Luminous Landscape Forum
The Art of Photography => User Critiques => Topic started by: Jeremy Roussak on June 06, 2018, 02:55:06 pm
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Thoughts?
Jeremy
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It has potential, but it also has my pet peeve, gray snow :) More contrast, perhaps?
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I love the shapes and the general composition, but I think Slobo is right - it almost feels like you've made it into a mono but kept some colour in the berg for effect. That's not a bad thing in and of itself, particularly as it's not actually due to processing, but it just doesn't quite come together yet.
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It has potential, but it also has my pet peeve, gray snow :) More contrast, perhaps?
Or perhaps if you don't want to add in more contrast per se, but would like to colour balance the image into more accurate tones, then if you are using PS, duplicate the layer and then using curves or levels, select the white point eye dropper and drop it onto the whitest bit of snow you can find, which should then snap most of the rest of the colours into place and then select colour mode for that layer.
if you also want to add a bit more contrast into the shot but in a controlled way, then duplicate the colour mode layer and turn it to luminosity mode and then back down the opacity to taste and then perhaps finally, you can lightly mask out the brightest and darkest areas until you get something you are happy with.
Yes I know, this can be lots of messing around to do correctly, but I always think that no matter how good an image is, it can always do with at least a little bit of a polish to bring out its full potential.
Dave
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It has potential, but it also has my pet peeve, gray snow :) More contrast, perhaps?
Fair point. Funny how I can miss something so obvious until it's pointed out.
I love the shapes and the general composition, but I think Slobo is right - it almost feels like you've made it into a mono but kept some colour in the berg for effect.
Nature did that job for me!
Dave, interesting suggestion. I use the "luminosity blend to add detail" a lot and find it a wonderful tool, commonly with a b&w version of the image as the luminosity layer.
I've whitened the snow and tweaked the contrast a bit. Better?
Jeremy
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I've whitened the snow and tweaked the contrast a bit. Better?
Jeremy
Yes, but now for my pet peeve, you see the bottom of the iceberg doesn't look level to me and neither does the little bit of the sea to left of the berg either - OK, I know I am a bit OCD about lines looking level, but not about being truly level as such, but looking level. Now I realise this effect may well be due to a sort of natural key-stoning effect of the berg lying at a receding angle to your lens and so it might be absolutely and geometrically correct, but still it looks a little bit wrong to me. So I would definitely try pulling the right side of the frame down a little and the way I would do it is as follows:
Duplicate the background layer twice, then increase the size of the image by a couple of inches in each direction. You will now have an empty border around the top two layers. Now turn on your grid lines (Ctrl+'). Now select all of the upper layer and hit Ctrl+t. Then grab the lower right corner handle as you hold down the Ctrl key and pull it straight down slightly until the bottom line of the berg looks right - not absolutely perfectly level, but just right to your eye. Then hit enter. Then on the middle layer, hold Ctrl and click the layer image, then select crop from the image drop down menu and flatten the image and which should then return back to its original dimensions, but now with a more level looking berg.
If you don't want to lose any of the sea and in fact gain a little on the left, then do all the above but instead pull the sky up slightly on the left.
Also if you ever do this and you need to stretch the shot to apparent level quite a lot, then the detail within the shot can become a bit elongated and thinner. So I would then suggest you can also stretch the image slightly wider again using your spare couple of empty inches around the frame to get it back looking as it should. You can do this by selecting the upper two layers simultaneously after you have level stretched the upper layer, then stretch them both sideways and then using the second layer to create your final crop selection as before and then flatten.
Dave
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Nature did that job for me!
I know :-)
This version has some extra punch and as a result more depth, which I really like. It also feels more natural and actually feels less processed. Really nice.
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The new version is much better.
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The new version is much better.
Yes!