Photo contest: post processing #9 - - - It's simple

I'll start with the result, which I came to through a series of simple manipulations in the simplest photo editor, which I use when I don't have some important work to do. Editor - FastStone Image Viewer 5.5

I'm not updating it to the latest version yet, because that's enough. I am a conservative and almost ascetic, and in general I rarely resort to processing my photos.

What I got here: a deserted sea beach, autumn, feathers of hungry gulls, and maybe their prey. A poplar branch brought here by the sea, someone's footprint all over this set.

It was a rather prosaic photograph, which in my opinion has no special value, except for some memories. I specifically chose the worst one from a number of frames to try to make him talk and tell something not only to me, but also to the viewer.

I started by adding a bit of sharpness, although it was enough, but for the final result, which I had planned in advance, it needed to be strengthened

Next, I had to adjust the illumination and contrast. The program has it all in one package. I turned down the whites, added the dark ones, turned down the saturation and added contrast.

That's enough, I thought, and started cleaning up everything superfluous from the frame using the "retouch" option.

I started with a leaf in the upper left corner and walked around the perimeter, diligently "burying in the sand" what distracted attention from the center of the frame.

After such cleaning, I subjected the frame to cropping while maintaining the proportions.

And here is the result. Everything is quite acceptable and it can already be shown, and not kept in the archive.

It seemed to me that if you apply dark vignetting, it will get even better, and therefore I had to switch to another photo editor, because there is no such possibility in FastStone 5.5. I do some operations in the system editor.

It was possible to apply one of the templates here, but I prefer to achieve the desired effect manually.

I'm going to this section:

And on a clean frame, I adjust the dimming in the vignette to the state I need.

Well, since I'm here, I can adjust something else. These will be: reduce the illumination, add shadows and contrast. Just a little bit.

I get a result that suits me, but after returning to the FastStone editor with it, I decide to abandon the color and understand as a result that this is the right decision.

I also had to add contrast and strengthen the shadows to get this result. The work on this is finished and now I can leave an autograph on it through the "Watermark" option of the same editor.

The post is intended for participation in the contest from @bambuka

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Camera used: Camera used: Konica Minolta DIMAGE Z2

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