Trying the blend tutorial once again

The last time I tried Romans HDR Blend tutorial I hit a roadblock for using PS-Elements. I now have full CS4 so I'm trying it out again. I guess what messes me up now the most is never really dinking around with color curves before, so I am not to sure on how to use them to make the necessary changes discussed in the early steps. The Fuzziness/ Feathering is pretty straight forward though, so I'm at least confident in that regard.

I'd like to know if I'm at least on the right track with processing. Here is the original image (raw to jpeg no processing), and below my blend attempt. I also have the RAW if anyone wants to show off the image potential.


(RAW to JPEG, No Process)



(Blend Attempt)

i took a crack at editing this image, & as always, i'm sure the RAW file would produce better results. if you're interested in having me work on that after looking at this edit, you can email the RAW to me at spartacusii@kc.rr.com.

i like this image, but i don't/didn't find a lot of detail to pull out of it with the upper 2/3 of the image being primarily green, & the lower third being essentially grey/brownish. the waterfall is nice, but a good portion of it is blown out, as is also the case with the much smaller little areas of rushing water. compositionally it seems a little loose with a lot of dead/wasted space particularly on the left side of the image. not having been there personally, i can't suggest how you might be able to tighten up the composition, but if you have access to this area without a huge drive, then maybe you can look around & find a 'better' way to feature the waterfall in its environs. (i am assuming it is the waterfall that was your primary subject)

it appears to my eye that the dynamic range of this scene is just too high to shoot - i haven't tried to see if i could get any exif data on the file, but if i was to guess, i would say the shot was taken under a fairly bright overcast sky in some portion of the mid-day (anywhere from say late-AM to mid-late afternoon). if true, not the ideal times to take a shot like this . . . but i also understand you can't ALWAYS control when you're at a certain place. but when you can, this time of day is not typically condusive for shooting waterfalls.

anyway - enough of the critique. i am attaching a file of my edit. . . & like i said, if you want a better version, i'd be willing to give it a shot on the RAW if you email it to me.

jp

Tyler, do you have the origonal RAW, and would you be willing to share it?

Roman

Roman, I do have the RAW, I'll send it when I get home from work.

Spart, I have a hundred or so shots of this waterfall, many are tighter shots with more ideal weather conditions for doing the whole wisp thing. What caught my eye initially for this shot was, the day was cloudy, and for just a couple minutes the sun came out and was shining on the patch of grass growing on the rocks. I think by the time I got set up, some of the light had shifted to the waterfall as well and that's why the white is blown out. But because I have so many close up, I wanted a shot with that showed the whole shelf of rock, and included the sun lighting up this patch of grass with it kinda being dark everywhere else.

This could also be one of those situations where the camera can not pick up what the eye is seeing. I was mostly just choosing an image I had lying around that would be good for me to try the blend tutorial with, but maybe something with sky and horizon would be better to learn on.

Got the file, will play with it tonight. Do you use a polarizer when shooting falls?

It has saved more than a few of my files taking the harsh reflective light out of play and taming the DR a tad.

Roman

i would also be interested in the raw file - would you be willing to email it to me via sendthisfile? s1p1a1r1t1a1c1u1s1i1i@kc.rr.com (take out the "1"s)

i look forward to it.

jp

Didnt get a chance last night to work on it...will have to be tonight instead. Sorry bout that!



Roman

Roman, I usually use an ND2 or ND4 filter on waterfalls depending on the weather. I've tried polarizing filters before on my old lens but was never able to produce what I wanted, where as the ND seemed to help more with my skill shortcomings as I was learning. I haven't tried with my new "waterfall lens" but I'll be picking one up in a week or two in preparation for my trip to Australia.

JP, I'll have to wait till I get home to send it out again, it might be a day or two.

ND filters can slow down the shot but does nothing for curbing glare.

What lens is your new "waterfall" lens?

Roman

Well, finished the blend. Let me know what you think.



Roman

Roman,

That is really quite nice. You did a great job keeping highlight detail, and the colors are very rich and vivid.

(BTW, For those who may not have read it before)
http://www.nwpphotoforum.com/ubbthreads/information/php/2007_Articles/rjohnston/roman2.php

Cheers
James

Thanks James, I just processed two files, selected the brightest secondtions of all the falls and surrounding mini falls that were bright with a 30PX fade on the selection and applied it as a layer mask. Played with the opacity and tuned with curves after the fact.

Roman

Sorry it took awhile to get back on here. I'm trying to finalize everything for my trip to Australia in 2 weeks and the wife and work seem to have plans for the rest of my time.

"What lens is your new "waterfall" lens?"
- the Nikkor 18-55mm 3.5-5.6 (not the best, but much better than what I was using the first two years. I didn't feel the need to buy a fast lens for all the slowing I do.

