Luminous Landscape Forum
Raw & Post Processing, Printing => Digital Image Processing => Topic started by: giancoli on October 14, 2014, 03:01:51 pm
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Hi!
I'm kind of new to photography. I'm doing landscapes.
Sometimes I'm struggling with too black and harsh shadows. I off course shoot raw. one way to avoid it is off course to move the shadow setting far to the right, as well as the contrast and blackness. That brings the darkest parts from being totally black. But that makes the overall image flat and boring for the most part...How do you guys solve this problem?
Do you edit the picture twice and mask out the shadows?
here is my gallery, if you want to check out my pictures:
http://giancoli.deviantart.com/gallery/ (http://giancoli.deviantart.com/gallery/)
I would really appreciate any feedback on my pictures. I want to improve my pictures. I'm not really satisfied with them. Something is due to the shot itself I guess, but I think alot comes down to the editing process.
I got a sony A7R and a 55mm 1.8 zeiss prime, there shouldn't be any restrictions on my equipment. Except that I need a wider angle lens, but I'm waiting for the 16-35 release in November.
giancoli
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Can you post a single picture here as an example, so that we can see what you are talking about? And perhaps your best effort at processing it?
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Hi,
The way I do this that I first add a graduated filter on the sky with some negative exposure and negative highlights.
After that I reduce highlights overall.
Now, the sky and highlights are dark enough so I can increase exposure a bit.
At this point I move blacks a bit to the left, so I get some clipping.
Finally I adjust shadows for shadow detail and may increase whites.
That's about it. May be add some clarity and vibrance.
Best regards
Erik
Hi!
I'm kind of new to photography. I'm doing landscapes.
Sometimes I'm struggling with too black and harsh shadows. I off course shoot raw. one way to avoid it is off course to move the shadow setting far to the right, as well as the contrast and blackness. That brings the darkest parts from being totally black. But that makes the overall image flat and boring for the most part...How do you guys solve this problem?
Do you edit the picture twice and mask out the shadows?
here is my gallery, if you want to check out my pictures:
http://giancoli.deviantart.com/gallery/ (http://giancoli.deviantart.com/gallery/)
I would really appreciate any feedback on my pictures. I want to improve my pictures. I'm not really satisfied with them. Something is due to the shot itself I guess, but I think alot comes down to the editing process.
I got a sony A7R and a 55mm 1.8 zeiss prime, there shouldn't be any restrictions on my equipment. Except that I need a wider angle lens, but I'm waiting for the 16-35 release in November.
giancoli
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Can you post a single picture here as an example, so that we can see what you are talking about? And perhaps your best effort at processing it?
(http://th03.deviantart.net/fs71/PRE/f/2014/282/8/5/_dsc2728_by_giancoli-d826dt0.jpg)
this is a typical image with this problem. It mostly occurs with small details like rocks trees etc. Whenever there's lots of small textures. That's why clean pictures with less details turns out better for me. I find it really difficult to edit images with lots of texture.
Some people are able to get those clean sharp images, and I don't know how they do it.
I guess my problem is a little vague and hard to express, I understand your annoyance.
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thanks for response.
It's a nice picture you got there. I would prefer a little more sharpness and details. But there is no harsh black spots, nice gradual lightning.
I use the gradual filter too on the sky sometimes, and I also bring down highlight to fix the sky. My problems are more to do with the shadows though. Bringing down the shadows might fix the local problems, but at the cost of the overall image, which might get a little flat because of it.
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(http://th03.deviantart.net/fs71/PRE/f/2014/282/8/5/_dsc2728_by_giancoli-d826dt0.jpg)
this is a typical image with this problem. It mostly occurs with small details like rocks trees etc. Whenever there's lots of small textures. That's why clean pictures with less details turns out better for me. I find it really difficult to edit images with lots of texture.
Some people are able to get those clean sharp images, and I don't know how they do it.
I guess my problem is a little vague and hard to express, I understand your annoyance.
Hi Giancoli; and welcome to the LuLa forum.
