What Would You Do (#89)

[Nicole]

Time for another photo for What Would you Do!

This week's photo is from veddar2000, who had originally entered this shot in the critique forums, but was told that it'd be a great entry for WWYD. Here's a little background on the shot:

Situated in the town center is the closest thing to Dracula's castle you will probably find in the midwest. I was very taken by the structure visually and we promptly parked the car and walked around the downtown to snap some photos. Of course, I took several of the marvelous structure but this is the one that I seemed to like more than any. It was a beautiful day and the powerful building seemed to loom over us like the home of Zeus himself.

The rules are as simple as always. Edit the shot in this post. Come back and show us the result and tell us how you got it (we love it when people explain how they got the result since it helps the rest of us learn about post-processing). Easy as that!

If you'd like your photo featured as a WWYD, simply send me a PM with a link to the medium and large version of the photo. I use them in the order I get them, so sometimes the wait is non-existent, and sometimes it takes a few weeks, but rest assured, they get used.

Now, let's see what you would do!

[embrodak]

I couldn't access a large version, but here's a draculization of the castle:

[padsbrother]

Unfortunately, I couldn't get to the larger version so the processing has brought out some JPEG noise...

Here's what I did (using GIMP)
- Used perspective tool to straighten up the tower and remove the converging lines
- Used the scale tool to stretch the tower a bit
- Duplicated the layer
- Altered the levels to increase the contrast
- on the second layer, altered the levels to over saturate
- Created a mask which was a greyscale copy of the over saturated layer so that just the most saturated bits showed through
- Applied un-sharp mask
- Added a vignette on a new layer using a circular gradient
Comments most welcome!

[edmDusty]

uuugg....sign up to download. No thank you.

[jiminyClickit]

Clock Tower Morphs into Monster, News at 11 . . . [for animation now - http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3596/...61ac7f22_o.gif - ]



More Morpheus work. Selected around the tower, distorted into head shape, added eyes.

- Increased contrast, darkened copy of original
- Replaced tower/head. Added vignette top/dark and bottom/light.
- Added second vignette center/light, outside/dark.
- Erased vignettes over eyes.

[sftl99]

Just wanted the colors to pop a little better so...
Upped contrast
Added vignette
Color Efex Pro Contrast plugin for Aperture

[canonrt]

WOW! Nice, it looks HDish!

[windrider86]

First things first, used the pick tool set to perspective to straighten out the building. On a new layer used the infrared effect. Burn areas set at midtone. Added new layer and used the black pencil effect and then lowered opacity to 86% and set blend mode to overlay. Added a vingette\

[Saralonde]

Originally Posted by jiminyClickit

Clock Tower Morphs into Monster, News at 11 . . . [for animation now - http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3596/...f06b6825_o.gif - ]



More Morpheus work. Selected around the tower, distorted into head shape, added eyes.

- Increased contrast, darkened copy of original
- Replaced tower/head. Added vignette top/dark and bottom/light.
- Added second vignette center/light, outside/dark.
- Erased vignettes over eyes.

Love this and the animation!

[RittyRats]

I also went the "dark" route for this pic.
Adjusted the curves, but then took it to
Monochrome in the Channels Mixer, and lowered the blue level by -16%
I borrowed the Bird layer from Tina/Reflected Memories on Flickr, added it in Multiply at 100% opacity.
I thought that parts of the castle were still too bright, so I did some selective Burning on the castle on the Original photo.
*the blue in the upper right hand corner is on the original Bird layer (hmmmmm...that slipped by me!)