Highlighting the creative magic behind post-processed photos
And now, back to our original programming! After a wonderfully successful anniversary challenge, ABFriday returns to its normal format. But don’t be surprised if you see a variation of the group post-processing challenge in the near future. Emilio had so much fun doing this one that he’s leading the charge for more 🙂 Until then, guidelines for the “normal” forum are on the After-Before Friday Forum page. We’d love to have you join this crazy group – the more, the merrier. But be sure to check out the upcoming schedule on the Forum page, as there are a few weeks when ABFriday will be taking a holiday vacation. (First holiday, next Friday during Thanksgiving week in the States.) As always, thanks to all for this week’s wonderful after-before galleries!
Before we begin, a shout out to Robyn G of Captivate Me who runs another post-processing challenge: the One Four Challenge. Participants take their own image and process it four different ways, sharing them on their blogs over four weeks, one image per week. She started this on the first Monday of November, so this Monday will conclude the first cycle of the challenge. Be sure to check it out!
My submission: This week, I’m post-processing something completely different: a photo shot with an iPhone 6 that I didn’t take! No worries, though. I got permission from my husband – it’s his picture from a recent trip he took with our daughter to New York City. And I have to say I’m really impressed with the camera – a far cry from the 4s. Seems my husband has a pretty good eye for composition as well. Not only did he capture Jane’s Carousel on the East River in Brooklyn Bridge Park, he also got the Brooklyn Bridge, an NYFD fireboat, One World Trade Center, AND the leading line of the walkway! I just had to give this photo filled with so many iconic images of NYC a post-processing whirl. Quick summary, I began in Lightroom, moved to Photoshop, and ended in Nik Color Efex Pro. Let me know what you think!
Submitted by Robin Kent — PhotographybyKent
Robin says: I was horrified this week to see that the morning temperatures were in the upper 20s. Although this might be a trifle for folks in the northern latitudes, it is really hard on those of us who live in Virginia. As a result, my memory took me back to a January day when I had the good sense to be in Hawaii. And in an effort to hold that memory fast, a photograph from that trip is my submission for this week’s ABFriday Forum. The differences between the two may seem relatively small, but a fair amount of work was required to get from B to A. Details can be found at my post here.
Submitted by Shane Francescut — The Weekly Minute
Visit Shane’s post to read about his post-processing.
Submitted by Emilio Pasquale — Photos by Emilio
Emilio says: Another throw away image. An overabundance of good shots came out of this day so I didn’t miss this one at all. I thought it was too dark to do anything with. But as I become more adept at the nuances of Lightroom, I am constantly amazed at what a powerful tool it is!
Submitted by Loré Dombaj — Snow’s Fissures and Fractures
Loré says: This is Drašković-Malatinski Coat of Arms dated back to the 18th century, placed on the outer wall of one of Croatia’s best preserved old castles, the Trakošćan Castle. For my post-processing choices and various steps, you can check out my blog.
Submitted by Katie Prior — Drawing with Light
Katie says: After the excitement of last week’s AfterBefore Friday Forum, I thought I’d go for a more simple post this week.
The autumn leaves are still falling and there are the burnt umbers and rust colours everywhere. As the rain was pounding down outside, this photo was taken indoors on an old bit of wood with natural light from the window. It came out a little dull however so I processed it through Lightroom to bring out the colours of the leaf and the texture of the wood.
Submitted by Leanne Cole — Leanne Cole Photography
Visit Leanne’s post for her post-processing tips.
Submitted by Benjamin Rowe — Aperture64
Ben says: This week I am back in Lightroom with a golden hour view of one of my favourite parks at the moment. The view may look familiar as it is taken looking the other way to the infrared image I shared in wk14. My post can be found here.
Submitted by Karen Chengelis — KCinAZ
Karen says: Most of the changes were in the lighting along with decreasing exposure, increasing whites and enhancing the blues. Read more in my post.
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 
Happy New Year Stacy!
Just watched your video! Great, you make me feel as though I can learn to do Photoshop and Lightroom, I have the programs for the past year and have not even opened them up to play around with them. I want to watch more of your videos and get outside and take some pictures and start playing with the programs this year. Love your site!
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Happy New Year to you, Mitchell! Thanks so much for your kind comment. I’m really happy you found the video helpful. Photoshop is still a monster of a program that I have to spend much more time with, but I’ve become pretty comfortable with Lightroom and I can accomplish most of what I want to using that program. Definitely spend some time playing around with programs – Lightroom has less of a learning curve than Photoshop, if that’s helpful for you to know. If you ever have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask. I can’t guarantee I’ll have the answers, but I’ll try to help!
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Fantastic photo Stacy, and the processing is spot on! I hope you had a great Thanksgiving.
