A/B - Welcome to the Jungle

I recently updated the About Me page of my blog, and the "Philosophy" section explains my take on photography as an art form, and post processing. Quite a while ago I said that I do not show "alternative" versions of my photos, but only the "finished product".

At the moment, my personal mission is to advocate the freedom of post processing. I more than likely repeat myself like a broken record, but if I can use a roll of uber-saturated Velvia film and a softening beauty filter to a traditional film camera, why shouldn't I do the same in digital, and more, with post processing? After all, what I want is to show beautiful pictures. As a person said in a comment to one of my photos in Picasa Web Albums: she recognized my "style" because I'm showing an elevated version of nature that is slightly over the top. Supernatural, in a way. :-)

So today, I start a new category of posts: A/B standing for "after and before". I show the final image, and when you hover your mouse over it, you'll see the plain data that came out of the camera. Since this is done with a script you'll have to visit the original post in my blog to see it work (so please clickety-click on that "Read more" button.)

Welcome to the Jungle (NIKON D700, 1/100s @ ISO 1250; f/8, 65 mm (in 35mm)
Mouseover will show the cropped, but otherwise unedited image with the "Camera Standard v2" profile of ACR/LR applied to the raw data.

I picked this photo because it has received a good amount of praise when I originally showed it in my Picasa Web Album (link goes to the photo there.)

And from my past experience when I took part in similar projects I know that someone, somewhere will be saying "...but I prefer the original!" - that is to be expected and well, so be it. It's all about taste, isn't it? I decided to show the photo in it's final version, and as I'm writing this, more than 300 people looked at it in my web album, and 13 of them could actually be bothered to click on the "Like" button. It can't be all that wrong. :)

I decided to NOT show screenshots of the processing steps in Lightroom. That would be boring. Instead, I just give you a short summary of what I did so it should be more inspiring, and less teaching. :) So what has happened in post processing?

The most dramatic change comes from a lot of negative Clarity. It gives the image this hazy, glowing, dreamy look. The loss of contrast has been compensated by a boost of the highlights (a very good trick with negative clarity) and by switching to the "Camera Vivid" profile for raw conversion. I countered the effect on the tree's trunk and branches (and also in the foreground) with some local adjustments so that the tree's trunk and branches would stand out. I reduced overall contrast and used fill light to compensate for the darker shadows of the Camera Vivid profile. Shifted the yellow and green hues a bit to keep these two colors farther apart from each other. Split toning for the shadows with some magenta tone. That's it.