

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[wee-pics]

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[griffljg]

Wow - I am equally irritated with C1's licensing model and must say, the detail you got out of the stone work here is very impressive indeed

I am most impressed with what I managed to achieve on a first attempt, although I still have a huge amount to learn. ON1 is definitely worth some further investigation, especially as a bought a copy on the Black Friday sale.

 

[Rob R]

I tried this again after I saw Peanos contribution. I tried to imagine how he got such a great edit. I thought he went for the windows exposure first and then brought up the rest of the shadow area. So I gave a try. After going for the window exposure I then selected each window and then to inverse selection and brought the rest up. After that some burning and dodging and noise reduction
As I have already done two entries this is not for the challenge. If Peano would like to share his technique I would be interested to learn from him. I also see that Rob D using HDR software has a nice way to get the windows right.

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[Peano]

If Peano would like to share his technique I would be interested to learn from him. I also see that Rob D using HDR software has a nice way to get the windows right.

Of course. I'm always happy to share any techniques I use. Rather than try to describe every step, here is a link to the PSD file with layers intact (downsized to keep file size down). I sort of grope my away along until I have something that looks right to me, so if you have questions about any of these steps, I'll be glad to elaborate.

I'd suggest turning off all but the bottom layer and then work your way up the stack. The second layer, "darker exposure," I got by right-clicking on the bottom layer, choosing 'New Smart Object via Copy,' and then opening that in ACR and dialing down the exposure with an eye on the stained glass windows. On the layer labeled "Overlay - paint warm tones," note that the blend mode is changed to Overlay.

 

[Rob R]

Thank You for sharing this. Very interesting to see how you got to the end. There was a lot of work to get there. I also did a lot of window selection but you got more detail in the top window than anyone else so far.
You always have some of the best versions of the challenges.