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Thanks, Shane! And I did – a wonderful, but too short of a time, with my kids. But I’ll get to see them all again in three weeks for Christmas 🙂
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So many things to learn…sigh…:) I don’t like iPhone 4s camera, still crying over my old HTC HD2, I captured so many great images with it. I hardly use 4s and it is such a shame, because I can’t always haul all the equipment around and I stumble upon some really great things to photograph on my way to work. But the images are all blah…
First of all, I like the composition, there is so many things to look for. Your final edit brings drama forward, those clouds are so powerful. As always, you do your magic and achieve amazing things.
I just found out I can download 30 day trial version of Photoshop and Lightroom, so I’ll do just that in January. After that, I’ll probably go for that 9,90$ version.
Although ABF is officially on break this week, I will be posting something ABF related. After all, it is not Black Friday in my part of the world!
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Thanks, Loré! Sometimes the magic works; sometimes it doesn’t 😉 It was fun to see it take shape on this photo!
Downloading the trial version is a GREAT idea for the new year. I’m probably going to move into the CC photographer’s version myself. And thanks for keeping ABF “alive,” even in my absence – I’ll be viewing 🙂
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I really like the way you have brought out some drama in the sky and brought out the details in the skyline. Really nice work.
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Thanks, Ben. I actually thought I might have been a little heavy handed on the sky so I’m glad you like it.
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Great post, Stacy. Where else can one get free lessons in Lightroom, Photoshop, and Nik Color efex Pro? Not to mention the other tools so ably demonstrated by the other contributors. While I hear about Color efex Pro quite often, this was the first time I’ve seen it demonstrated. Very, very tempting. Also, pass my thanks to your husband. I knew the carousel had been added since my last visit to the Brooklyn side of the bridge but I didn’t have a good sense of its placement. This saves a scouting run on my next trip to NYC.
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I passed your comment on to him, Robin 🙂 He says there’s a subway about 10 blocks from the park. He took a taxi, but there is a lot of construction so he was dropped 3 blocks away. As for the Nik suite of plug-ins, I really like them. I use Color Efex Pro alot, as well as Silver Efex. Define can be more effective than Lightroom at reducing heavy noise. The others I don’t know as much about. And there is still a great deal for me to learn to get the most out of the programs. Ben is the one who can answer any questions you might have.
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Thanks, Stacy:
That’s probably the 2/3 Train stop at Clark Street, I used it on my last visit to the Bridge. While I was down there for a twilight shot, an enormous photo crew showed up, total of about 10 people, to do a time-lapse sequence of the Manhattan Skyline. Based on the equipment and crew size, it had to be a $50K budget, I spoke with one of the shooters and he said the client was Citibank and they were doing a similar shoot in Paris a couple weeks later. They declined my offer to carry bags for them on the Paris trip, but they were nice about it.;-)
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Well, that’s fun! 🙂
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I love everything you’ve done- especially leaving in the goofs like deleting a filter and having to go back. I do that all the time in Perfect Effects 8! This is totally subjective but I would have maybe added a bit of blue tint to the water then highlights in the water and on the city buildings to make the lighting a bit more dramatic. Overall, I love the shot and what you’ve done with it!
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Oooh, good points, Emilio. I never even thought about these things. I’ll definitely have to play around with it a bit more to seee what that looks like. Thanks! As for the filter thing, glad I’m not the only one. I left it in because there’s no way to edit the video in the program I’m using – I would have had to start from the beginning. Not gonna happen. So glad you liked seeing the good. And, by the way, thanks for watching the video – it was an epic file 😉
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I think what’s more impressive than having watched the entire video is having watched it at work! But it’s a slow day here. 😉
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Glad it was part of your off-the-grid entertainment 🙂
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Thank you for showing us the detailed process, Stacy. Amazing transformation! There are some features in LR that I have not even noticed. 🙂
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You’re so very welcome, Amy! I’m still learning – in fact, Ben just taught me something new in his post today about using colors in gradient filters. Glad I was able to do the same for you (and if you watched the entire 22 minutes of my video, I applaud you!). Thanks so much for your comment 🙂
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I’ve tried gradient filters, but have not been successful… I did watch the entire 22 min video. Thank you for making the video for us. 🙂
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Why, thanks for that, Amy 🙂 And you’re very welcome! As for gradient filters, sometimes I still find it tricky to use them – there’s a lot of going back and forth as I resize them to get the effect where I want it. I’m sure there’s some trick or keyboard shortcut that might make it easier to set their size, but I haven’t looked into that yet, despite telling myself each time I use one that I really need to do that 😉
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Thanks for the shout out Stacey 😊
All fantastic transformations this week.
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My pleasure, Robyn!
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Striking! ❤
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Thanks, Cindy. I appreciate your comment!
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These are all amazing photo transformations.
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Magic, once again, Cee 🙂
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I love all the images. I would love to join in this for next Friday.
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Mary, we would love to have you join! Next Friday is a week off for the Thanksgiving holiday in the States. But we start right back up on the following Friday. That gives you until December 3 to come up with your image and to send the before and after to me. Visit the Forum page (https://visualventuring.com/after-before-friday-forum/) for helpful tips. Thanks so much for commenting. So glad you’re enjoying ABF!
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