POV: DxO Film Pack 3 & Color Efex Pro 4

All Photos © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved

I admit it...sheepishly perhaps, but I really do.

I've mellowed and moved away from my earlier resistance to experiment with what I call funky experimentation on my photographs. I was an unwavering believer in "purity" insofar as my photography was concerned, preferring to keep my photographs as untouched as possible.

As recently as a year ago, I would use Photoshop or Lightroom as minimally as possible, barely using their capabilities except for some sharpening and color enhancements. But the availability of specialized post processing software such as DxO Film Pack, Alien Skin Software, and Color Efex Pro 4 encouraged my explorative forays into different creative avenues, and I developed an affinity for the wet plate look (quite obviously influenced by the Hipstamatic Tintype filter)...which in turn led me to try fiddling with some of my photographs using the previously mentioned software, either singly of together. Importantly, these software products are really no-brainers to use, and produce good results.

I'm still a conflicted purist at heart. For example, I'm unwilling to crop my travel photographs but I'm perfectly happy to crop the heck out of a photograph which I shot from the hip during my street photography jaunts in New York City. The fact that I shot an image from the hip gives me the "excuse" to crop it...but not for those I made using a viewfinder. So yes, a conflicted purist...or perhaps a purist who follows his own rules which he makes up as he goes along. Whatever.

This morning, I experimented with using the DxO Film Pack converting the lower photograph to monochrome (using the Kodak T-Max100 preset) and then applying a Sepia Gold toning filter to it. I then added some Structure and Vignetting using Color Efex Pro 4. I showed if off on my Facebook page...some friends liked it, so I used the same "soup" on the top two.

It took me no more than 3 minutes to process each photograph...and I quite like the results. Will it become one of my "signature" looks? I don't think so...I'm just having fun. That's the whole idea.