Highlighting the creative magic behind post-processed photos

Today marks the one-year anniversary of ABFriday and six-month anniversary of One Photo Focus!! In honor of these milestones, today’s 1PF image is one of my own. 😃

Before we get to the submissions though, I want to thank all of you who have supported these challenges. I realize only all too well the time each of you has contributed as participants, from writing posts of your own that share your post-processing steps to commenting on other participants’ posts and watching my videos. To the original group who helped get 1PF going and who supply the images we get to collectively work on, you guys are da bomb! Thank you, too, to those who have followed along, submitted comments, and clicked “like.” Without each of you, there would be no ABFriday/1PF.  (Well, there might be, but it certainly wouldn’t be as much fun.) I am forever grateful and humbled.

And now, onto the post-processing interpretations of over two dozen different photographers!

We begin with my “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 July’s One Photo Focus and/or ABFriday in general, you’ll find all the details on the After-Before Friday Forum page.

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 Before

I took this photo last February while visiting my parents in Boulder, Colorado. I was excited to have the opportunity to shoot the famous “Mork and Mindy” house, but I was in a hurry, as I had left them parked in the car around the corner while I went to take a few shots.

Compositionally, I found the setting to be challenging. The street in front of the house was busy with pedestrians and traffic. In the time I had, shooting from across the street and waiting for a clearing wasn’t an option. Back on the house side of the street, I didn’t want to get the house to the right, and the building on the left was uninspiring. I don’t have a wide angle lens and didn’t think about shooting multiple images to stitch into a pano.  And can we say “hello, overexposure”! (Should have thought about exposure bracketing.) But on the plus side? I shot it in RAW and I thought it would be perfect for One Photo Focus!

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Submitted by Stacy Fischer — Visual Venturing

 A little magic with Lightroom CC, Nik Color Efex Pro, and sky replacement in Photoshop turned the image into one befitting this Boulder landmark.

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Submitted by Robin Kent — PhotographybyKent

Robin says: I departed from normal practice this week and played it straight.

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Submitted by desleyjane — Musings of a Frequent Flying Scientist

Desley says: I went harsh on the crop because I wanted to remove the partial fence and the soil on the lawn, but also because I really like the tower. I feel like you can maybe imagine a figure in the front window on the tower. 

Then I thought I’d play around ImageReboot-style and here’s what I came up with. Thanks again to Stacy for organising this event, it’s good fun, and quite challenging. I can’t wait to see what others come up with.  I’m hoping someone with more skills than me can turn this into a haunted house, complete with ghostly figures at the window 😉

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Submitted by Michelle Lunato — Michelle Lunato Photography

Michelle says: I thought I would try to blend some filters to come up with something a bit cartoon/kids book like. Not sure I got that look exactly, but I think its close. 

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 Submitted by Chris — sv-takeiteasy

Chris says: I soon as I saw Stacy’s photo, I thought it was a great exercise in adjusting exposure, then it was time to have fun and turn the image into an oil painting. For details of what I did, check out my post here. Nanu nanu!

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 Submitted by Raewyn — decocraftsdigicrafts

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Submitted by Helen Chen — HHC Blog

Helen says: After applying some minor basic adjusting like lighting, sharpness.. I like the photo a lot and didn’t think I could change anything else. Every day, I opened the photo and stared at it… I just love seeing it. One day, suddenly, I realized that there were too many things I liked about the photo: the house, the windows, the front yard, the fence… etc., I decided to try to highlight only one part of the photo. As you can see, I sure had a lot of fun. 

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 Submitted by Nic Anderson — Photography by Nic

Nic says: I played around with several new ideas and filters to get this look.  I’m really happy with it, I hope you like it too. 🙂  A quick overview of of how I made this image can be found here.

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 Submitted by Laura Macky — Laura Macky Photography

Laura says: I always look forward to this challenge.  It’s fun to try and put a unique spin on things and it’s so fun to see what everyone else does.  Please head on over to my blog for the nitty gritty details on how I did it. Thank you, Stacy!

