How did Mr Muller do this?

[Damon Lynch]

Hi,

Photo journalist Peter Muller has photos from the latest chapter of the ongoing war in Congo. He is obviously a very fine photographer, and his project is fascinating.

I'm curious about the post processing, which I guess was done by him and not the NY Times. To my eye it looks like he uses a rich amount of saturation, pushes the sharpening close to the limits before it's clearly too much, and seems to be applying some kind of set of non-trivial tools to bump up contrast -- perhaps something like can be achieved with Topaz clarity and / or Nik's Pro contrast. Do you agree? What else is he doing to achieve the look he has?

It certainly leaves a vivid impression. It's a little too much for me, but I guess many viewers would like it.

Thanks,
Damon

[Christoph C. Feldhaim]

Some part of it may be postprocessing, but I also believe the light he had plays an important role.
On nearly every image there are lots of clouds and there seemed to be a great amount of diffuse light.

[Simon Garrett]

To my eyes he's turned up saturation, contrast (or clarity) and sharpness - as you say - and turned down the mid-tone brightness.  Many of the images are bordering on low-key. 

[kirkt]

Looks like A LOT of clarity slider or similar local contrast boost.  

kirk

[PhotoEcosse]

To my eye, it looks like a very selective saturation boost - in different photographs he has chosen to over-saturate different colours for some sort of "artistic" effect. Some of them (imho) work and others I am not so sure of. But, as in all exaggerated artistic effects, it is very much a matter of personal taste.

[Iluvmycam]

Nice work. I like it. PP fits the subject fine.

[davidh202]

Hi,

 
It certainly leaves a vivid impression. 
 Damon

He might start off right from the beginning using Vivid mode in camera and then enhance them even more in PP. 

[wmchauncey]

He might start off right from the beginning using Vivid mode in camera

Are you suggesting that he does not shoot his images in the RAW format?