Pages: [1]   Go Down

Author Topic: Esthetics of shadow/highlight enhancements  (Read 7776 times)

Tim Gray

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2002
    • http://www.timgrayphotography.com
Esthetics of shadow/highlight enhancements
« on: May 12, 2004, 04:08:19 pm »

[font color=\'#000000\']look ok 2 me -  not really over the top.[/font]
Logged

boku

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1493
    • http://www.bobkulonphoto.com
Esthetics of shadow/highlight enhancements
« Reply #1 on: May 12, 2004, 06:22:56 pm »

Quote
[font color=\'#000000\']The second one looks a little overly saturated in the yellows for my taste, but otherwise they look quite fine color-wise and contrast-wise.  Not having seen the actual scene, they look quite natural to me (other than the yellow in the second one).

Lisa[/font]
[font color=\'#000000\']Lisa,

It actually was the dominant yellow that caused me to even stop and take the second picture. But I have to tell you that the scene was quite "dead" in person. I didn't even notice much about the logs in the scene untill I viewed it on my monitor.

As far as color balance goes, I chose to go with the suggested "as shot" auto WB, probably about 4000k, when converted from raw. While I did optimize overall RGB levels, I did nothing to any of the individual channels. There is probably overall a 25% saturation boost before all is said and done.

The shadow/highlight recovery really made the logs detailed and the foliage "dreamy" looking. I played around a bit with the setting on that, restricting each to a very narrow band of influence and then boosting to taste.

I may start experimenting with this more.[/font]
Logged
Bob Kulon

Oh, one more thing...[b

OliverPA

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 26
Esthetics of shadow/highlight enhancements
« Reply #2 on: May 13, 2004, 03:55:24 am »

[font color=\'#000000\']First of all the images are not in sRGB so your browser is unlikely to show you what Bob is seeing.
Secondly I duplicated into a new layer, chose 'multiply' mode, hid the entire layer by applying a layer mask and then started painting the mask to darken some areas to give the image more character.
Lighting up the shadows is fine but a little selective darkening might give you the best result.[/font]
Logged

OliverPA

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 26
Esthetics of shadow/highlight enhancements
« Reply #3 on: May 13, 2004, 10:21:52 am »

[font color=\'#000000\']Well, my comment about the image not being in sRGB is in fact BS
While I was sitting at the hairdresser (the girl had little to talk about besides weather and TV shows..) I remembered that I hadn't opened the jpg but rather copy/pasted it. PS didn't complain about a conversion since it defaults to Adobe RGB and your jpg's have no embedded color profile. Sorry, my fault![/font]
Logged

boku

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1493
    • http://www.bobkulonphoto.com
Esthetics of shadow/highlight enhancements
« Reply #4 on: May 12, 2004, 02:54:52 pm »

[font color=\'#000000\']Last week I saw out shooting at a local haunt (Cuyahoga Valley NP) and captured a few frames that, at the time, I figured were throw-aways. The lighting was dull.

When I converted and processed the RAW files, my standard workflow brought me to explore shadow/highlight enhancement possibilties in Photoshop CS. I went further that I normally would have and realized detail and texture that were far greater than the original scene seemed to have at the time of capture.

Look at the these small samples or follow the links to larger versions. Is this something I should do more of or does it take on an unreal quality?

Any and all critque will be maturely appreciated.

[This is a bullfighting free forum thread.]


Larger: http://boku.smugmug.com/photos/4053111-L.jpg



Larger: http://boku.smugmug.com/photos/4053115-L.jpg[/font]
Logged
Bob Kulon

Oh, one more thing...[b

Lisa Nikodym

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1705
    • http://www.stanford.edu/~melkor/lisa_pictures/lisa_pictures.html
Esthetics of shadow/highlight enhancements
« Reply #5 on: May 12, 2004, 05:49:49 pm »

[font color=\'#000000\']The second one looks a little overly saturated in the yellows for my taste, but otherwise they look quite fine color-wise and contrast-wise.  Not having seen the actual scene, they look quite natural to me (other than the yellow in the second one).

Lisa[/font]
Logged
[url=http://www.stanford.edu/~melkor/lis

Bill_Kaiser

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 9
    • http://frameofmindphotography.members.easyspace.com/index.html
Esthetics of shadow/highlight enhancements
« Reply #6 on: May 13, 2004, 01:25:13 am »

[font color=\'#000000\']In my own photo processing, I have a tendency to try to lighten up the shadows too much. The result is a photo that looks flat.  I now try to leave more shadow in because I think the photo looks more natural.  Too me, the first photo looks too flat and lacking in contrast.  The second photo looks about right.[/font]
Logged
Canon 300D
Canon 100-400 IS USM
C

boku

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1493
    • http://www.bobkulonphoto.com
Esthetics of shadow/highlight enhancements
« Reply #7 on: May 13, 2004, 08:08:44 am »

Quote
[font color=\'#000000\']First of all the images are not in sRGB so your browser is unlikely to show you what Bob is seeing.
Secondly I duplicated into a new layer, chose 'multiply' mode, hid the entire layer by applying a layer mask and then started painting the mask to darken some areas to give the image more character.
Lighting up the shadows is fine but a little selective darkening might give you the best result.[/font]
[font color=\'#000000\']Oliver,

Not sure about the SRGB. When I created the JPEGS for Smugmug I specifically converted the profile to SRGB. Can you detect that that isn't case? If so, how?[/font]
Logged
Bob Kulon

Oh, one more thing...[b

boku

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1493
    • http://www.bobkulonphoto.com
Esthetics of shadow/highlight enhancements
« Reply #8 on: May 13, 2004, 11:14:23 am »

Quote
[font color=\'#000000\']Well, my comment about the image not being in sRGB is in fact BS
While I was sitting at the hairdresser (the girl had little to talk about besides weather and TV shows..) I remembered that I hadn't opened the jpg but rather copy/pasted it. PS didn't complain about a conversion since it defaults to Adobe RGB and your jpg's have no embedded color profile. Sorry, my fault![/font]
[font color=\'#000000\']Actually, the original JPEG uploaded to Smugmug does have an embedded profile, but the downsampled versions you see on the web are obviously stripped of the proifile.[/font]
Logged
Bob Kulon

Oh, one more thing...[b
Pages: [1]   Go Up