I'm having a bit of a crisis of confidence with my OCOLOY project - see the album of that name. It's like bitter medicine... I know it's doing me good - I just don't like taking it!
Let me explain: there are two things I really enjoy about photography - playing with my various cameras and lenses (I'm lucky enough to have quite a few) and processing the resulting images to match what I saw in my mind's eye when I pressed the shutter button. I'm currently depriving myself of both of those pleasures and I can't decide what to do about it.
While I'm still cogitating about it, here's what today's Ocoloy image (see here: http://365project.org/vignouse/ocoloy/2016-02-01 ) would have looked like had I been processing... which I'm not of course ;~}
I love this processed version. I think we "talked" about this a little while ago. I think I could manage the one lens but SOOC feels a bit like not finishing off creating the photo. Interested to see what you decide.
@aecasey Thanks April. This was a fairly standard raw development and B&W conversion in Lightroom with some mid-tone adjustment and then I pushed the clarity up to make the fine tracery of the small branches show up better. That left the image looking 'too sharp' so I exported it to PS and applied a 20 pixel radius Gaussian blur with the opacity reduced to 35% and that took away the harshness and left this soft glow effect. It's probably taken me longer to type this than it did to do the edit!
hahahaha oh Richard - surely you are doing both - a little of the other on the side :) we must have those little pleasures to keep us going - a diet without a bit of naughty will not last long
Agree with the other commenters that the processing has created a wonderful image. If you are not having fun with your current project, I say let it go. Life is too short :).
@vignouse ahhhh...thank you for the explanation. I have looked and looked and could not figure out how you brought out the fine tracery of the small branches and the details of the foliage. I don't use PS but now I am quite curious about the effect of the Gaussian blur. While you have sought to simplify your photography this year, I am wondering if I would enjoy venturing into more advanced editing. I love how you were able to bring out what was there which is not seen in the OCOLOY image.
I'm comparing the two. Honestly this looks more processed than the other one because it has a soft glow to it reminiscent of a couple LR presets I have. I like this because of its fuzzy, soft look. Of course I like the other too.
Wonderful editing. I read your explanation of how you achieved the almost dreamy effect with great interest. You really know how to take your photos to the next level with your artistic edits.
I can totally understand your dilemma. I think it is wonderful that you have done a month.
I really like this version, everything is well defined. Thanks for the summary of how you did it. The Gaussian blur in PS sounds interesting, would never have thought of that.
@kali66 You're right, of course, Kali but as I double posted every day last year with both a regular 365 post and 'A Year of Days' image, I'm far from sure that I want to make the same commitment for the whole of this year! Decisions, decisions... and this is supposed to be fun!
A most interesting and admirable result. Without question a vast amount of detail pulled out in post. My personal taste is somewhere between the two images, but I can highly appreciate the effort and process in producing this result.
@dbj Agree that somewhere between the two might have been better, but it really was a 2 minute 'quick & dirty' for the hell of it, and then I liked it enough to post it. I'm actually quite happy with the bottom half so I should have edited this as a Camera Raw layer in PS with a layer mask instead of in LR... but hindsight is always 20/20 vision and foresight usually a lot less. Thanks for calling by.
Love this shot Richard such a wonderful subject and your choices to capture and process this image are spot on. Eyes on the prize and plough through the doubt x
I really like this version, everything is well defined. Thanks for the summary of how you did it. The Gaussian blur in PS sounds interesting, would never have thought of that.