gaaned92 - good call on getting close up to the glass. I used that tip later on the same trip on the airplane for landscape shots. In the museum though, its a tradeoff between getting the whole object and getting glass reflections.
This was one of the worst shots I got, but it makes it interesting to see the tricks that help to recover. Perhaps this is a bit off topic for most dedicated DT users, but maybe the manual could expand to give a few hints/examples of good uses for each module?
Here’s my attempt using a mask for the green, some colourfulness and a few other bits and pieces. But the green fringe around the bright light needs sorting out.
Thanks for posting, tricky shot
I tried to develop correctly hieroglyphs (at least my own interpretation of what should be the correct colors/contrast )
dt 3.4.1
@Aliks: You asked for vivid colours, especially in the greens. I’m wondering how realistic that would be. This is a very old coffin (2000+ years at least I’m guessing) and those colours would have faded over time. I did add some pop to the colours, bit too much for my personal taste to be honest.
My try.
dt 3.4.1
Modern workflow. Slight tweaks in color calibration. Special attention to the reflection on the schowcase (tone eq). Color zones to tweak the green. Contrast via haze removal, local contrast, contrast equalizer and filmic contrast.
Jade - Actually the green pigment is mineral based - crushed minerals with copper salts giving the intense green. I don’t think it fades much with time.
So I like your first image best - but as you say its a matter of taste.
Yes those colours look good to me. The green is probably a malachite mineral colour, and the wood colours are nut brown.
The other distinctive feature of my sarcophagus image is that the colours have an attractive “sheen” as if there was a layer of varnish on top of the paint/pigment.
I’ve looked online for the exact image but drawn a blank. I didn’t make a note of the labelling so I cant give a definitive reference.
The particularity of metals (e.g. gold) is that the specular reflections take the tint of the metal (yellowish in the case of gold, reddish for copper, …), whereas for non-metals the reflections are not coloured. In the case of varnished metal, you can get a coloured reflection from the metal, layered with a non-coloured reflection from the varnish.
Those effects are well understood for generated images. In photography, it means you should not force reflections from (bare) metal to be neutral.
And application of varnish after the colours is still a common technique to get a consistent surface texture, and to protect the decorations. It’s one of the reasons the colours stay “fresh”, helped by the storage in dry, dark, conditions at fairly constant temperature for most of the last 2000-3000 years.
I thought it couldn’t possibly be the effect of a varnish as varnishes tend to darken and discolour over time. However, a little googling shows that the dynastic Egyptians commonly used beeswax based varnishes. . . . .
Fantastic, that is indeed the same sarcophagus - you can see the same damage marks.
The text in German is useful , but I can find no other references to the name Djedhoriufanch - presumably a relative of Djedhor. Is that a German form of the name maybe?
I have plans to go back to Cairo after lockdown, so I will definitely take some more pictures and do some better labelling.