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Re: Trying the blend tutorial once again [Re: RomanJohnston] #29028
04/27/10 10:42 PM
04/27/10 10:42 PM
Joined: Feb 2005
Manhattan, New York, New York
James Morrissey Offline
I
James Morrissey  Offline
I
Carpal Tunnel

Joined: Feb 2005
Manhattan, New York, New York
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

Re: Trying the blend tutorial once again [Re: James Morrissey] #29029
04/28/10 12:44 PM
04/28/10 12:44 PM
Joined: Sep 2005
Portland Oregon
RomanJohnston Offline
Pooh-Bah
RomanJohnston  Offline
Pooh-Bah

Joined: Sep 2005
Portland Oregon
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

Re: Trying the blend tutorial once again [Re: RomanJohnston] #29030
05/17/10 07:35 PM
05/17/10 07:35 PM
Joined: Feb 2009
Portland, Oregon
Tyler Offline OP
Venturer
Tyler  Offline OP
Venturer

Joined: Feb 2009
Portland, Oregon
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.

Re: Trying the blend tutorial once again [Re: Tyler] #29031
05/17/10 08:51 PM
05/17/10 08:51 PM
Joined: Mar 2005
Florida
Jim Garvie Offline
Addict
Jim Garvie  Offline
Addict

Joined: Mar 2005
Florida
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


Jim Garvie
www.jagphoto.biz
Re: Trying the blend tutorial once again [Re: Jim Garvie] #29032
05/21/10 08:15 AM
05/21/10 08:15 AM
Joined: Sep 2005
Portland Oregon
RomanJohnston Offline
Pooh-Bah
RomanJohnston  Offline
Pooh-Bah

Joined: Sep 2005
Portland Oregon
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

Re: Trying the blend tutorial once again [Re: RomanJohnston] #29033
05/21/10 12:41 PM
05/21/10 12:41 PM
Joined: Feb 2009
Portland, Oregon
Tyler Offline OP
Venturer
Tyler  Offline OP
Venturer

Joined: Feb 2009
Portland, Oregon
"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.

Re: Trying the blend tutorial once again [Re: Tyler] #29034
05/21/10 03:16 PM
05/21/10 03:16 PM
Joined: Sep 2005
Portland Oregon
RomanJohnston Offline
Pooh-Bah
RomanJohnston  Offline
Pooh-Bah

Joined: Sep 2005
Portland Oregon
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

Re: Trying the blend tutorial once again [Re: RomanJohnston] #29035
05/30/10 08:59 PM
05/30/10 08:59 PM
Joined: Mar 2007
Arizona
daveman Offline
Old hand
daveman  Offline
Old hand

Joined: Mar 2007
Arizona
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


See my stuff here davedilli.zenfolio.com
Re: Trying the blend tutorial once again [Re: daveman] #29036
05/31/10 06:06 PM
05/31/10 06:06 PM
Joined: Sep 2005
Portland Oregon
RomanJohnston Offline
Pooh-Bah
RomanJohnston  Offline
Pooh-Bah

Joined: Sep 2005
Portland Oregon
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

Re: Trying the blend tutorial once again [Re: RomanJohnston] #29037
06/04/10 12:43 AM
06/04/10 12:43 AM
Joined: Mar 2007
Arizona
daveman Offline
Old hand
daveman  Offline
Old hand

Joined: Mar 2007
Arizona
Thanks Roman- that did help. I will keep after it.


See my stuff here davedilli.zenfolio.com
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