Highlighting the creative magic behind post-processed photos

Welcome to ABFriday’s monthly One Photo Focus! This month, 24 different photographers are sharing their post-processing interpretations of one “before” image submitted by Cee Neuner of Cee’s Photography. Opening each was like building an Easter Basket one goodie at a time (and there are some images here definitely in keeping with this season!).

We begin with Cee’s “before” image, followed by the “afters,” and at the end, a gallery of all so you can watch the changes as you scroll through. Be sure to click the links to each participant’s blog as many have written posts “uncovering the magic” behind their “after” images. And if you would like to participate in May’s One Photo Focus and/or ABFriday in general, you’ll find all the details on the After-Before Friday Forum page. Come along and join us – the more, the merrier!

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Submitted by Cee Neuner — Cee’s Photography

Cee says: When I took this photo, I just thought it would be cool for my Odd Ball Challenge.  The tree making a little arbor over the walkway to the house I thought was unique.  So I really didn’t have anything super in mind regarding editing it.  I did decide I wanted to add more color.  I felt it needed a punch of something.  I know red is the brightest contrast to green, but I didn’t want to use red.  Then I thought I have always liked blue and green together.  So I chose to use some bluish-greens to add a little color to this photo.  I turned the roof brown and did a little cropping as well.  I hope you like what I did. I am looking forward to seeing what everyone does!

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Submitted by Stacy Fischer — Visual Venturing

I love wrought iron. So when I saw Cee’s image, I knew I wanted to focus on the chairs, railing, and window decoration. How I processed the photo, however, was a convoluted journey between programs and countless adjustments!  I began in Lightroom, then moved into the Google Nik Efex suite, using Sharpener, Viveza, and Color Efex Pro. Back in Lightroom, I then applied countless selective adjustments to bring clarity, brightness, and focus to the iron elements and reduce it in the rest of the image. I also used the spot removal tool to clean up the fence, the iron watchamacallit by the front steps, and some spots in the cement wall.  When I was finally finished, I knew there was no way I could put together a cohesive video, so this week I’m just posting the final image.

Cee, I have to admit I voted for your barn image for this month, but I think I ended up having way more fun with this one — thanks for a great challenge!

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Submitted by Robin Kent — PhotographybyKent

Robin says: This is the week that everyone gets to perform surgery on the same image, but because we have surgeons with different specialties (e.g., neuro, thoracic, ophthalmological, maxillofacial, etc..) the results are likely to vary. Given we are just a couple days past my favorite day of the year, I decided to follow a slightly different path this time.  For details, check my post here.  Warning, a pop quiz may be involved, but if so,  it will be voluntary.

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 Submitted by Laura Macky — Laura Macky Photography

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 Submitted by Katie Prior — Drawing with Light

Katie says: Cee has given us with a really nice image of a porch set out for a relaxing afternoon with chairs on the front. I find this image very charming and I could envisage it as an old photo from the early days of colour family snaps. I wanted to warm up the picture and then try to age it a little by playing with filters and textures.

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 Submitted by Michelle Lunato — Michelle Lunato Photography

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Submitted by Nic Anderson — Photography by Nic

Nic says: Ok, I’m thinking that once you see what I have done you will all think I’ve lost my mind.  Especially since it is April not October.  But I have to say that the greenery was just asking to be made into a monster with glowing eyes!  Plus Halloween is my favorite holiday, so there’s that.

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 Submitted by Klara — Sliku svoju ljubim II

Klara says: I started editing in LR enhancing the contrast, clarity, blacks and whites, vibrance. I continued in Color Efex Pro 4, adding 4 filters (brillance/warmth, classical soft focus, cross processing and vignette lens.)

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 Submitted by Julie Powell — Photographic Jewells

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 Submitted by Karen Chengelis — KCinAZ

Karen says: Cee Neuner gave me a huge challenge on how to approach the image.  I liked it a lot already in full color but since I’ve been wanting to do something with B&W, I decided to give it a try with this one.  As usual, I was still second guessing myself as I sent the image to Stacy at Visual Venturing for April’s One Photo Focus.  I started with Cee’s raw image in Lightroom to begin my editing.  First the image was converted to B&W and then a temperature adjustment of Creamtone along with playing around with the basics until I was happy.  Definition of happy is that I didn’t start over.  Then into Photoshop where some coloring was done.  A yellow cast with a low opacity was added to the windows.  Then the grass and vegetation was colorized with a low opacity green. Then I noticed what might be a wreath on the door and colorized it as well with standard green and red. I purposely left the main tree alone.  Go figure?  Well, there you have it.  Thanks, Cee, for such a great image and for helping me step outside the box. To read more detail visit KCinAZ.

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Submitted by Marsha Leith — CoolQuilting

Marsha says: Playing with a new app “Etchings” for this photograph re-do.

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 Submitted by Sabina — Victim To Charm

Sabina says: No post for me this time, but here’s a bit about my thought process. When I first saw Cee’s photo, I immediately knew what I wanted to do to it. I went into Photoshop and started by cropping to include just the tree and the door underneath, as if stumbling upon a witch’s house in a forest. I added a bit of a sepia filter, used selective color to make the greens much more magenta, and “burned” the whole image to give it the shadowy, ominous feeling I was going for. 

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Submitted by Raewyn — decocraftsdigicrafts

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 Submitted by Anne-Cécile — UnClicUnePhoto

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Submitted by Helen Chen — HHC Blog

Helen says: Since I had “played” so much with this photo, I couldn’t remember all the things I have done. I cropped and straightened the horizontal line. When I played with color, I was surprise to see the decoration (a little red spot) on the wreath. I used PhotoShop Element.

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Submitted by Lynne Ayers — Beyond the Brush Photography

Lynne says:  Biggest decision was deciding what to focus on in the image and I decided for the porch. 

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Submitted by Mary Hone — Tales from the Backroad

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Submitted by Jaime Perez — My Photolanguage

Jaime says: This time, I find this beautiful image, from Cee Neuner, totally out of focus; so, with not much to do about it, I decided to give the photo a more dramatic appearance. I used some color desaturation and filter effects, in Ps Cs3, to make the image look like old and damaged by the passage of time.

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Submitted by Nancy / dogear6— Living the Seasons

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Submitted by Nancy Merrill – nancy merrill photography

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Submitted by Max 510 — Max510’s Blog

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 Submitted by Loré Dombaj — Snow’s Fissures and Fractures

Loré says: Let me tell you, I am in love with Cee’s image. It has an exceptional composition, I see a story in the background. I knew I wouldn’t do much here, just a little bit of cropping on top and bottom, to set it more nicely. But I wanted to make it my own, so I played with colors. Once I got this combo of lavender and beige, I was doubly in love. I softened the image to give it a dream-like quality and that was it. But, I couldn’t stop playing with this image and you can see what I did next in my post.

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Submitted by Benjamin Rowe — Aperture64

Ben says: I have hidden eggs in the picture especially for easter, Hope everyone enjoys a digital easter egg hunt.  

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Submitted by Janice Meyers Foreman — jmeyersforeman photography

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 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!

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