Looking at the image you have uploaded it looks to me to be quite high contrast with saturated colours. Have you already done some editing, or was this how it came out of the camera ?
I took a look at your website and you've got some nice images there.
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Would this be more to your liking?
A few caveats: most post-processing is highly subjective, thus this is what I would have done had it been my file; also, I am working with a rather small jpeg file, thus unable to control shadows and highlights as you would in raw, but you can get the idea.
Not all shadows need to be lightened up, some are quite ok to stay blocked; it is a matter of human perception and your taste and intent.
Also, the original shot appears to be taken in broad daylight, when the light is the harshest. Shooting at the edges of the day, earlier in the morning or later in the afternoon would result in softer light. The best place to control light is not in post processing, but in the field. Most photography, and landscape in particular, is about getting the light right at the moment of capture.
NOTE: The top image is the OP image
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... Bringing down the shadows might fix the local problems, but at the cost of the overall image, which might get a little flat because of it.
That is why it often takes local adjustments, i.e., gradual density filters and brushes, to get it right.
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Would this be more to your liking?
A few caveats: most post-processing is highly subjective, thus this is what I would have done had it been my file; also, I am working with a rather small jpeg file, thus unable to control shadows and highlights as you would in raw, but you can get the idea.
Not all shadows need to be lightened up, some are quite ok to stay blocked; it is a matter of human perception and your taste and intent.
Also, the original shot appears to be taken in broad daylight, when the light is the harshest. Shooting at the edges of the day, earlier in the morning or later in the afternoon would result in softer light. The best place to control light is not in post processing, but in the field. Most photography, and landscape in particular, is about getting the light right at the moment of capture.
Good point about choosing appropriate times to shoot. Yep the sun was high on the sky on that shot, and there wasn't a lot of clouds either.
I think I prefer the last one. The mountain structures came out better. There is still too harsh black shadows in my taste though. I appreciate the time you put into it. Also appreciate that it was only a jpeg.
The problem with local adjustments is that it is very time consuming and also difficult to make it look good and natural.
My idea was that there might be a way to increase contrast and darkness, but with a lower limit that does not affect the darkest areas or something like that.
Your right that it is highly subjective.
When it comes to impressive clean sharp look, I like this guy:
http://draken413o.deviantart.com/ (http://draken413o.deviantart.com/)
And when it comes to lighting and nice gradual tones I really like this guy:
http://karezoid.deviantart.com/ (http://karezoid.deviantart.com/)
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Here are two one-click treatments in Topaz Clarity, one in LAB, primarily boosting contrast and saturation, and one using NIK Color Efex Pro plugin. The LAB version is the third picture and I added a slight gradient to the sky, and also made the mountains in the left upper corner more blue. I also applied 10% PS Shadows and Highlights effect.
The last version done in the NIK ColorEfex Pro, using their strongest Tonal Contrast preset addresses the strong shadows, but that looks too washed out to me, and the sky is also badly posterized (which could be remedied somewhat by applying some blur and noise to the sky).
It just happens that Topaz Labs is running this month a promotion for their Clarity plugin. Not to be confused with LR and Camera Raw clarity slider, this plugin is useful for increase of image’s levels of micro, midrange, and overall contrast. The effect is somewhat similar to NIK's Tonal Contrast preset in their Color Efex Pro plugin, but Topaz Clarity has many more options, and it seems to be doing better job, when it comes to halos, color artifacts, and noise. The program is offered till October 31, 2014 at 25% off which brings the price down to $37.50 (regularly listed at $49.99). To download a free trial version or to purchase it, use the following link:
Topaz Clarity (http://www.topazlabs.com/aff/idevaffiliate.php?id=861&url=http://www.topazlabs.com/clarity) and enter "octclarity" as the coupon code to get the 25% discount.
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hi.
Not sure about this software. Are there discussions about this software? Are there a general agreement that it makes the image look better? I have tried it before, and often it makes the image look unnatural, HDR like.
Maybe it's about how you use the program. I prefer images that look natural. The last image you posted is much better in terms of the shadows. But overall the image doesn't look very good. Look at the lighting, it doesn't have those sharp lines of gradients anymore.
