For the Money! / #club100

My entry for the Post Processing contest. Round #27 topic was 'Macro':
https://steemit.com/@bambuka/photo-contest-post-processing-27

This is my first time participating in this contest, so please excuse me if I do something wrong. Also, I ask senior comrades to educate me which tags in addition to #photo-process - the main tag of the contest - it is better to use for a topic like this. I used #education, #lesson, #photoshop, but perhaps you know others that are more correct?

So... in the summer I photographed flowers, dew, and butterflies drinking nectar - all these typical subjects for macro photography are in my archive, and I could present them without any problems. But sometimes I just want to pick up a camera and take pictures, rather for the sake of the process itself and not for the result. This is exactly what happened today: I opened the summer photos, then closed the folder, looked around the space around me and thought about what I would like to photograph.

My gaze fell on the coin box, and I did not think more: I stacked the coins into beautiful golden and silver piles, moved them under the sunlight flowing from the window, and took two dozen quick captures. What result I wanted to get: figuratively speaking, I wanted images that would well illustrate such ideas, as "wealth", "treasure" etc. Of course, warm yellow, golden glitter is associated with this, but also crimson red: a color since ancient times traditionally associated with imperial status, luxury, upper class.

Therefore, I used a brown lacquered wooden board for the background, which can be easily converted into warmer and even red color. The coins in the photo I tried to arrange so that the picture would become maximum "bokelicious", glittery, to get more gold sparkles. I didn’t need sharpness and readable information, quite on the contrary, I needed it to be unclear which particular country this coin was, I needed the effect of universality and out of temporality.

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So, most part of the job was to arrange the coins and to take correct angle and distance, to get visuals that I wanted to get. This is the final result of my image processing:

But this image did not came out of camera like that. Actually, this is how camera processed it:

With this dissected image you can see what is the exact difference: it is about colors, more pure, shiny... golden.

Below I will explain how I got such an embellished image.

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For editing I used a .raw file, which I processed in Photoshop Camera Raw filter (v.13).
Interface looks a bit complex, but we dont need to adjust all the settings.
Actually, the most important is Basic section, and also I used Details, and Calibration sections.

The ideal guide, of course, would describe what is the function of each slider on this screenshot - but then I will never be able to finish my post, hehe. Let's put it this way: I "condensed" the midtones a bit, making them more contrast, and played with the balance of colors, shifting it to the red-orange part of the spectrum, especially in the shadows. If you want to master this magical technology, take these sliders in your own hands, and you will intuitively understand for yourself what each of them does, what is their role in image synthesis.

That was the first step, but not the last. Next one is manual retouching, mostly of shadows and highlights - this part totally depends on the certain image. (I consider it important, but its time consuming; best results swallow your time. But of course, you can get some nice result easier and faster without spending a lot of time on manual retouching. The result will not be much worse!)

It can be done with a special Adjustment Brush. The settings for the brush I used were like in the screenshot above, but it is hard to describe what exactly I did. I tried to create this gif to iluustrate the process, but it did not turned out too vivid:

With this pale red opaque brush, I painted over the parts of these image...

... that had "dirty" shadows, I brightened them, and saturated a bit with color.

After that I used Graduated filter brush to add, lets put it so, some vignetting effect - I made the image a bit darker at its sides and corners. My purpose was rather artsy, it actually isnt such a necessary step.

Final touches. After all above adjustments were summed up, I evaluated the color - it became different, comparing with result at the first step. I wanted to lighten and saturate the image a little, so I reduced the reddish tint in the picture, bringing it a bit to more natural.

After this step I push the 'Open' button, and the file is proceeded to Photoshop.

I evaluated the result, and decided that still some parts of the image are too shady, too dark - to improve image I took the Dodge Tool ...

...and, again, painted over the most annoying shades and midtones areas, to get rid of them. The more the human eye distinguishes details in the shadows, the more attractive this image seems to him (on an unconscious level). All! This is the final step. I'm downsizing the image and saving it for posting.

Did you like my guide?

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PS.

Actually.... I wanted to tell you about macro focus stacking know-how; my post could be the guide how this image image processing trick can benefit your coins macro photos .... but I got carried away with something else. So, probably - next time!

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100% SP (manual translation to SP)

Thank you to all curators for support!