I'm from Tulbagh, Western Cape, South Africa. Tulbagh is a small farming community.
Get Pushed Challenge: I have been doing this challenge on and off...
I think the B&W is good, but I really like the greyer/bluer tones of the wood in the color version. Do you have a cooler b&w option? (cooler as in temp or tint)
@automaticslim I'm currently using PhotoPlus X5. I have Photoshop Elements 9 but I need to spend some time with it to figure it all out. I do also use Picassa for small edits to jpegs, it doesn't handle RAW to well!
Ah, I was going to suggest something to try for the fun of it ... it does involve a few layers in different modes though, not sure if PhotoPlus supports that sort of thing?
@automaticslim PhotoPlus is very similar to Elements and Gimp, layers are not an issue for it only sometimes for me! :-) I have played around a fair bit with it. One can follow videos etc aimed at Photoshop, just have to figure out exactly which function to use. So suggest away...
Starting with the mono image, the first layer is for shadow recovery. That consists of a somewhat overexposed image (enough to bring out some shadow detail) and an inverted layer mask. Overlay mode, opacity about 60%. This won't look encouraging.
Second layer: sharpening. That's a sharpened copy of the original, with a heavily blurred and inverted mask. Set mode to value and opacity to something like 80%. Looking better, maybe not quite as good as it started out though ...
Third layer: contrast. Totally counterintuitive, this is a very low contrast layer, set to grain merge mode, 80% opacity or thereabouts. That will make a lot of difference.
Four: screening. Make this by duplicating what you had at the end of stage 3 twice, flattening both new images and inverting one of them to make the layer mask. Paste them into a new layer on top of the original, change mode to screen and fiddle about with the opacity later, leaving it around 50% for the time being. It'll look detailed but overexposed as it is.
Five: overlay. Turn off the screen layer, duplicate, flatten and bump up the contrast a little too much, if you see what I mean. Paste that back onto the original, set mode to overlay and opacity to 50%. Turn the screen layer back on.
Sixth, and finally, another overlay. By now the image should be looking a bit on the light side. Copy, flatten and tone it down till it looks about right. Paste back into the image as a new layer, set to overlay and opacity to 50%. Bingo: you should now have a contrasty full range image with a hyper-real appearance to the textures.
Now, that probably sounded a bit grim, didn't it? Perhaps you're wondering where that fun I mentioned got to! Well, that's the full routine but you'll probably find out that you can turn off some of those layers without losing much ... the thing is to try it once and then play around with all those opacity settings and masks and make up your mind from that. It does get a lot easier and quicker, trust me. :-)
@automaticslim Andy this sounds rather daunting but I shall give it a go! May have to pick your brain at times, if you don't mind. I don't believe I've ever done so much processing!
@automaticslim Right you've spurned me to try and learn PSE! I have managed to sort out layer 1, for layer 2 should I be pasting as a new layer? Plus I do not understand 'set mode to value' as I'm unable to find value in the mode drop down. Any other pointers you can give me, please?
Hi Sally, I've only just signed in, so hope you haven't been gnashing your teeth for too long! Yes, that's a new layer, so paste away.
Now, as for "value", that might be a bit tricky. As a Gimp user I sometimes feel like I speak the same language as everyone else, but with a funny accent and some peculiar vocabulary, if you get my drift. So, there are about 20 layer modes in Gimp, and the last group consists of hue, saturation, colour and value. Chances are you'll have a group of modes like that, but value will be called something different. It uses the lightness / darkness of the pixels to decide how much of the effect to apply to the underlying layer, so it's fairly basic and there's bound to be an equivalent. If all else fails, use the layer as an overlay instead, and fiddle about with the opacity until you find a setting which looks right for the time being.
@automaticslim Ah, there is indeed such a mode. I shall play again tomorrow when I have more time. Thanks and teeth gnashing would only have begun tomorrow :-)
January 5th, 2013
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Starting with the mono image, the first layer is for shadow recovery. That consists of a somewhat overexposed image (enough to bring out some shadow detail) and an inverted layer mask. Overlay mode, opacity about 60%. This won't look encouraging.
Second layer: sharpening. That's a sharpened copy of the original, with a heavily blurred and inverted mask. Set mode to value and opacity to something like 80%. Looking better, maybe not quite as good as it started out though ...
Third layer: contrast. Totally counterintuitive, this is a very low contrast layer, set to grain merge mode, 80% opacity or thereabouts. That will make a lot of difference.
Four: screening. Make this by duplicating what you had at the end of stage 3 twice, flattening both new images and inverting one of them to make the layer mask. Paste them into a new layer on top of the original, change mode to screen and fiddle about with the opacity later, leaving it around 50% for the time being. It'll look detailed but overexposed as it is.
Five: overlay. Turn off the screen layer, duplicate, flatten and bump up the contrast a little too much, if you see what I mean. Paste that back onto the original, set mode to overlay and opacity to 50%. Turn the screen layer back on.
Sixth, and finally, another overlay. By now the image should be looking a bit on the light side. Copy, flatten and tone it down till it looks about right. Paste back into the image as a new layer, set to overlay and opacity to 50%. Bingo: you should now have a contrasty full range image with a hyper-real appearance to the textures.
Now, that probably sounded a bit grim, didn't it? Perhaps you're wondering where that fun I mentioned got to! Well, that's the full routine but you'll probably find out that you can turn off some of those layers without losing much ... the thing is to try it once and then play around with all those opacity settings and masks and make up your mind from that. It does get a lot easier and quicker, trust me. :-)
Here's a rather drastic example which I colourised (the original image was utterly flat): http://365project.org/automaticslim/365/2012-08-31
Now, as for "value", that might be a bit tricky. As a Gimp user I sometimes feel like I speak the same language as everyone else, but with a funny accent and some peculiar vocabulary, if you get my drift. So, there are about 20 layer modes in Gimp, and the last group consists of hue, saturation, colour and value. Chances are you'll have a group of modes like that, but value will be called something different. It uses the lightness / darkness of the pixels to decide how much of the effect to apply to the underlying layer, so it's fairly basic and there's bound to be an equivalent. If all else fails, use the layer as an overlay instead, and fiddle about with the opacity until you find a setting which looks right for the time being.
Hope that gets things moving again ...