[Leica] Re. We had company (combining 2 RAW developments)

[pklein at 2alpha.net (Peter Klein)]

Oliver's suggestion motivated me to do further work on my "little girl with 
wave sculpture," picture. I combined two different RAW developments with a 
mask.  I'm essentially doing the same thing Tina did with a high-contrast 
picture a while back (though I use Picture Window Pro, not Photoshop).

Here's the image I posted yesterday, which was done by a levels adjust to 
bring up the face a little:
http://users.2alpha.com/~pklein/E1/P7231089KarolinaWaveCrop2Sm.jpg

Here's the original picture as shot, (low quality jpeg, just to show the 
levels).
http://users.2alpha.com/~pklein/E1/P7231089AsShot.jpg

Here's an alternative RAW "development," plus 1.2 stops to bring the face 
to a natural level, about what the eye perceived.  Of course the rest of 
the picture is totally blown.  Again, a low-quality JPEG:
http://users.2alpha.com/~pklein/E1/P7231089Plus1pt2.jpg

And here's the final product, the two images "stacked" through a mask, 
essentially combining the properly "developed" face with the rest of the 
first image, and cropped to eliminate the, er, extraneous elements on the 
right.
http://users.2alpha.com/~pklein/E1/P7231089KarWave3Sm.jpg

The two RAW files combined are truer in color than the single 16-bit 
TIFF.  Interestingly, I could get similar but not identical results working 
on the 16-bit TIFF and boosting the face through the mask.  BUT, the face 
ended up quite oversaturated.  I could then drop the saturation a bit and 
get things almost the same as the combined RAW picture.  But after all 
that, I ended up with a bit of toothcombing in the histogram.

Combining two RAW developments is easier and the results are better.  Tina, 
you were right!

--Peter