Editing Turner Valley 645Z Images

 The colours of the above image were not harmonious and the image shouted for a black and white conversion. Given the antique nature of the subject, it seemed sensible to apply a toning. I used my usual browntone made by applying a fill layer of solid colour and converting the blend to colour, with adjustments to intensity across the brightness range via the blend detail window (double clicking on the layer). I wasn't quite happy with it and having this evening looked through Roman Loranc's wonderful book of photographs in which he uses a neutral black but toned mid and light tones, I decided to try adding a saturation level, with a -76 adjustment to saturation. I then double clicked on the adjustment layer and moved the right hand (highlight) slider of the output image to the middle, thus removing the desaturation from the light tones. I then used the opacity slider for the layer to reduce the desaturation effect overall to 70%, leaving jut a little richness to the shadows and softening the gradation of colour.

 

I quite liked the web image but my print of this photograph looked week, the highlights lacking detail, the port quite dull, and the backdrop rather flat. About a dozen adjustment layers later the port had some oomph, the shadows some depth, and the highlight silver some richness.

I don't think I'm finished with the editing here. I think to right of the port could be a tad lighter, probably using a curve in which the white point is moved to the left, rather than just a lightening curve. but first I'm going to live with the print for a few days.

One thing I'm delighted with is that these files do stand up really well to editing. It does seem that the larger and cleaner the original file, the better edits look. The Nikon D810 is out and it fixed most of my frustrations with the Nikon, and early testing suggests the images will be great, but I have absolutely no regrets about my purchase of the Pentax 645Z, the most comfortable I have felt about a purchase in a long time.