" Do you use a polarizer when shooting falls? It has saved more than a few of my files taking the harsh reflective light out of play and taming the DR a tad."
-As I said above, I have the ND4, I did have a circular polarizer for the old lens, but it never seemed to make much of a difference with the glare, didn't allow me to drop low enough on time to not overexpose, and if I stacked it with the ND4, I couldn't use the 18-25ish range due to the edges of the frame getting cut off. (I'll be making a separate filter topic soon since I need to buy a few in the next week or so)


For the image. The rocks/cliff look great, but everything else looks too vibrant to be real, and as a whole looks and feels over-processed. The same with Spartacus's edit. But maybe the majority of people don't see it that way.

I was looking at some Marc Adamus work the other night. A lot of the images are really beautiful, and though it doesn't feel too over over-processed, it still looks like something that I wouldn't be able to see thru my eyes instead of a lens. Something I've always had stuck in my head is, a good image is one that captures the beauty and yet is still true to the subject that other people could go there and see the same for themselves. So am I wrong in that regard? It could be that my approach to processing is just off, and that's why my edits don't produce the better image, and that I actually could come up with something close to Roman or Sparts if I went at it with a different view.

Tyler,
just my $.02 in an area where I'm certainly not an expert: your vision is singularly yours. If what you capture needs to be processed to be more "real" than you might get through Roman's processing, HDR or tone-mapping, then that's fine. Although I must admit that the look that Roman gets from his own images has a vibrance and a vitality that I both like and don't think is "overprocessed".

When I use Photomatix to enhance some of my images, I tend to use it sparingly. Same with HDR. I use it to bring up more shadow detail but most of my images look very non-HDR-ish. However, there are those few images that I push pretty hard because what I saw beyond the image that I captured had more life in it: more color, deeper and more complex shadows, highlights where you can actually see some detail. I don't process all my images that way but for some, it matches my brain's vision.

There is no single right answer nor are there any wrong answers. It's your vision. You just have to have the tools to make the image match it.

Jim

Ok, Maybe you dont like my look to my normal post processing, but let's keep the thread on track. You said NOTHING about the blending keeping the falls in check while maintining light in the rest of the picture.

Am I incorrect, or was that the goal of this thread?

Roman

"You said NOTHING about the blending keeping the falls in check while maintining light in the rest of the picture."

The light levels of the falls and the rest of the picture do look good. And its not that I don't like your normal processing, because I've seen enough of your images on this forum, and I hadn't ever really thought them to be overdone before. Perhaps its cause your starting point is a bit more in line than mine? This wasn't one of my better images either, it just happened to be the one I tried following the blend article with.

The original question was "Am I on the right track?" After seeing the your image, I am not. I could probably go at it with my old method of painting on the mask layers with the processing for that part of the image I want and get more correct lighting, but because of what I've seen from you, I thought this method would be better. One of my glaring weaknesses in attempting your way is I have very little skill when it comes to messing around with the color curves, and it seemed that is how you were doing the lighting adjustments.

I would say probably my worst problem was "I wasnt there"....lol.

I process my work for what I remember of the scene when I snapped the shot.

I process both peices of the blend in RAW to start, one just for the highlights that are over the top. You had just a few areas in the main fall that were unrecoverable. But if you blend it right, you can blend the water hot enought to not look over the top and if the transistions are correct, they are pretty effective in hiding the hot spots.

Then I processed one igonoring that bright area, and only concentrating on what was best for the image as a whole.

Dragged the light one over the dark one in photoshop.

I do use the BetaRGB color space on my computer that helps a tad with my histograms and what is available when working on my peices. I highlighted ONLY the brightest parts, the main falls and the mini falls Did a 30 pixel feather on that part.

On my two shots...one looked great with only burnt out highlights, the other looked HORRABLE with only properly exposed falls (except the slightly burnt areas that I couldnt recover.

I then did a layer mask using that selection with a 30PX feather. That got it looking REALLY nice.

Then just play with the curves of both layers and the top layer...play with curves on the layer mask as well.

As you play you will start to see how certain parts of the curve affect the blend. Its rather intuitive, just play and watch....you will get the idea after a while.

You're in the area, maybe some day after you get back I can walk you through it if you find your still struggling.

Roman

Roman,

If you are still following this thread, I have question about your tutorial with something I have never been able to get to work acceptably. I have been bringing in two different exposure settings of the RAW file and creating two layers, as you describe. However, when I try to select using color range I almost always get strange results. I get large portions of the photo with sort of a greyed out colors - like the system is partially selecting the colors. I fiddle with the fuzziness on the color selector, but rarely like the result. I then end up masking and blending the layers to get what I want.

Is there something I am doing wrong with the color range selection - or some kind of magic trick you have up your sleeve???

I would appreciate your help.
Dave

Holding down Shift while clicking multipul times with the eyedropper will have an "additive" effect. In other words, if you held down the shift while clicking diffrent greens in your shot, you will eventually have ALL the diffrent shades of green selected then you can use the slider to fine tune.

Hope thats the part your missing.

Let me know if you have any other questions....or this dosnt answer your current one.

Roman

Thanks Roman- that did help. I will keep after it.