Highlighting the creative magic behind post-processed photos

Many thanks to this week’s 7 participants (spiders and all)! If you wish to join in, guidelines are on the After-Before Friday Forum page.

My submission: The photo I’m showcasing this week is one I shot playing around with long exposures using my tripod. I used some black cutting boards for a makeshift background and then used Lightroom to complete the effect. It’s amazing the fun photos to be found around the house!

I took a shot of this book from a different perspective and processed it in black and white. Vote in a poll for which version you like better (as I just can’t seem to make up my mind!).

Pages (After), Stacy Fischer, Visual Venturing

Pages (Before), Stacy Fischer, Visual Venturing

Submitted by Robin Kent — PhotographybyKent

Washington Monument (After), Robin Kent, PhotographybyKent

Washington Monument (Before), Robin Kent, PhotographybyKent

Robin says: Nearly always, my goal in post-processing is to create an image that is a close representation to what I was seeing when I was on the scene making the photograph. But every so often, I am tempted to create a scene the way I wished it had been. Such is the case with my submission to Stacy Fischer’s After-Before Forum this week. The “Before” image here shows the original RAW image of the Washington Monument in the late afternoon of early March 2013. An incredible shaft of golden sunlight was illuminating the monument as the dark clouds of a clearing storm moved toward the east. It would have been perfect had this occurred a few weeks earlier, before the scaffolding and fencing for the earthquake repair had started to go up. The “After” image shows the scene with the correct lighting on the monument and the correct darkness of the clouds, but the scaffolding and fencing has been radically changed—it is mostly gone. Details on the post-processing can be found at my post. As always, many thanks to Stacy for hosting this Forum.

Submitted by Leanne Cole — Leanne Cole PHOTOGRAPHY

Manchester Unity Building (After), Leanne Cole, Leanne Cole Photography

Manchester Unity Building (Before), Leanne Cole, Leanne Cole Photography

Visit Before with Tram lines, After Without on Leanne’s website, Leanne Cole – Fine Art Photographer, to read about her image.

Submitted by Jaime Perez — My Photolanguage

(After), Jaime Perez, My Photolanguage

(Before), Jaime Perez, My Photolanguage

Jaime says: This time I wanted to finish my last submitted work, from week 16, and just turned the same image into Black and White. Why B&W? Well, I think this would give a classic and more realistic aspect to the image than that, more fantastic or surreal, of the previous one. Otherwise, B&W version dissimulates (even more) an important detail more noticeable in the color one. What do you think? Are you able to notice it?!

Submitted by Loré Dombaj — Snow’s Fissures and Fractures

(After), Loré Dombaj, Snows Fissures and Fractures

(Before), Loré Dombaj, Snow’s Fissures and Fractures

Loré says: The post-processing was a nightmare, I just couldn’t get what I wanted. First I ran it through the GIMP, removing the leash and balancing the colours. Yellow was a particular b#%”$, it was so hard getting the right yellow for the flowers, without turning the entire image into a yellow mess. I really didn’t like the results I was getting. Then I went out for a walk, returned and discarded all the work, starting from the beginning. Same steps led to slightly better result, but it was still a bland image. I was running through all the tools in GIMP faster than Usein Bolt. I wanted to create the window with my Berta in the focus and everything else blurry. Finally, I ran the image through my good old friend PicMonkey (they should really pay me for the promotion) and played around, until I stumbled upon a solution. I sharpened the image almost to the maximum which gave me good results on the dog and the grass, but everything else was awful. Than I used “Focal Soften” which gave me the final result. Some will say – too much work, I say – you’re right. By the way, I flipped the image just so it would look cool in Stacy’s post.

Submitted by Karen Chengelis — KCinAZ

(After), Karen Chengelis, KCinAZ

(Before), Karen Chengelis, KCinAZ

Karen says:  I’ve continued to explore post processing in Lightroom using tips from several Blogs in WordPress.  One tip came from M.Funk Photography’s Blog in a tutorial video on “Retouch an Underexposed Sunrise.” He suggested making sure to balance luminance and sharpening so that they equal 100, along with several other tips. I was equally impressed with PhotographybyKent from After-Before Friday – Week 17 where not only was the final image stunning, but the visual tips that Robin provided were great. You can read more details about my post-processing here. Each week I learn more and more from the After-Before Friday posts in the Visual Venturing Forum.

Submitted by Katie Prior — Drawing with Light

(After), Katie Prior, Drawing with Light

(Before), Katie Prior, Drawing with Light

Katie says: My image this week is one I took at a classic car rally last weekend. Using some simple editing techniques in Lightroom I wanted to add a bit of colour and contrast to this image of an old Mercury Monterey to try and replicate what I saw rather than what the camera flattened it out to! I think that I was going for a kind of “retro” feel to the image to match the old Americana type subject.

Submitted by Benjamin Rowe — aperture64

Spider (After), Benjamin Rowe, Aperture64

Spider (Before), Benjamin Rowe, Aperture64

Ben says: No Photoshop this week, all in Lightroom. Hope you aren’t scared of spiders.

Stacy’s Note: Yes, Ben, I am! 🙂

 Please click on the links of those who contributed this week, to read about their post-processing steps and/or to see what other treasures they have on their blogs. They’d love to have you visit!

So what do you think of the ABFriday forum?

Feel free to leave your thoughts and suggestions in the comment section. And don’t forget to view the guidelines if you want to participate. I’d love to have you onboard!