ingredients:
- one freaking heavy chinese cleaver
- one ratty cutting board
- one monolight with a 10 degree grid spot
- one forgiving wife
post-challenge edit:
- WHAT? i did not think it was at all possible to win a challenge on my first try. i can not explain how cool that is... i'll edit again shortly.
edited in photoshop cs2, in two phases. the first phase was conversion from raw to black and white:
1. raw conversion with -100% saturation, square crop.
2. several curves layers to bring out textural detail in the cutting board, knife blade and handle. another curves layer to darken out unwanted detail in the black desk chair the cutting board was sitting on.
3. flatten all layers.
the second phase was in color:
1. raw conversion with normal saturation, same crop.
2. convert to lab color.
3. copy and paste the b&w image from above into the luminance channel of the lab image.
4. curves layer to compensate for unnatural-looking saturation in the shadowy areas of the cutting board.
5. hue/saturation layer to tweak colors to look a bit more threatening or ominous.
6. flatten, convert to jpg, submit.
Statistics
Place: 1 out of 149 Avg (all users): 6.7937 Avg (commenters): 7.6842 Avg (participants): 6.6129 Avg (non-participants): 6.8819 Views since voting: 7611 Views during voting: 341 Votes: 189 Comments: 48 Favorites: 11 (view)
Fantastic shot, thanks for the detail in the Processing as well, never heard of lab colour before and so i had a play with it after seeing this entry. Excellent first entry and a well deserved win!
This is a great photo and well deserving of a blue. However, to me it is a rather unusual angle of the knife.....I'da had it tilted the other way ie: the handle tilted to the left. and rotated 180.
really funny you should say that. i took about 30 shots, 29 of which were pretty much what you describe. they were from the opposite angle, light and camera focused on these chinese characters etched on the blade. this shot i took at random, as one of the first shots i took, and then paid it no mind for the rest of the time i was shooting.
it ended up that i didn't like any of those 29 as much as this one. it's weird, my mental picture was totally backwards from what i ended up with.
This is a great photo and well deserving of a blue. However, to me it is a rather unusual angle of the knife.....I'da had it tilted the other way ie: the handle tilted to the left. and rotated 180. Oh, what the heck do I know...I like it but it just don't look normal, which prolly ain't no big deal to most folks. I guess thats why it placed first, It is a great photo.
hehe, i have to admit i kind of feel that way. i feel very weird about having won on my first try. i'm certain i've jinxed any further attempts...
Originally posted by kevrobertson:
Only joking, An excellent image. Simple btu very effective.
I must try out your edditing steps.
Keep up the good work.
thanks very much! yeah, that kind of editing technique i really favor often. i find that for a lot of my images, i need them to look good in b&w before i'm satisfied with how they look in color. and lab is such a weird and wonderful colorspace to work in.
post-challenge edit:
- WHAT? i did not think it was at all possible to win a challenge on my first try. i can not explain how cool that is... i'll edit again shortly.
cleaver
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