Let There Be Dark…

Well well well! I gave myself a little vacation from blogging, again, as it was my birthday (August 17^th), and also because of some health issues with my gum. At the moment of typing these words I'm on recovery phase, I hope! My face was literally like a balloon! I'm still having some issues eating a bit and I can't open my mouth hard, but at least the severe pain has gone. Meanwhile, I'm keeping swashing and stuffing my mouth with cloves.
I was already in cold water with my camera; Not much inspiration, not much mood to work with it, and with my mouth problems things were doubled, if not tripled. I barely had the power to even get up from bed (well, my recliner) or even to process some old photos. Things are getting better a bit now and hopefully I can work with my camera more in the near future. I've made it a habit of mine to take selfies in the first few hours of my birth-day, typically with my DSLR camera, but this year I was so tired to set up things, so I just used my mobile for this purpose, and a LED flashlight. Anyway, in this post, I'm not here to talk about my selfies, but rather about something else, completely. A processing venture.

Let There Be Dark

Actually this post won't be like a tutorial for some process in Photoshop (or whatever editing software) but I wanted to give a glimpse of the general story of this "technique"; If I can call it so.
This new method of treating RAW files sheds some new hope onto some of the old images that I've simply neglected for one reason or another. However, the main advantage with this "technique" is the ability to deal with relatively dark shots (underexposed that is) and create something interesting out of them. I think what technique emphasizes is that shadows are your friend; They add depth, meaning and mood to the image.
Before I proceed with talking about this technique, I had to admit that it is not something flexible but rather an approach (i.e. no fixed values), so I would skim through the changes in a bit. This technique is also a merge between two or three methods that I've encountered in some tutorials; I've "unintentionally" started to merge these methods while editing some of my photos, and to my surprise, the "cinematic" look that was working on polishing and perfecting, was somewhat achieved using this method that I will be talking about.
The technique is based on three major aspects:

1. Lowering the exposure (darkening the image), and increasing the highlights/brightness.
2. Fixing the white balance at 50K (with tint at 0).
3. Split-Toning.

These are the three main aspects of the processing, but of course the story does not end with the RAW editing, as other edits are to be done in Photoshop itself (e.g. adding diffused light). These steps were originally, somewhat, separate. That is, each technique or step did belong to a separate tutorial (unfortunately, I don't remember them to post them here right now). But as far as I remember, the first step did belong to a tutorial about "adding a dark atmosphere to a portrait", while the other two did belong to a tutorial about "adding vibrancy to a night city scene".

Remnant of A Fairy Tale

These steps became like a norm right now when editing any photo (specifically old). It might not turn out good for every photo, so I try to twitch and change some sittings. If nothing works out, then I'm back to my "normal" editing. But given that most of the photos I'm working with this technique right now are old photos (which were processed differently before), I would simply forget about it and look for some other photos to work with.

Lejla Maltija
(A Maltese evening)

Sometimes, I try to reverse the settings (when it comes to white balance specifically) and see if things change. I've realized that, usually, it turns into a somewhat a night scene. However, it's not always workable like in Lejla Maltija. In fact, I was lucky to have it worked here. The clouds though did give it away as they are not supposed to be that bright. All in all, it is worth trying in a number of images still and trying to turn them into a night scene.
Anyway, one of the virtues of this method is breathing new hope in dark images (that are dark for some reason or intentionally anyway). On the other hand, I'm very doubtful about printing such images with such process because of the noise level; I'd say, almost certainly a canvas would be better (to absorb the visual effect of the noise). This said, I do, of course, use my plugins and other methods to reduce the noise that pop-up with such extreme editing. However, I don't think this is always enough. Also, to combat against this noise upheaval, I do follow a "selective" approach to sharpening and noise reduction on my images; Time consuming!

Herr Fengus

As I've mentioned, the process is not done mostly to old photos. However, one of the new photos that undergone this process was Herr Fengus, which surprisingly was marked as "inspirational" on YouPic within few hours after posting! Herr Fengus is a macro shot for a little fungus that showed up for some time on the soil of one of the pots in the yard; I've noticed it during my daily "Sunning" routine (where I try to get some dose of sun every morning). The shot is probably the only stable one from a set of shaky shots, since it was done handheld (at ISO 320 and f/6.3). Frankly, I didn't imagine it would be that good for YouPIc, but well, it was! The blue and yellow mix here was majorly a work of the processing method mentioned above. I've also created a 3D anaglyph of some of the shots in that session but probably didn't work out well after all.

كـائِن
(creature)

This process also worked well for some selfies or self-portrait, specially in combination with the Adjustment Brush  in ACR which I rarely use. I find working with this brush within the RAW environment is more creative than doing the editing of some specific areas later in Photoshop itself. Well, I know it might sound like an old thing and how come I never use it, but that's just how my workflow developed over time (besides, I'm using an old Photoshop and an old ACR with it). In Creature, I've used the brush to bright the eye specifically because it got dark when I did the general process mentioned above. So, the brush helped on increasing the exposure on the eye alone. Typically, I would do such edits in Photoshop itself out of the RAW environment, but comparing (mentally) how things would look, I do "foresee" the difference between doing this step specifically in RAW and doing it separately in Photoshop environment, either in 16- or 80but formats. Also, doing the edits with the split-tone in the RAW environment makes everything look more natural (as if the lighting in the original shot was indeed colored) than doing that effect in Photoshop itself.

السّـاقي
(the cup-bearer)

 Infrared shots particularly don't have much flexibility with this process, and the first step of fixing the white balance at 50K must be neglected, because infrared shots typically do undergo a color fix already. However, the split-toning between warm and cold tones (yellow/blue) do somehow add "natural" sense to an infrared image specifically if it was a portrait as in The Cup-Bearer above.
So, this was a "quick" stroll about this method I've been using lately to edit a lot of my photos. I didn't want it to be a tutorial though as actually there is no fixed values, but there are main or general aspects of editing which I've mentioned above already. When working in that way, expect a lot of noise!

Finale

Laziness have been my companion lately. Or rather mood swings that just disabled my desires to hold the camera and think of new things to shoot. As we are officially into Phase IV of going back to normalcy (as per the government plan), I'm expected to go back to work any time now, and with the daily rush and jams.
Things around me (specially in the news) to make me feel sick indeed. I don't understand why do people hate us that much nor respect us, but I'm spending my time praying to God to get us the justice we deserve. Soon.
This said, and as days pass by, I'm getting convinced day by day about the vanity of this life. With people changing their values the way they change their underwear, it seems to me there is no place for me here. Who needs a 40-year-old grumpy man anyway?