[matthew]

This may be the worst-ever post-processing thread, because I can't really give a great breakdown on the workflow, but I thought this still might interest a few people.

Straight out-of-camera jpeg image:



(view larger)


Raw image after conversion:



(view larger)


This was taken with my D800 and 50/1.4 lens at f/5.6, 1/100s, and iso640. The camera was set to a slightly warm interpretation of auto white balance, which affects only the jpg, and Nikon's automatic shadow-lifting processing (whose name escapes me at the moment) that applies to both the jpeg and raw file.

(I did try to tweak the jpeg file, but never really improved it over the SOOC edition.)

The raw file has gone through a two-step processing. The first was using DxO Optics, for lens geometry correction and differential sharpening, which are all applied automatically based on stored data about the camera-lens-aperture combination. I also used the DxO software to set the exposure to protect the highlights, applied their modest HDR-like contrast control to it, and exported it as a DNG to keep the most possible data intact.

Step two was to bring it into lightroom 4 for further refinement. This is where I did a little more tweaking of the lens distortion (DxO was a little conservative) and cropped, along with further lifting of the shadows and darkening of the blacks and highlights. I also make liberal use of the 'presence' adjustments in LR4, giving this a Clarity +50, Vibrance +30, and Saturation -5.

That amount of fussing is pretty standard for photos that I like. The one thing that I forgot to do is to reintroduce some vignetting. I let DxO remove it in the first steps so that I can crop the photo asymmetrically, but I usually like to put a hint of it back for its compositional emphasis and a sense of cohesion.

Further steps for this photo, should I decide to do anything more than light blogging with it, would be to go through and perform some selective adjustments. Dodge/burn tonal adjustments and reducing the Clarity adjustment on the out-of-focus areas to begin with, and possibly some saturation and other adjustments as well – I never quite know until I get started.

[enviroguy]

A very informative description of the workflow for this image.

.....Dennis

[Don Schaeffer]

Very interesting pp effect. Great street photo. I love the "i'm listening" expression on the vendor's face. This certainly looks like New York.

[Toad]

Your description of your process is fascinating. The differences between the 2 images are subtle, but all improve the result. Nice!

[Zig]

Excellent and succinct; ta Matthew.

[blue]

The improvement in the vendor's face from your process is striking.

[NT73]

Like everyone says, very informative.
I guess you work with what you have got, if you like it.
Well I do.