Creative Effects Challenge No. 125 - RAW Coastline

Looks like you and I were thinking along the same lines, Maurice. I love seeing everyone's take on this. First I created a color version that I was fairly happy with using LR and NIK CE4 with a sky replacement from Luminar. I then decided to go with a split tone effect in LR after using the BW 10 preset. For the split tone I chose 40/10 for both highlights and shadows and added a slight vignette.

I especially like the sky you chose and the way you positioned it, Tony.

Thanks for posting, Pete. It's always interesting to see what can be achieved with other software.

Here is my B&W version.



1- Basic adjustments in Lightroom 6. I started with Auto and then adjusted the exposure, hightlights, shadows and black point manually. I also used the brush tool to select the sky and darken it a bit. I was aiming to keep the rocks as a silhouette. Then I exported into PSE 2020.




2- My goal was to create a dramatic b&W effect using various layers of the Fractalius plug in. Here is the description of the layer stack starting from the bottom layer.

Layer 1-Background layer on bottom.
Layer 2-Background Copy with Fractalius Default preset at 35% transparency set to Overlay blend mode. This created contrast in the sky and distant rocks.
Layer 3-Background copy with Fractalius Jungle preset at 36% transparency set to normal blend mode. This layer created contrast along natural lines in the sea and rocks. Used a layer mask to exclude the sky
Layer 4- Background copy with Fractalius Lines preset at 10% transparency set to normal blend mode. This was to create just a hint of contrast along the lines in the deep shadows while still maintaining the silhouette of the rocks.
Layer 5- A clone layer to clone part of the sky into the hole in the rocks on the right. Set the clone layer transparency to 29% normal blend mode.
Layer 6- Layers adjustment with the grey point set to 0.18 to darken the sky.
Layer 7- Layers adjustment with the grey point set to to 0.62 to darken the little patch of sea behind the rocks.
Layer 8- Gradient map to convert to Black and White
Layer 9- Clone layer to remove some spots in the sky. (Maybe the sensor had some dust)
Layer 10- Combined all layers.
Layer 11- Used the crop tool to enlarge the canvas then stretched the entire image to give the impression of a wider field of view.
Layer 12- Copy of layer 11. Applied Filter/Correct camera distortion/Vignette -13, Distortion +5





Thank you for giving me the opportunity to work with this very interesting image.

Kind regards
Chris

Adjustments in ACR. Took into PSE, applied curves, levels. and added a sky gradient. Used Nik filters for contrast + details + fog + glow.

Pete - I like the subtle shades of color and smooth transitions.