Home of Dave Cohen

Phill’s rules:

1. Fill in the form at www.phillprice.com/index.php/2009/02/21/edit-my-photo-pro… and I’ll send you the full straight out of the camera Canon RAW file – or a JPG from that original raw.
2. Edit it as you like
3. Post it somewhere – be it a photo sharing site or your own blog
4. Send me a link to say you’re ready
5. Bask in the glory that you did better than me

Photo is licensed under creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/uk/

So, how did I edit the photo? I imported Phil’s RAW file into Lightroom. From there I created 4 virtual copies of it. Then for each virtual copy I adjusted the exposure so I ended up with photos at +2, +1, 0 (Phill’s original), -1 and -2 exposures.

Then I exported the photos into Photomatix using their Lightroom plugin. Tweaked the HDR till I was happy with the results and then exported the file as a TIFF.

Next I opened the TIFF into Photoshop to try and cleanup the bright spot that is along the left hand side of the subject. I was able to recover some of the color after the HDR conversion, but not all. And since I’m not that skilled with restoring photos I decided to live with the results. I then saved the TIFF again.

Opened Lightroom back up and imported the new TIFF. Applied some Clarity and Contrast adjustments and exported the photo back out of Lightroom.

Last step was to clean up some of the noise that got generated creating the HDR. I opened up my Noiseware Professional application, applied adjustments till I was happy and voila, we have a final product.  I might spend some time to continue tweaking the photo to get back some brightness above the structure and recover that bright spot on the left but wanted to publish this before tomorrow’s deadline.

Here’s the Original Photo

Painful, is life
at times
when we feel
lonely
when we feel
broken
when we feel
unmotivated

Painful, is life
when we cannot
reach a goal
when we cannot
save time for ourselves
when we cannot
fulfill our needs

Painful, is life
in shadows
of memories that haunt us

Painful, is life
in death
and sorrow

Painful, is life
in despair
and devastation

Painful, is life
closing in on us
suffocating
the very breaths
we need to
survive

Painful, is life
in the end

Photo from August 2008.  Just added the documentary The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill to my Netflix queue.  Hope to learn a bit more about these guys.

Add it to your queue too, just click the following image