Issabella,

Clever use of the gradient on the picture of Port Meirion - I might have to try again!!!

david.

A very quick try - I am stealing ideas and adapting them!!!

The Port Meirion photograph: Duplicate image. Add layer mask (black) to top layer. Instead of using a pre-made gradient, select the dark areas, feather by a large amount (30-40px), fill with background colour (white). This now creates a mask for the specific areas. Adjust top layer. Then I have enhanced colour and sharpened. This is a very rough and ready trial (it is late at night!). I may try to do a tidier version tomorrow. It is just the concept I wished to explore.

Screen print to show the idea.

david.

I always seeem to be a number of images behind the rest of you, but here is my German Shepherd -

Sorta got it to look like a thomas the tank engine village.

David, your new steps on port_meirion are very interesting. I have to test this idea, too. The result is good. Thanks for sharing it.
OMG, nice result with your lightening technic giving a such nice effect. Thanks for your contribution.
Steven, good idea to focus the central part by blurring the far background. I like the idea.

My experiment from last night I have now automated!

Re-try in the fresh light of morning.

Select darkest areas by value - see screen-shot.
Select/Feather by 25 pixels.
Select/Save to Channel.
Select/None (lose the marching ants!).
Use the created channel as a layer mask and adjust.

After that I enhanced colours and sharpened using wavelet decompose.

david.

The result is probably overdone, but I was proving the theory!

david.

Thank you so much David. Perfectly explained the flow and it'll be very useful. It's time for me to practise it.

David, your theory works great! I followed your steps and the result was really good to get darkest parts to be lighter. Thanks!

David's technique combined with levels and color enhancement. I like this picture

I think that this thread is being fantastic for all of us to learn new techniques to apply on photography. Thanks to you all who are contributing with so many brilliant ideas.
Steven, you got clearly the darkest zones much lighter applying David's technique.
Here you have these new photos where we can act and practice on them all kind of methods we have learnt along this thread. Free for novelty creations on them, too.

Issabella,

Thank you for another lovely photograph of Port Meirion.
I tried my "new" technique, but instead of using the very darkest point for my selection by colour (value), I used one of the slates on the roof at the left.
This meant that I included slightly more in the mask it created.

Then I played - I added a M Luminosity Mask and put a slight kink in the middle of a curve to boost contrast in the middle range - just to see what happened!
Boosted the colours, sharpened the image and then decided we couldn't have workmen spoiling the view.

Now I must decide what I do with your next three photographs.

david.

my free "interpretation" of DCS_0267

- dup
- on BG applied Retinex (defaults)
- on top layer set mode to Color
- new layer from visible, set to Multiply, added a mask where applied a bilateral gradient
- new from visible
- added a layer filled with a bilateral gradient Deep sea, set to Multiply at 50%
- restored on top the original sky, set to color
- added a transparent layer where applied a Golden paint on the bottom part

Some very visible halos around the shadows on the lawn and the two trees in front of the white house....

dinasset,
Fantastic result - mine seem very mundane in comparison!

The one I have called "ducks_sunset": Various areas masked and adjusted.

The sky: Just colours curves.

Laguna Moncayo: Masked the foreground and increased colour and brightness.
Mask for the water, more blue and more contrast.
Background colours emphasized. Because the background was out of focus, I blurred it more and then used a layer mask with a gradient to reduce the blur at the junction with the water.

david.

Dinasset, I love that photo in such beautiful colours. I want to learn to do it too.
David, beautiful results on those photos. I'll do my tries today, but it be difficult to do something nice after seeing yours.

Much more difficult to enhance I thought it'd be on these three pictures. These are the best results I got
But I have to say that on one of them I applied Lyle's style and I love it. (if you like to see his thread)

dinasset,
Stunning colours in DCS_0267.

Issabella,
Beautiful results on all three of your photographs.

I am still experimenting with my "new technique", trying to find the effects of changes to Threshold and the degree of feathering of the selection.

Two more photographs: in the one I have called "road_sunset" the pole with the cable, towards the left, is not vertical. It leans to the right and bends to the right!

david.

David,
my "painterly" interpretation of one of your images

Thanks David for these nice photos. I like your artistic result Dinasset.
These are my tries on the photos.