I guess my conclusion so far is that you have to process the image twice. One where no shadows are completely black. And then use mask and a brush with low opacity to lighten up the shadows.
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you might want to learn about 'luminosity masks' to grab the various tonal ranges and tweak them. I dont think this is a clarity/tonal contrast problem but more of a tonal range adjustment problem and I really dislike the excess blue in the shadows so you may want to desat the blue channel in that area. I'm working w/ a vaguely similar problem (but it's a huge snow field in New Zealand taken in a small plane and the backside of the mountains are in deep shadow)
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hi.
Not sure about this software. Are there discussions about this software?
Yes, some of them e.g. here (http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php?topic=78624.msg633401#msg633401) on LuLa, and loads of others across the web. You may also want to have a look at the recorded webinars (http://blog.topazlabs.com/webinars/) and tutorials on the Topaz Labs YouTube channel (http://topazlabs/videos clarity site:www.youtube.com).
Are there a general agreement that it makes the image look better?
Filters do not make images better, but the photographer using them might (if the filter is used properly). Topaz Clarity (which is great by the way) is no exception. It took me a bit of work (I invested a full day of intense testing, analyzing, and comparing) to get a grasp of how it works on the image, and I love it, it is now one of the few must have utilities for me. These tools do not do anything that could not be done in an other way (e.g. with luminosity masks and many layers in Photoshop), but they make the process much (much !) more efficient, and that almost instant feedback sparks creativity.
I have tried it before, and often it makes the image look unnatural, HDR like. Maybe it's about how you use the program.
It usually is. It is really powerful, exercising restraint is useful (use it with the handbrakes on, or reduce opacity when working on a layer in Photoshop).
I prefer images that look natural.
So do I, and TL Clarity does just that, when used as it should be. It's the user who decides how far to take it.
Cheers,
Bart
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I prefer images that look natural.
So do I, and TL Clarity does just that, when used as it should be. It's the user who decides how far to take it.
Exactly! The user decides how far to take it and how much time to invest.
I spent less than 5 minutes to make those 4 versions, using just the default presets, with the intention to demonstrate different possibilities. It would take a little bit more time to do it properly, and indeed, the best approach would be to mask and lighten the darker sections first, and then adjust the contrast.
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In scenes like this, with a large scene dynamic range, you are bound to come across issues related to contrast. In your scene, you have very deep shadows in the rocks in the foreground and shading the hills in the middle ground. The sky is somewhat featureless, which gives you a little more room to exercise your edits - you do not have to worry so much about highlight compression.
The editing strategy for me is a trade-off between global contrast and local contrast. The tendency is to lift the shadows to reveal detail that is in the shadow tones, instead of leaving large areas of blocked up shadows. When you do this - and there are many ways to do this - you are decreasing the global contrast of the image. This will leave the image looking flat, as you have observed.
To restore form to this flat version of the image, you apply local contrast - as if you went into a very specific area (like the rocks in the foreground) and made a "S" curves adjustment just for the local tonal range in the now opened shadows in the rocks. The addition of local contrast will re-establish the form and three-dimensionality of the structures, but you will be able to see more detail because of the initial decrease in global contrast.
In essence you are redistributing the contrast in the image - when you do this, some tones must suffer decreased contrast. With the right tools, however, you can get very fine control over where (highlights, mid tones, shadows) contrast is re-distributed and at what scale local contrast is applied (small, medium or large features). In this way, you can optimize your capture so that the tonal compression you use on a global scale is balanced with the local contrast you apply to bring back form and detail.
"Clarity" in Lightroom/ACR and other raw converters is a local contrast tool - but a very blunt tool that you have little control over. Topaz Labs Clarity, or their Detail 3 application, permits you to control the tonal range and detail size that you are boosting with local contrast. This gives you fine control over how you resculpt the details in your image, without introducing halos and other artifacts.
