ref: https://pixabay.com/en/women-waterfalls ... l-2074138/

Recently posted this (used G'MIC's emboss then). This time I used G'MIC's Illustration look preset and created a convolution layer with that result and blended more subtlety.

looks so 3d like the girl pops right out of there.

Very cool Lyle.

Possibly due to the remaining halo around her She must be the reincarnation of Santa Convolución

I agree with the 3D appearance!! I love the effect!

Sorry for my belated response (had to get to work and do 10 hour no lunch shifts). Appreciate the feedback. Probably should have done something about the halo issues, ofnuts, but just had enough time to render and post.

A Temporary Respit at the Shire

ref: https://pixabay.com/en/new-zealand-ring ... y-1182619/

Still working out how to render these fantasy fake HDR results. Lots of work having to do selective cleanup work though. If I cannot figure out how to automate that part of the process, I'll have to really cut back rendering these, since, well, I'm a lazy filter guy. lol



https://www.flickr.com/photos/34520999@ ... 0/sizes/o/

IDK, a little over-filtered for my tastes. Maybe do it manually with multiple layers and the curves filter? Along with multiple blending modes of course. It kinda reminds me of the "Laplacian Pyramid" filter pushed to the extremes.

Just a suggestion.

Never heard of the Laplacian Pyramid method, racer. Thanks for the term. Interesting stuff. Biggest issue I have with these renders are the halo/edge issues. Wish there was a way to automate the whole process but I'm not skilled to do the targeted selective selections for this technique. Oh well.

Anyway, for busy images (no sky), it's much easier to get the right result without much work.

Thought I would continue my binge and post another one before I hit the sack.

ref: http://fullhdpictures.com/jungle-desktop.html

https://www.flickr.com/photos/34520999@ ... 6/sizes/o/

How about something like this? Mostly done with layers and B/W (inverted) for overlay.



Actually G'Mic's "Contrast Swiss Mask" filter works pretty well on this young Eagle I shot.

Looks like a contrast mask type of result, racer. I like using lumna-invert overlay for this.

I finally found a solution. Invert, dup, bilateral smoothing, merge down and invert for the convolution layer. This eliminates the line artifacts. Voila. Figured I would solve the unsolvable before breakfast. lolol

Lessened the surreal but pushed enough of it to maybe placate those that don't like it too fake HDR.

ref: https://pixabay.com/en/road-picturesque ... h-2089672/

Looks good

Thanks, Sallyanne. Well, did a few additional tests (not share) and even this isn't perfect but does make the cleanup a lot simpler than before and, for many renders, no clean up at all is needed. Very happy I thought about inverting the image before the bilat merge down convolution step.

I like the last one too.

Thanks Racer; had another V-8 moment. Created two convolution layers (one without the inversion and one with). I set the one with to 50% opacity and merged with the one without inversion and the undesireable artifacts cancel each other out leaving the desired part re-enforced. Pretty stoked (not sharing the result at the moment) since I do need to do some additional testing. Again, I usually never give up until I perfect a flow. lol

Anyway, my quest for this type of look started back in 2014.

Jungle Surreal

Again, just continuing my quest for the surreal/fantasy HDR look. Used Lumna Invert difference and many layer blends for this result.

ref: https://pixabay.com/en/the-jungle-of-chiapas-1865639/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/34520999@ ... 6/sizes/o/

Gives the feeling of being there