photobyjohnbo

Cellpic Sunday – Driftwood

The Crocodile.

Emerald Isle, North Carolina.

On a cool and blustery day in January 2024, Lynn and I donned warm coats and walked on the beach near the condo we rented on Emerald Isle. I didn’t want to be encumbered by my Nikon, especially since keeping my hands in my pockets would be much more comfortable. Any photos would be courtesy of my Samsung S23U.

I captured a few images that morning, some shared in earlier Cellpic Sunday posts. As we walked along a pathway, I glanced toward the ocean and saw a crocodile. Looking more closely, I smiled at myself for mistaking a piece of driftwood for a crocodile.

About the image: After downloading it into Adobe Lightroom Classic, I processed the DNG file created in the S23U’s Pro mode twice. The color version was first. After basic cropping and exposure adjustments, I sent it off to Luminar Neo for my usual tweaks in the Landscape tool and Accent AI.

Color image processed in Adobe Lightroom Classic and Luminar Neo.

After completing the image in Luminar Neo, I thought the moody sky and surging waves would be a good candidate for a black-and-white treatment. One advantage of my dual processing work with Lightroom and Neo is that the photo comes back from Neo as a TIF file. The file I send off to Neo is only modified by basic tweaks, so it is readily exported to Silver Efex Pro with minimal modifications of exposure and composition. Unless I want it to be different, the format of the monochrome image exactly matches the format of the final color version.

In Silver Efex Pro, I chose one of my favorite presets, Full Dynamic, Harsh. I tweaked some of the preset settings to my liking, added some film grain, and then decided to add a subtle blue tone to the image to suggest the coolness of the morning. I still glance at the photo and see the crocodile waiting for us to stroll by casually. For pixel-peepers, you can analyze and compare the two images in 2K HD on my Flickr site here.

I encourage fellow bloggers to create their own Cellpic Sunday posts. I never have a specific topic for this feature, and the only rules are that the photo must be captured with a cell phone, iPad, or another mobile device… If you have an image from a drone or even a dashcam, that’s also acceptable. The second rule is to link your challenge response to this post or leave a comment here with a link to your post in the comment. Oh, you don’t have to post it on a Sunday.

John Steiner

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