I also tend to apply a light layer of HiRaLoAm (High Radius Low Amount) USM to the image - it reestablishes very large areas of contrast (the large shadow area in the right side of your image, falling across the hillside, for example) that might get washed out from the initial lifting of shadows. These large areas of shadow and highlight do not need a lot of presence, but adding them back in small amounts gives the image's large scale features a little more form.
kirk
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hi.
Not sure about this software. Are there discussions about this software? Are there a general agreement that it makes the image look better? I have tried it before, and often it makes the image look unnatural, HDR like.
Maybe it's about how you use the program. I prefer images that look natural. The last image you posted is much better in terms of the shadows. But overall the image doesn't look very good. Look at the lighting, it doesn't have those sharp lines of gradients anymore.
I guess my conclusion so far is that you have to process the image twice. One where no shadows are completely black. And then use mask and a brush with low opacity to lighten up the shadows.
All necessary edits to achieve well defined and natural looking shadows can be done in ACR/LR with PV2012. You just have to get to know what each tone slider adjust does in controlling the gradualness of shadow roll off out of absolute black. Brightening a dark, murky Raw image from scratch by only increasing the Exposure slider will give a flat, washed out look to shadows depending on how wide the dynamic range of the original captured scene, so exposing to preserve highlights will generally not give much wiggle room for exposure slider increase before clipping highlights.
Natural looking shadow roll off out of black in a landscape is already established by the camera's sensor in that it records proper clarity ratio between foreground shadows as being more clear and defined than distant shadow detail which looks flatter, excluding any lens flare. How airy you want distant shadow detail to be compared to foreground shadows is a matter of taste and memory of the original scene.
Your image's distant mountain range appears to have mist in the valleys or a heavy handed Clarity or High Pass/Gaussian Blur adjust was applied. Distant mountain tops aren't generally as dark as mid/foreground shadows unless the mountain is made of dark colored earth.
When you get into luminance masking to micro manage individual tones, it turns the image into a paint by numbers game where the focus is on individual tones to bring out detail that wasn't seen through the lens due to zooming in on a computer display instead of focusing on the tonal relationships that control overall depth perception. It turns what used to be a 3D image into either a small miniature or an engraving or an over dramatized, over the top contrasty graphic novel like the movie "300" which draws attention to itself.
Below is a demonstration of my exploring LR4.4's tonal adjusts in how to add clarity to mid range tree foliage lit by diffused sky light while providing opened up shadow detail in the foreground and have the shadows gradually become softer nearing the background. There was no adjustment brushes applied to get the softer distant shadows. The Parametric Curve brought out the clarity in the mid range foliage where Contrast & Black point increases added clarity to foreground shadows. The distant softer shadows fell in place due to how the sensor recorded them.
Hope this makes it more clear.
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Use graduated neutral filters when shooting shots like that.
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Use graduated neutral filters when shooting shots like that.
I disagree, Alan. It's not necessary. I want all the light I can get. I'll fix in post.
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Part of the issue of "harsh" shadows is the time of day one shoots. Middle of the day, you expect it and work your subjects in the shade and shoot details. At the edges of the day, the light is much more flattering for many subjects, both in direction and color. Then it is a matter of learning to see what works well and what does't for your kind of photography.
Since I've got to play the cards I'm dealt many times, it's a matter of experience and sometimes using lighting to balance things out to fit the dynamic range onto what my sensor will take meaning using reflectors, flash, or even finding a better POV from which to shoot.
In post, it's sometimes a matter of pushing the "shadow" slider up quite a bit, provided I've got info in the shadow and then perhaps dropping the "black" slider down to create a little contrast in the shadows. Exposing to the right also helps, but the best thing is simply to shoot a lot and practice.
I'm a firm believer in trying to get the exposure good at capture and then spending as little time on post as I can. A lot of what works for me is to simply visualize the final result and if the light is bad, use my feet to find a better image or wait for better light.
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I disagree, Alan. It's not necessary. I want all the light I can get. I'll fix in post.
I was referring to the the OP's picture.
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Hi Guys, sorry for not coming back before now.
I thankful for all the responses,awesome to share and learn. I have a long way to go, in terms of both shooting in the field and the post processing.
