Luminous Landscape Forum
Equipment & Techniques => Landscape & Nature Photography => Topic started by: Richard Pearlman on February 16, 2014, 10:56:02 pm
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Comments and critiques are appreciated. I'm still not quite finished processing this image. I would like your thoughts on it.
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Comments and critiques are appreciated. I'm still not quite finished processing this image. I would like your thoughts on it.
Great colors !
If you have any chance to open up the shadows of the trees a bit, do it.
The graphical quality of the pure black does not really add to the image.
Some detail, while still keeping them dark would help, I think.
With a bit tweaking I think it will be a great shot.
Cheers
~Chris
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And level it out so all of the water doesn't pour out the right side of the frame.
Mike.
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For me, the strength of the photo is in the bold colours. So, I would leave the shadows as they are.
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For me, the strength of the photo is in the bold colours. So, I would leave the shadows as they are.
It is actually possible to do both with local adjustments and sensible treatment of the shadows.
I don't believe it's mutually exclusive.
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You might look at this using Jay Maisel's analytical trio...light, color, gesture. In a photo e.g., sometimes you could have all three, sometimes two, one...or none. Sometimes you can have a great image without all three. Sometimes light/color e.g. could become gesture etc. etc.. I've always found that it is a very useful tool generally speaking...something to keep in the back of your mind. You have great color, good light...is there another element..."gesture" perhaps? You have movement in the clouds maybe a little too faint to be gesture I think, so maybe that third element to consider is the black band of trees. An aside, "Crushing the blacks" causes an outline...is the outline you have interesting?...not really (unless the silhouette was breathtaking/spectacular...I would generally brings these up as was well suggested). The black band in the center is also reinforced by the very dark edge at top/bottom of your frame. So you could look at it as you have beautiful color in sky and light (reflected in water). ..but I think the black areas become a sort of non-interesting gesture...working against the better aspects. As an exercise, you might crop off bottom quarter and little of darkest part on top...and pull up blacks/shadow...brighten sky and add contrast to it...and look at it. The magic is in the middle of the frame. /B
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Thanks for pointing out the horizon. I was having trouble with the levels on my tripod. I should probably get a level for the camera. This image is 3 exposures of 5 I took. I have one more exposure for the shadows, so I should be able to bring some more detail without affecting other parts of the image. Yesterday, I was trying to blend with luminosity masks for the first time, and I was having some trouble.
Brandt, thanks for the critique. You make very good points. I have the afternoon off today and the weather looks good for shooting, so it may be some time before I get the editing for this shot finished. To make this shot as good as I think it can be will require some time.
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Good luck Richard...will pm some additional thoughts /B
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Everyone, thank you for your valuable input.
Re-edit
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Definitely an improvement over the first - with the shadows open, one can now tell it's a swamp without having to read the title! I understand that you are portraying the after glow effect of late dusk, but I think the whole photo could be brightened by, say, half a stop to breathe just a little more life into this already magical photograph.
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I want to bring up the shadows some more, but the middle area of trees are giving me trouble. I am using luminosity masks to blend the exposures, and I am having trouble with posterization of the mask at this point. The trees in this area also kind of seem to run together, giving a muddy appearance. I'm going to try to keep working on it.
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Try it in ACR/Lightroom in 16-bit raw. You shouldn't get posterization there.
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Wonderful warm tones and colors. Lovely sunset image. Nice control with the shadows and blacks, too.