After Before Forum Wk66; Malbork Dining Hall

The After Before Forum is a place where photographers of all levels can show how they get the wow in their photography. It is easy and fun to take part, you can check out how here.

This week’s picture comes from Malbork Castle, the seat of the Teutonic Knights and really the capital of the Teutonic order. This shot is a view of the end of the dining hall where the new knights of the order would eat. When I first saw this scene I knew I wanted it in black and white. There was just something about the textures and a mood that led me down this path.

I converted the image to black and white using my Daguerreotype preset. This preset has strong contrast and dark shadows but gives a nice eerie feeling.

Although I like the contrast, I did want to brighten up some areas. I used multiple radial adjustment tools to brighten specific areas of the image.

The window on the right was flaring around the edges. Although this isn’t that bad I wanted to add something that would add to the area and make it an area of interested. I thought some light rays would work nicely.
I did this by (importing the image to Photoshop) duplicating my layer darkening it and applying a radial blur. I set the blur to screen duplicated it and clipped an auto levels adjustment as well as a dust and scratches adjustment.

I added a sepia-ish tone to add some more depth to the image. I did this with a curves adjustment.

I added some noise and sharpened the image just to finish off the image. The addition of noise is to add some texture to the image. I sharpened using the Highpass method and masked out the floor because I liked it slightly softer.

 

I think the final image is ok, now looking back I think I would have done something more.

Week 66 Entries For The After Before Friday Forum

Benjamin Rowe Aperture64

Before

After

Lore Dombaj Snows Fissures and Fracture

After

Before

Nic Anderson – Photography-by-Nic

After

Before

I don’t normally pick up random stuff to photograph at home but when I saw this tiny snail shell I really wanted to photograph it with my super macro lens.  That lens is touchy, focus-wise, and requires being on a tripod with a focusing rail, so I’ve only taken photos with it in the ‘studio’.  It felt weird to bring home this ‘dead’ snail, but I tried to convince myself that it was like bringing home a seashell.  Anyway, this after image is 15 photos focus-stacked, then the color is fixed and the sharpness improved.  The snail shell itself is only 1/2 inch (1.27 cm) diameter!

Amy The World is a Book

After

Before

Mary Hone Tales From the Back Road

After

Before

Please check out the links to the other members posts to see how they make their image pop.

If you wish to take part in the forum next week check out the forum guide here.

I would love to here what you think and you can let me know in the comment box below.

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