Big-ass gun, shot against overcast skies

[shutterbud]

Howdy, fellow DPSlings! This here's my first Before 'n After. I read the rules and, hopefully, haven't broken any unintentionally.

My Before 'n After is of a big ol' cannon (hah, I initially wrote "canon") thingy being towed in a parade. I used my Sigma 70-300mm f/4-5.6 at 133 mm, took the shot at 1/400 at f/4.6 and was shooting manual at 400 ISO w/ auto white balance.

I generally prefer to "bring photos back" to how my mind's eye saw them, rather than over-PP, so here's how I got from B to A:

- curves were tweaked to bring up the highlights
- colour was added back with some saturation
- the sky (exposed white) was given a 12% black tint to give it definition
- a vignette was added to lessen the eye-draw to the sky

You can check out the step-by-step photos here.

Hope that helps! Thanks in advance for any constructive criticisms!
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[Quo Fan]

The after looks really good. I like how you brought out the detail.

[FoG]

The after is so much better love what you have done here nice job

[shutterbud]

Many, many thanks, Quo Fan and FoG!

[constructivecriticism]

The after certainly offers better contrast and saturation, yet it looks like one of those colorized BW pictures (where they take old B&W pictures and overlay colors to each object).

Not saying that's a bad thing.