Highlighting the creative magic behind post-processed photos

We welcome two new photographers to the Forum — Janice and Amy. And a belated welcome to Katie, who joined us a few weeks ago. If you wish to join in, guidelines are on the After-Before Friday Forum page. As always, thanks to all for this week’s wonderful after-before galleries!

My submission: The photo I’m showcasing this week is one I shot two years ago while waiting to get inside the fence at the White House for the annual White House Garden Tour. I plan at some point to post photos from inside the fence, but until then, you can enjoy this wonderful view of our President’s home.

White House (After), Stacy Fischer, Visual Venturing

White House (Before), Stacy Fischer, Visual Venturing

Submitted by Robin Kent — PhotographybyKent

(After), Robin Kent, PhotographybyKent

(Before), Robin Kent, PhotographybyKent

Robin says: My submission for this week’s Forum shows an image of a fountain in the Georgetown section of Washington DC. The Kennedy Center is in the distance. Once again, most of the work was done in the Adobe Camera Raw dialog box that is displayed when I open the image from Adobe Bridge, part of the Photoshop CC software. A few additional tweaks were added inside Photoshop. Details on the post-processing workflow can be found on my post located here.

Submitted by Loré Dombaj — Snow’s Fissures and Fractures

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

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

Loré says: This image was taken from an almost impossible angle. I wanted to get an interesting DoF, but because of that you can see the edge of the bed, the wall and even the blanket. My goal in post-processing was to lose that background, which wasn’t very hard. By decreasing brightness and deepening the shadows I almost removed it all. The piece of that white blanket was still visible, so I used a tool in PixlrExpress called Heal. It is basically a little circle which you position on a part you want to remove and it is replaced with surrounding predominant colors, removing the part within the circle. Or something like that. I really suck at this “explaining” part. I tinkered some more with the angle and the colors, but these were all light touches. This was a very hard, professional work, so please don’t try it at home. 😀

Submitted by Katie Prior — Drawing with Light

(After), Katie Prior, Drawing with Light

(Before), Katie Prior, Drawing with Light

Katie says: I’ve gone all black and white this week. I thought I would seize the opportunity to get a few shots of the scaffolding adorning our house with its rusty, dull metal and wonderfully aged texture. I like the colour of the rust, but I wanted the image to focus more on the contrasts of the light and dark and textures and I hope this comes through better in black and white. As usual I edited in Lightroom. To see the steps I used, visit my post ABFriday week 20. 

Submitted by Jaime Perez — My Photolanguage

(After), Jaime Perez, My Photolanguage

(Before), Jaime Perez, My Photolanguage

Jaime says: The photo I present this week was taken in San Pedro Claver Square, in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia, when we took that port during my last vacation, three weeks ago. This was the first of several photos I took of this interesting scene and, being the worst of all of them, technically speaking, I wanted to work with this to see what could I do (just as an exercise in case it was the only one).

Submitted by Emilio Pasquale — Photos by Emilio

(After #1), Emilio Pasquale, Photos by Emilio

(After #2), Emilio Pasquale, Photos by Emilio

(After #3), Emilio Pasquale, Photos by Emilio

(Before), Emilio Pasquale, Photos by Emilio

Emilio says: What better day than a Sunday to trespass on DOT property? That is Department of Transportation property if you don’t have that particular acronym where you live. It was a graveyard of trains. There were piles of creosote treated ties along with the spikes to secure them to each other, and acres of trains in stages of distress. My wife stayed in the car with the mighty Beach (the chihuahua we are  dog sitting for which, to me, seems like an inordinate amount of time already). The photo I am sharing with you today came straight out of the camera ready to post in all its technicolor (or is it Kodachrome) glory! But you know me. I couldn’t leave well enough alone. So today I have 3 Afters for you to enjoy. Or not!

Note from Stacy: Emilio’s post this week is foreshadowing a very special ABFriday when we hit our half-year mark at Week #26! Stay tuned for all the fun details!

Submitted by Janice Meyers Foreman — jmeyersforeman photography

Vancouver Coal Harbour (After), Janice Meyers Foreman, jmeyersforeman photography

(Before), Janice Meyers Foreman, jmeyersforeman photography

Janice says: As a first timer to the After-Before Forum I have to tell you the whole blog post was much harder to write than expected. While I know my tools and have started to keep track of my process, writing about it is more difficult, and then to also include details about the Forum, in an order that made sense to me, was quite an exercise. Probably very good for me! With a dedicated purpose and goal I couldn’t just free write as I often do. I hope that others find the details provided regarding my process helpful.

Submitted by Benjamin Rowe — aperture64

(After), Benjamin Rowe, Aperture64

(Before), Benjamin Rowe, Aperture64

Ben says: This week I have been in the local park trying to create some interesting shots. This is one of them, I converted the shot to black and white using the method of splitting the colour channels. 

Submitted by Amy — The World Is a Book

(After), Amy, The World Is a Book

(Before), Amy, The World Is a Book

Amy says: This is my first time that I am participating in Stacy’s “ABFriday Forum“.  When I do editing, I like to use the presets of Lightroom. A few of my followers were interested to know how this tree trunk photo was processed to the black and white version.

To change the photo to the black and white version, I used the Lightroom B&W preset. It took only one click. I dialed the highlights all the way to left and blacks to -45 (increase the blacks), then added the vignetting. As you can see the vignette effect made a difference.

 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!