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 Submitted by Sheila Z. — Offshoots12

Sheila says: When I saw the original photo of the older Victorian style home it reminded me of the 100 year-old homes in a small town where we used to live in Iowa in the U.S.  I knew right away I wanted to make the photo look like an aged photograph from like the 1920’s or 30’s that you might find in an old chest in your grandmother’s dusty attic.  Visit my website for more details on how I achieved this look.

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 Submitted by Klara — Sliku svoju ljubim II

Klara says: Rather simple edit, I just used Antique plate 1 filter from Silver Efex Pro 2. I wanted to achieve retro ambiance.

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 Submitted by Julie Powell — Photographic Jewells

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 Submitted by Amy — The World Is a Book

Amy says: I first used LR for the basic adjustments, then opened Efex Pro. I chose the color cast to adjust the colors and used the bokeh to finish it.

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Submitted by Ritva Sillanmäki — Ritva’s Art Photography

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 Submitted by Max 510 — Max510’s Blog

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 Submitted by Mary Hone — Tales from the Backroad

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Submitted by Emilio Pasquale — Photos by Emilio

Emilio says: My wife and I were traveling the Chicken’s Neck, a narrow stretch of land located in the Indian state of West Bengal when we came across this home so totally out of character with the rest of the India territory that we begged the bus driver to… OK, ok, it’s one of Stacy’s own photos. You can’t blame me for wanting to take credit for it. (And my story is more entertaining!)

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 Submitted by Cee Neuner — Cee’s Photography

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Submitted by Lynne Ayers — Beyond the Brush Photography

Lynne says: I couldn’t decide on a direction for this and then ended up with two, but to see the second version you will have to visit my site.  It’s in keeping with Williams’ humorously warped view of reality.

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Submitted by Nancy Merrill – nancy merrill photography

Nancy says: Stacy’s original photo was lovely and, I felt, called out for a nostalgic touch. I adjusted the exposure and a few other things using Photoshop’s RAW converter, and then gave it a light sepia wash. 

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 Submitted by Stacey/Lensaddiction — Learning to See Light

Stacey (in NZ) says: I had fun testing out the 30-day trial versions of some Topaz filters, and chose Topaz Glow to create my entry for this month’s One Photo Focus.

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Submitted by Benjamin Rowe — Aperture64

 Ben says: Congrats on the one-year anniversary. My post will be live here. 

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 Submitted by Loré Dombaj — Snow’s Fissures and Fractures

Loré says: I call this image “Low Winter Sun”, although I have no idea what season it really was. Stacy presented us with quite a  challenge, because of the contrast between those dark and light parts. It was hard to find a balance, but the monochrome just whispered to me in the right way.

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Submitted by Katie Prior — Drawing with Light 

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Submitted by Nancy / dogear6— Living the Seasons

Nancy says: Thanks, Stacy, for providing this month’s photo for ABFriday! I played with several different views on this before finally deciding to crop down to the porch only and remove the extraneous things such as the sidewalk, fence post and other house.  Even with that, there was a lot of clutter that detracted from the picture. For this month, I used Topaz Labs Effects “Grunge Filter” to improve the colors, then Topaz Labs “Simplify Painting” to remove more of the details and leave an artsy look. 

Over at my blog at http://wp.me/pow9k-2q6, I have several example of what I tried. One of them in particular was a very close second, but this one had deeper and richer colors, which appealed to me more.

It was another fun month of experimentation with ABFriday!

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 Submitted by Jaime Perez — My Photolanguage

Jaime says: CONGRATULATIONS and a VERY HAPPY ANNIVERSARY of ABFriday (my goodness; one year, so fast)! Hopefully, this will be another great participation and quality OPFocus event. I sincerely wish you other, and another, and many years more of success with this wonderful forum.

Keep going so, and have a fun celebration!  

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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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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!

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