1. Finally in its own thread. Here we try to learn post processing techniques from each other.

    The format will be:
    * Someone posts a photo in original format (raw is appreciated)
    * Everyone will have a week? to do their stuff to make it as nice as possible. Everything is allowed, realistic to surrealistic, whatever you feel like.
    * Post it in this thread for everyone to see.
    * After the deadline we will vote, not allowed to vote for yourself.

    Afterwards the whole thing starts over
  2. My entry:

    I am done with my photoshop, I made 2 versions since I cant decide if the latter one is an improvement or not.



    What I did is process parts independently, brought back the town a bit (which was over exposed a bit) and made the sky a bit warmer (like you guys did) and the water a bit cooler.

    Click for bigger!


    The difference between the versions is that in the 2nd one I didnt darken the grass but processed it separately to conserve the green. But due to the lack of color detail I am not sure if it works. From a distant it looks better, but if you look more carefully its a bit odd :/ Probably because I butchered the grass selection mask.

    I didnt bother to correct the horizon, since it doesnt bother me personally. But I will tell them next year their bridge is crooked

    The photoshop is uploading, its 300 MB since I have quite some layers. But as I said, I basically divided the photo in 3 parts and played with their colors independently.

    Aidan's sky together with my town matches reality the best. But as I said, I have a 'warm-color' fetish

    Edit:
    https://rapidshare.com/files/3508080735/DSC_0297.psd
  3. I also did two edits:

    I'm done. In the end, I didn't do an awful lot of editing. Re-adjusted the highlights/shadows and bumped the contrast. Adjusted the saturation (yellow, red, blue) and increased the sharpness. Also corrected the horizon to 359.2° and therefore extended the edges to 103% to make up for the angle adjustment.



    Because I adjusted some of it in the RAW editor, I've attached the updated .NEF file to the .zip archive along with the PSD and exported .jpg. So if you open the new RAW photo in Photoshop, you'll see my settings.

    Link

    Second Attempt
    This time taking each piece separately. Some obvious editing mistakes around the sails of the boats (in the sea), but it's so inticate there that it's a nightmare to edit perfectly. Also, don't get me started on the tree branches Same story as above with the horizon and subsequent edge extension. This time I used a red photo filter for the sky layer and a warming (82) for the sea.



    The second one I think has better colour in the sky and sea. I'm still not happy with the foreground, but the details on the boats stand out more in the newer edit, which I like. Safe to say though that landscape isn't my bread and butter.
  4. Fake-reality festival

  5. I vote for Aidan's first image (below). I like Chris' second attempt. Sergio certainly went all out with the colours and vibrancy with his edit, but to be honest I'd have that put in a small picture frame for my home over pretty much all of the others because it just looks so eye-catching. The detail in the boats is probably the highest of the lot. Not sure a sunset scene should have such a brightly front lit foreground though. As good as it looks, bringing so much highlight to the dark areas, it doesn't match the scene.

    Best town award goes to Chris. Brilliant detail that no-one else managed to produce.
  6. This is the first one, wich I also like the most...



    Tried to do something different in the second one...



  7. I vote for Aidan's first
  8. What kind of photograph do you want for the next edit?
  9. Some of your own garden stuff?
  10. Hmm...I don't have anything in RAW though. It's too slow on my camera for everyday use. I'll see if I can take something over the coming days, but the weather isn't too helpful at the moment.
  11. RAW is not necessary. Original JPEGs will be fine as well. As long it is not a 640x480 jpg saved in quality mode 40