One-to-Three Photo Processing Challenge-February 2022

Badge for the one-to-three photo processing challenge.

Join the One-to-Three Photo Processing Challenge to have some creative fun with photos.

The purpose of the One-to-Three Photo Processing Challenge is to play. These days we have so many different ways to process a photo: from phone apps to Photoshop. And these different software options make it accessible for anyone to get fun and beautiful effects. Whether you have a lot of time or a little.

I’ve been spending a lot of my pandemic playing with photo processing. Because it is a relaxing indoor activity that I can do for free (I mostly use open-source programs and old versions of paid programs). And I thought it might be fun to share what I’ve been doing and see what other folks are trying out.

No complicated rules, just:

  1. Pick a photo you want to play with.
  2. Process it using three different methods.
  3. After that create a blog post with the original and your creative products.
  4. If you can, please include a description of your methods. So others can give them a whirl.
  5. Then add a comment below containing the link to you post (pingbacks don’t seem to work, I’m trying to figure out why). So we can all see your creations.
  6. Check out what other folks are doing for new ideas.

I can hardly wait to see what you create.

January creations:

Here’s my one-to-three contribution for this month:

Directions for my methods:

This month I worked with an old, low resolution and relatively poor quality picture I took in Nikko, Japan in 2005. I used Topaz Products to see how they did with the image. The original had blown out highlights and a fair amount of chromatic aberration as well as being pretty low resolution. So I needed to work on the basic image a bit before applying artistic effects.

Image after Topaz DeNoise AI and the HSL color tuning filter were used.

To clean up the picture I tested both Topaz DeNoise AI and Topaz Sharpen AI. Because the original had quite a bit of color noise the DeNoise AI gave a better result. Then I opened the photo in Topaz Studio 2 (you can use DeNoise as a plug in but I prefer to use it stand alone and have it create a png file that I can use with any program). The HSL color tuning filter allowed me to make significant improvements in the chromatic aberration.

After that I played with a bunch of different artistic effects in Topaz Studio 2.

  1. The abstraction filter. I simplified the size, added a little feature boost and increased teh detail strength.
  2. In the AI ReMix filter I tried out a bunch of different looks but decided that this one: Fields of Fuscia with 50% opacity gave a pleasing effect.
  3. Then I played with the Impression filter. This uses brush type 12 with paint volume at 0.1 and Paint opacity at .60.

Three-to-one

When I applied them all at once:

Three to one: With all three artistic filters applied the image looks like a water color painting.

I’m not sure I like this, but it looks more like a watercolor painting than the independently applied filters.

This exercise made me really want to go back to Nikko with my current camera.

Badge for the one-to-three photo processing challenge.
Badge for the One-to-Three Photo Processing Challenge

10 Replies to “One-to-Three Photo Processing Challenge-February 2022”

  1. I thought i’d give this one a try although my older Topaz filters are not working very well with the newer version of Photoshop. Still I decided to try it anyway and it didn’t crash, so I guess that makes it all good. Amazing looking temple. I like the version using the “impression” filter. it look brighter and cleaner.

  2. I left a comment, but it disappeared. This is also my first visit. My post, linked to your site, will be up just after midnight, ET.
    I like the impressionist version best. It’s sharper and looks cleaner.

    1. I saw a comment. I had my computer off for a while. I sometimes feel like my site is haunted! But I keep trying…