My Image Your View -- A very small area on the edge of the Grand Canyon: I hope you can have some fun with this image. I took this several years ago before I understood .raw and all I...

Jim-Pops Loc: Granbury, Texas

I hope you can have some fun with this image. I took this several years ago before I understood .raw and all I have is .jpg

Feel free to download this photo to your computer. Then edit the photo any way you want. Composites, black and white conversions, adjustments, color shifts, you name it. When you are finished, you can post your edit in this thread. Edits will be accepted until 9 Pm on Thursday when we will start the voting. No edits will be accepted after 9pm on Thursday. Thank you.

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NJFrank Loc: New Jersey

Let me get the ball rolling.

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SoHillGuy Loc: Washington

First thing that came to mind when I looked at the scene.

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jcryan Loc: Las Terrenas, Dominican Republic

My first submission to this group.

I saw this and thought Black and White after enhancing the tree trunk slightly and straightening. Criticism greatly appreciated.

Thanks!
Claude

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kenievans Loc: Dallas

A little of this, a dash of that.

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jburlinson Loc: Austin, TX

Nice shot to work with. Thanks for providing.

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jburlinson Loc: Austin, TX

jcryan wrote:

My first submission to this group.

I saw this and thought Black and White after enhancing the tree trunk slightly and straightening. Criticism greatly appreciated.

Thanks!
Claude

Hi, Claude. Welcome to the group! I liked seeing your b&w take on this image. There are so many different ways a person can go in re-working the originals, that it's fascinating to see the various approaches folks take. You did well in straightening the horizon -- how did you do that? Did you use Lightroom's "transform" feature?

Hope to see some more of your submissions. And good luck in this contest!

jcryan Loc: Las Terrenas, Dominican Republic

jburlinson wrote:

Hi, Claude. Welcome to the group! I liked seeing your b&w take on this image. There are so many different ways a person can go in re-working the originals, that it's fascinating to see the various approaches folks take. You did well in straightening the horizon -- how did you do that? Did you use Lightroom's "transform" feature?

Hope to see some more of your submissions. And good luck in this contest!

Thank you for your comments! I'm an open source and freeware kind of guy, so I use Darktable and Gimp. In this case I used Gimp's Measure tool to straighten the horizon, and after some work with layers in Gimp I used the old free version of NIK Silver Effects 2 for the B&W conversion.

SpyderJan Loc: New Smyrna Beach. FL

A very nice scene. A little this and a little that.

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GeorgeK Loc: NNJ

I used Nik Color Efex Pro 4 to extract details and add dynamic contrast. Created a BW layer in Affinity Photo and experimented with blend options. Also straightened and cropped to eliminate the sky.

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MichaelEBM Loc: Los Angeles CA

My view of the edge of the Grand Canyon

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jcryan Loc: Las Terrenas, Dominican Republic

As I mentioned above, while I have been following this group, this is the first time I have posted. In my posting I attempted to enhance the separation between the tree trunk and the background. While I think I have gotten part of the way there, most of you have had much more success. I am curious as to how you have achieved separation of the tree trunk from the background. I would appreciate any hints.

Thanks!
Claude

SpyderJan Loc: New Smyrna Beach. FL

jcryan wrote:

As I mentioned above, while I have been following this group, this is the first time I have posted. In my posting I attempted to enhance the separation between the tree trunk and the background. While I think I have gotten part of the way there, most of you have had much more success. I am curious as to how you have achieved separation of the tree trunk from the background. I would appreciate any hints.

Thanks!
Claude

I think you have touched on the most difficult task in editing this image Claude. The flat lighting is the culprit here. In the grayscale version, the lack of contrast and the limited amount of data in the .jpg version also make it more difficult to pull the tree out of the background. My suggestion would be to increase the contrast, crop out the sky and some of the rocks in the bottom of the shot to make the tree more the center of attention, and then use a vignette to further bring out the tree as the focal point. Good luck and keep posting.

jcryan Loc: Las Terrenas, Dominican Republic

SpyderJan wrote:

I think you have touched on the most difficult ta... (show quote)

Thank you for the excellent suggestions!

R.G. Loc: Scotland

jcryan wrote:

.....I am curious as to how you have achieved separation of the tree trunk from the background. I would appreciate any hints.....

As a general rule, B&W can take quite a lot of contrast and usually benefits from generous amounts. However, with B&W it's all about greyscale, and if the brightness levels are similar in the subject and the background, contrast will have a limited effect on the subject's prominence. One of the reasons why some of the other edits are working better is because they don't depend solely on brightness. The difference in colour between the branches and the background can be used to differentiate between the two.

If your B&W converter has the ability to brighten or darken the different colours after conversion you could use that to add contrast between the branches and the background. Beyond that you're limited to using differences in texture and/or making selections.