Darkroom Challenge Digital Darkroom Derby #40 - Winners announced

kae1

All-Pro
Location
West Yorkshire
Name
Ken
This is Digital Darkroom Derby #39, a digital image editing/processing challenge. Please read the rules here.

P5160111.JPG
Join to see EXIF info for this image (if available)


Taken on Monday, a picture of Gannets at Bempton Cliffs, North Yorkshire.

RAW image is here P5160111.ORF
JPEG image is here P5160111.JPG

Competition closes on Sunday 22nd at 08:00 BST and is a bit longer as I'm not going to be able to judge until then.

Remember the DDD is just for fun. Anyone can enter either to show off their skills or to test them and learn from others. Best of luck!
 
Yes, a tough one. I guess I need one of those AI sharpening apps for problems like this.

View attachment 311374
Raw file through DxO, then Gimp/Nik/G'mic for tweaks.
I actually did use Topaz Sharpen AI for this. In fact, this has become an automatic part of my processing. I think sometimes it helps marginally , sometimes it helps significantly (I say "I think" because my eyesight is poor, so I am not quite sure what things really look like :)). (I no longer use lens sharpening in DxO).
 
I’m definitely not a bird photographer but I enjoy going to Bempton Cliffs to take some snaps of the seabirds once a year. There was patchy sunlight, a bit of a sea fret and loads of Gannets. As I hadn’t had time to go through the thousands of frames I took I just chose this one as the challenge. I wasn’t happy with this, or the others from the burst, as it seemed a bit “strange”- the focus wasn’t right (nothing was sharp), but was it camera shake or the atmosphere/seafret, or a problem with the lens or a problem with the photographer. Therefore I thought I’d challenge you to see whether it was rescuable.

Again well done to you all as you’ve all shown your skills by improving it. I could make an argument for any of them as they all stand alone. I love B&W but in this case I love the out of focus purple flowers more, so the colour submissions are my preference. I think the flowers also help distract from the lack of sharpness in the birds so I thought I’d prefer less of a crop.

My choices are :-
Joint Runner ups – @WhidbeyLVR #1 – Love the crop, the natural colours, and not over sharpened
@betamax – Love the crop, the bright colours, and the level of clarity
Winner – @Zeus1 – Love the bright image, creation of the Gannet’s head as a focal point, the frame and ….. a tighter crop!

Congratulations and over to you, Hendrik

PS I’ve put the “strangeness” down to the photographer and camera shake
 
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