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Picture break

Started Jan 16, 2017 | Discussions thread
OP newmikey Veteran Member • Posts: 5,203
Ouch! That is a haaaaard question to answer!

miles green wrote:

Can you share some post-processing tips?

I find that extremely hard to answer as I fiddle around so much with my images and my processing varies along with the direction the wind is blowing

One thing I do end up doing a lot is to always grab a hand-held bracketed series of 3 shots (-2, 0 and +2) as a basis. Whether or not I end up using all three or not is decided on behind the computer.

I often experiment a bit with HDR (all of these were based off HDR versions of 3 exposures) trying to get detail in all areas. Usually I'm aiming for a more or less "natural look" , not the extremely colorful HDR's you sometimes see. I save the result of tonemapping as a 16-bit LDR image to avoid banding and deterioration.

Sometimes the tonemapped file needs only a bit of tweaking of the levels or curves and a bit of WB fiddling but I also use a lot of editing in Gimp (the newer 16/32 bits version) to remove distractions like roadsigns etc. There are a couple of scripts I use either with ImageMagick to generate an Orton-effect or with GMIC to get a more graphic representation (such as f.i. in https://pixls.us/articles/highlight-bloom-and-photoillustration-look/ )

Cropping and keystoning comes last after which I save the result as a jpeg file.

But that's just me and then even only the past few months until another way of processing grabs my attention - I love experimenting. Sometimes I do a lot of long exposure stuff using 10-stops ND filters or horizontal pano's to decrease the apparent DOF (not quite true Brenizer effect but something along those lines).

I could go on and on - I don't really have a "silver bullet" or a personal style to be honest. It's more of a spur-of-the-moment thing with me ... I just mess about a bit after reading up online. Maybe the fact that I'm using ever-evolving open-source stuff that requires a lot of fiddling about (Tommy - The Who reference unintended).

Mike

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