Luminous Landscape Forum

Raw & Post Processing, Printing => Digital Image Processing => Topic started by: Damon Lynch on November 06, 2013, 09:50:58 am

Title: How did Mr Muller do this?
Post by: Damon Lynch on November 06, 2013, 09:50:58 am

Hi,

Photo journalist Peter Muller has photos from the latest chapter of the ongoing war in Congo (http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/11/05/a-congolese-rebellion-routed-a-photographers-work-continues/). 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

Title: Re: How did Mr Muller do this?
Post by: Christoph C. Feldhaim on November 06, 2013, 09:56:39 am

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.

Title: Re: How did Mr Muller do this?
Post by: Simon Garrett on November 06, 2013, 11:14:20 am

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. 

Title: Re: How did Mr Muller do this?
Post by: kirkt on November 06, 2013, 11:14:53 am

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

kirk

Title: Re: How did Mr Muller do this?
Post by: PhotoEcosse on November 06, 2013, 11:56:46 am

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.

Title: Re: How did Mr Muller do this?
Post by: Iluvmycam on November 06, 2013, 02:14:57 pm

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

Title: Re: How did Mr Muller do this?
Post by: davidh202 on November 06, 2013, 07:51:17 pm

Quote from: Damon Lynch on November 06, 2013, 09:50:58 am

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. 

Title: Re: How did Mr Muller do this?
Post by: wmchauncey on November 10, 2013, 10:33:31 am

Quote

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?      ???