Collaboration on a Carousel of Swings
The other day while going through my feed I came across a post from @daveks titled “Summer Vacation Camera Roll.” I figured @daveks is a good photographer so his vacation photos should be pretty good. While scrolling through the photos in his post I came across a what, I first thought was a Carousel, but on further inspection was a swing ride that was exceptionally ornate. Either way it was a great composition, it was backlit because of a large skylight behind it, which is a blessing and a curse in this photo. I thought it was a great shot but, I felt with a little post processing it could really stand out.
I really wanted to take a SWING at post processing that image, but how does one ask someone to give you permission to process their photo without implying that they didn’t do a good job with their photo? After a few seconds of agonizing over it I decided to go with, “This one is my favorite. I would love to see it processed with more saturation, and a bit of a vignette. If it would interest you I would love to take a shot at processing it, you can message me on steemit chat my handle is the same there as here.” That turned out to be a good approach since @daveks agreed to let me give it a shot, you can see the full exchange if you like.
So @daveks sent me the original photo and I set to work on it. The first thing I set about doing was to bring the area under the canopy up out of the shadows. There is already light there I just wanted to make the existing light brighter. Next I set about bringing back contrast where the bright backlight washed out the top of the canopy. The sky is effectively blown out so instead of trying to get any detail from it I blew it all the way out to make it more dramatic. The for the overall image I wanted strong contrast and saturation. Almost all of these adjustments were done with masked out curves layers, I would normally set these layers blend mode to luminance to prevent them from modifying the color in the image, but for this I wanted bold colors so I left the blend mode to the default setting. When I was done in photoshop I finished by tweaking things a little in Lightroom binging the exposure, shadows, whites and saturation up a bit more.
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Photo by @daveks taken with the Galaxy S7 post processing by @kellyjanderson
And here is the full sized final photo.
Photo by @daveks taken with the Galaxy S7 post processing by @kellyjanderson
It was really fun collaborating on this photo with @daveks and I would like to collaborate with him or other Steemit users again in the future. I would love to hear from you and get your feedback on the processing as well so please do comment.
Cheers, @kellyjanderson
If you liked this post, you I invite you to visit some of my other recent posts below.
| Delicate mushrooms on a rock - SteemitPhotoChallenge Entry | Yellow of Summer |
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Awesome post and great collaboration @kellyjanderson and @daveks! This is what Steemit is all about.
Thanks @kommienezuspadt, this was an exciting post for me and also a bit of a growing experience. I am looking forward to doing more collaborative work in the coming months.
Cheers,
@kellyjanderson
Well done pulling so much additional saturation and contrast without generating artifacts from noise inherent in the image or banding due to changes in values (ie: gradient from 1:3 becoming 1:7 across the same number of pixels).
I've had the same social/ethical concern when post editing another steemian's image, once or twice, but like you I interacted with the original author and posted the results in the original thread.
It'd be another matter if the original was just taken and used elsewhere without knowledge or consent.
Go team collaboration, great to see!
Thanks @neuromancer, my secret is masking out areas to they can be adjusted locally, it gives you more latitude even in a JPEG.
I have always been concerned with copyright and the ethical use of content. I started out working in imaging software and spent 12 years working in online media. While I am a software engineer by trade I started doing serious photography in 2011 where copyright became personal. I personally would never manipulate someone's work without their permission let alone publish it. There is a serious issue with copyright violation on Steemit, and I try to combat it by example and direct education; it is not my primary goal here on Steemit but very important to me.
It was very fulfilling to collaborate with another Steemit user. I am a fairly introverted person, but I would like to stretch beyond that and become more collaborative, so this is a very positive and exciting post for me.
Thanks for your comment, and I appreciate you calling out the ethical concerns explicitly for others that may read this and be educated by it.
Cheers,
@kellyjanderson
Yea, alpha channels rule.
All the same, large adjustments to saturation and contrast, particularly when starting from low saturation/contrast images, especially when the source is lossy compressed, can produce some nasty gremlins, but your managed a pretty clean result.
The specific mention of ethical approach was no more overlooked than it was unappreciated. I've noticed the problem behaviour here on steemit.
It's my hope that a better, more ethical, more collaborative form of conduct will rise by popular vote, thus promoting and encouraging those ideologies. And for those of a more philistine persuasion, demonstrate by reward and recognition that it is not only more favourable but it pays better too.
Thanks for initiating the collaboration, for creating this thread to share the process, and for engaging in the discussion on ethics. Now we just need as many people to see this as possible, and continue to support and promote collaboration and ethics.
meep
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Very cool Kelly. You remixed his photo! Good on both of you for cooperating on this and adding another dimension to Steemit.
Thanks @rt395
You did a great job bringing back the details from the shadow areas!
Thanks @sea-otter, the light there was actually dramatic and cool, it was just hard to see because the camera was trying to balance the shadow and the bright light coming the skylight. I just had to isolate that area and bring it up, the existing light did most of the work of looking cool.
Cheers,
@kellyjanderson
Nice job on bringing that photo to life!
It's amazing what a few tweeks here and there can accomplish.
Thank you @daveks! I always have the goal of making a photo match what I remember seeing, which is usually brighter and more colorful that it was in real life, then I often push it just a tad more so the image seems exceptional. In the case of this photo I did not see it in real life, so it was all imagination.
Cheers,
@kellyjanderson