I am nearly over my lurgy, my throat is still a little scratchy but apart from that I have a clear head and can breathe again.
While I wasn’t feeling particularly chipper I did spend some self indulgent fun playing in photoshop and cooking up an interesting editing workflow.
I wanted to create a workflow that would allow me to take close up and macro images and add a slight smoothness in tone while at the same time adding clarity.
I started by using the oil filter and found by removing the glare option I got nice smooth colours but there was not sharp.
I really wanted to extract more detail in the image without making the image a murky mess. Using different sharpening methods didn’t work, so I headed in another direction.
In the end I settled on Topaz filters Detail 3 and had a play around. The thing with Topaz is that some of options affect the colour of the image which I didn’t want to do. In the end I found the right settings by taking the “overall detail strong” preset and making slight adjustments depending on the image.
The images have a nice feel to them and it is hard to know if I am looking at a photo or a more graphic based image as the effect is quite subtle.
Let me know what you think.
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Aperture64 
wow…everyone of these photos are gorgeous…this shows me what I can eventually do when I’m able to upgrade my photo programs! Yes, definitely smooth colors…you can see the smoothness…
I think there is a lot of options available when you upgrade. I also believe the best way to learn with these programs is to play with them.
Sorry about your Lurgy, Ben. I am just shaking mine off after almost 3 debilitating weeks. These are beautiful images. I need to explore these filters.
I get this lurgy once a year at the beginning of the school year because i am meeting new students and parents plus the temp normal changes allowing for different flus to be spread on public transport.
I hadn’t used the oil filter before because i thought it was another art filter but it turned out to be more than that and is worth a little play with.
Every cloud has a silver lining 🙂 I absolutely love these images!
When things are a little less busy I’ll experiment with the oil filter – not having Topaz though I may have to find a different solution for sharpening.
When writing I realised not all would have it. There is a way with camera raw to creat a faux topaz effect. Topaz really just creates midtone contrast to emlate sharpness. In camera raw switching to 2010 mode. Raise the recovery and fill inm light to full add contrast and clarity. This is a long way round and requires some trial and error but could work as a replacement.
Thanks for that! Saves me starting from scratch 🙂