Highlighting the creative magic behind post-processed photos
Welcome to Cee, our newest ABFriday participant. And, as always, thanks to all the forum participants for another week of wonderful after-before galleries! If you wish to join in, guidelines are on the After-Before Friday Forum page.
My submission: This week I’m post-processing a photo in Lightroom 5 from scratch. It’s one I could have easily sent to my trash bin, but I thought it would be fun to work on it “live” for the video and see where it ended up. In the video, I end my post-processing in Lightroom. But my final image is a result of editing the Lightroom file in Nik Silver Efex Pro 2. This is a step I would normally take but didn’t want to add any more length to what was already a fairly long video. In the end, I think I’m glad I didn’t delete the photo from my computer. What do you think?
Submitted by Robin Kent — PhotographybyKent
Robin says: My submission for this week’s Forum was taken a few years ago at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial in Washington, DC. The cherry blossoms had peaked a day or so before and a night rain had knocked a lot of petals off the blossoms giving the appearance of a pink snow flurry. The “Before” image is the original RAW file with no adjustments. The “After” image went through a number of adjustments in Adobe Camera Raw and then some final touches were added in Photoshop. The details can be seen at my post here.
Submitted by Loré Dombaj — Snow’s Fissures and Fractures
Loré says: Nothing special in this week’s post-processing, just some adjustments of brightness, contrast and saturation. By doing that I exposed too much of a background noise and it really didn’t look nice. So, to cover that I used the “Soft” effect in PicMonkey. I will post in between image on my blog, so you can see what I am talking about. I know I lost some clarity and details using additional effects, but sometimes I think they improve my images. Again, it is all a matter of personal taste.
Submitted by Jaime Perez — My Photolanguage
Jaime says: The photo I bring for this, ABFriday Forum Week 21, was taken in Iguazu Falls, Argentina, last year. Of course, such a huge and spectacular nature marvel offers you thousands opportunities to shoot your camera. I decided to work with this picture because it shows the authentic landscape you find everywhere around that place.
Submitted by Benjamin Rowe — aperture64
Ben says: This week for the Before and after forum I am showing how I create 32bit images and edit them in lightroom. So much dynamic range to be found.
Submitted by Cee Neuner — Cee’s Photography
Visit Cee’s post for her post-processing tips.
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!
Visual Venturing 
A fascinating transition Stacy and look fwd to more!
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Thanks, Patti. It’s been a fun forum to host!
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Great post again Stacy. Always interesting to see the steps and thought processes you went though to edit your images, I find something new to me with each one I watch. I like what you did to your image of the motorbike after the Lightroom edit as I could see you still weren’t totally happy with it. The extra Nik Silver Efex step really made the difference.
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Thanks, Katie. I’m glad you agree that the final photo was the better one. And I’m glad you’re always able to find a new tip. Sometimes I feel as if I’m repeating the same old things, but I have to remind myself that, though the same techniques, deciding how to apply them in different photos can be instructive as well.
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Loving your AB Fridays.. I’m glad too that you didn’t delete your motorbike It looks great 🙂 It really zings in B&W.
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Thanks, Karen! Sometimes you CAN make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear 😉
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Great cause I have a lot of sow’s ears lol! 🙂
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Right there with you, Karen 🙂
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Really like your final image Stacy it sort of just pops. Also thanks for hosting the forum.
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Thanks, Ben. I was pretty happy with the way it turned out 🙂 And you’re very welcome!
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Very nice Stacy, great change into B&W. This highlighted all the details and made the photo much more crispy and attractive. I love the Silver effect final version so, I’ve named it “The Cars Tattooed Motorcycle”!
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Ha! Good one, Jaime 🙂 Glad you agree with my decision to take the editing one more step. Sometimes you just have to play around to see what you can come up with. Thanks, as always!
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Thank you very much for this demonstration – even if my English is not the best, I have seen on Ligthroom point which I addressed and this will help me!
Thank you very much – I have much work your photos
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Hi, Pat! Thanks so much for leaving a comment – I understood your message just fine 🙂 And I’m delighted you found something here that helped you!
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I think that often the before is better than the After. Nice picture Stacy!
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I’m not sure I understand which picture you like better, Meho, but no matter. I just love that you left a comment on the Forum! Thanks 🙂
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Nice shots! http://www.summersunblueskies.wordpress.com
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Thanks, Charlotte, for leaving a comment. Glad you enjoyed the Forum!
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Great photo video and lesson this week.
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Thanks, Cee. I’m sure all of it is old hat for you, but I appreciate your feedback!
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