Keeping My Options Open

Unedited RAW

I've mentioned previously that I enjoy using a high contrast black and white setting on my camera. When I'm not using that one, another favourite is one that Olympus calls "Dramatic Tones". It's similar to an HDR (high dynamic range) effect but sometimes adds some strange highlights or dark spots which aren't always pleasing. But I always have a RAW version as back-up in case things go wrong.

In the case of this palm tree that I shot a few months ago, the unedited RAW version looks really dull.

Dramatic Tones - as shot

On the other hand the Dramatic Tones shot has produced some halos around the tree combined with a few really dark patches in the sky.













With a lot of experimentation in Photoshop, I came up with something a bit more natural though I'm still not entirely happy with the result.

Edited in Photoshop

Dramatic Tones converted to sepia

Once I was done with colour I decided to try some sepia conversions.

The version created from the Dramatic Tones original produced an interesting, though rather dark, result.

Photoshop edit converted to sepia

Converting the version created in Photoshop produced a much lighter tree.








I'm really not sure which I like better.

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Linking up with Photo Friday.