Photo Post-processing

Quick Trestle Redo

A comment from oneowner had me detouring from wasting time with one thing to wasting time with another. Specifically — as the title of the post implies — processing a few old photos using current tools. In this case, photos of a train trestle originally snapped in 2012 and featured in this week’s SmugMug Appreciation post.

The above is an HDR rendering from three photos using Aurora HDR 2019, which is still my go-to program for merging bracketed photos, and then tweaked in Luminar AI.

Now, you might not like that particular ‘look’, and I’m there with you. It doesn’t look natural, but the problem is that all three photos were overexposed, and Aurora is doing some heavy lifting to get something useful out of them.

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DxO PhotoLab samples

Edited to Add: I figure I should include a link to the SmugMug Gallery (LINK) for them inclined to visit it and see the full-size photos.

I’ve been using DxO’s PureRAW as a pre-processor for many of my latest photos and I wanted to do a quick test with DxO PhotoLab to compare the two.

With PhotoLab, the output is used pretty much as is, while PureRAW has to be further processed in Lightroom. Well, “has to” is a bit strong. I usually process it because the output is a bit too aggressive and contrasty for my tastes, but it’s a good starting point.

Remember this panorama?

That’s six photos processed in PureRAW and then tweaked in Lightroom. Here’s the photos processed in PhotoLab, also stitched into a panorama.

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I don’t know landscapes

Nota Bene: if you are reading this on the Reader, and if you are using a Dark Theme or Dark Mode, AND if you are on an Android device . . . well, then, you’re likely not able to read this post (or many of my previous posts). Let me repeat this using a white font color in case that will show up: if you are reading this on the Reader, and if you are using a Dark Theme or Dark Mode, AND if you are on an Android device . . . well, then, you likely won’t be able to read this post (or many of my previous posts).

So, landscapes. I like landscape photography, but I’m rarely happy with my results. I can almost hear a few people start to argue . . .

“Oh, Great Disperser. Thou should not sell yourself short for all you do is pretty good!”

Morning Frost,

Well, yeah, but it turns out “pretty good” is a far cry from “good” and lightyears behind “great“.

Don’t believe me? Take a look at these samples (LINK). Now, for comparison, look at a few of my landscapes (LINK). That’s the difference between ‘pretty good’ and ‘great’.

There is no shortage of sites sharing all manner of rules for snapping great landscape photos (LINK) . . . and I know them rules; so well that I know which to violate.

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