I'm going to look into lumosity masks. I never had much success with HDR, not sure I'm going to give that up entirely. It sucks spending hours on a image that turns out looking like crap.
I recently did a photo where I added a layer of a longer exposure on top of the normal one, then I used a brush with low opacity brushing on the black parts of the image. What I dislike the most are small black shadows that look like dots, big dark areas isn't necessarily a problem, and can look good. But those spots often look like crap.
I wasn't really happy with the result though.
Here's the image:
(http://fc01.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2014/289/b/2/_dsc2972_by_giancoli-d8329f6.jpg)
It's okay, but nothing special about it. You watch it for a few seconds then move on. But there are no completely black spots. The problem was mainly on the grass in front, especially on the right side.
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This is a rather bleak looking place, I'd suggest to travel further west.
The picture lacks a central focus point. So, I lightened it a little bit and enriched the scene with a handsome native specimen.
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haha, ur a funny guy.
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Hi Guys, sorry for not coming back before now.
I thankful for all the responses,awesome to share and learn. I have a long way to go, in terms of both shooting in the field and the post processing.
I'm going to look into lumosity masks. I never had much success with HDR, not sure I'm going to give that up entirely. It sucks spending hours on a image that turns out looking like crap.
I recently did a photo where I added a layer of a longer exposure on top of the normal one, then I used a brush with low opacity brushing on the black parts of the image. What I dislike the most are small black shadows that look like dots, big dark areas isn't necessarily a problem, and can look good. But those spots often look like crap.
I wasn't really happy with the result though.
Here's the image:
It's okay, but nothing special about it. You watch it for a few seconds then move on. But there are no completely black spots. The problem was mainly on the grass in front, especially on the right side.
You might want to start embedding the sRGB profile in your posted images especially for shadows to look as intended because the sRGB profile has a shadow bump lifter designed into its TRC that's not a mathematically normal power function shaped 2.2 gamma curve. It makes shadows look darker on 2.2 gamma calibrated displays when the profile isn't embedded after converting to sRGB. See the screengrab below.
I don't understand why you have to make your shadows so dark and dense. I can't make out any detail in either of the two in the screengrab that would register to a viewer at best on a display and worse on a print.
I see a lot of course looking noise but that might be from the jpeg compression. I've shot plenty of similar night scene single exposures with a 2006 6MP Pentax K100D DSLR and got decent shadow detail as long as I used ACR/LR Noise Removal and applied a flattened portion of the point curve close to black to bring out detail without kicking up noise.
Could you post a 100% crop of the area you see spots? I can't see what you describe because that area is too dark. You do realize night scenes invoke their own adaptive effect where the eyes open up and see more detail in the dark. We humans have excellent night vision. Note the screengrab of the default Raw preview of my previous landscape without edits.
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hmm, I checked my photoshop and it's in RGB mode. I don't really know much about this. I tried saving a sRGB file, I used save for the web. Is this one better?
(http://fc09.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2014/290/5/9/_dsc2973_by_giancoli-d835c6g.jpg)
the full size can be seen here:
http://giancoli.deviantart.com/art/Dsc2973-489017320?ga_submit_new=10%253A1413560310
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No embedded sRGB on your posted image. See Photoshop screengrab.
You'll need to read up on color management, about assign/convert/embed color space profiles in Photoshop and display calibration if you're expecting to get any headway learning how to edit shadows. It's pointless to offer any meaningful editing tips if we're not even seeing the same thing in our browsers on a calibrated/profiled display which we're having to now assume is the state of your display especially if you have concerns about shadow detail.
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I agree with Tim it is really difficult to offer meaningful advice if we are not sure about the state of your display.
If your monitor brightness is too high or too low you will be compensating in your editing attempts and while it may look fine to you in your particular viewing environment with this monitor others that view your images will not be seeing what you are seeing.
FWIW brought your image into ACR and just tried pressing the Auto button and added an adjustment brush exposure contrast to the sky and mountains. While it is my opinion that the image improved (I can see now little Red Riding Hood :))I appreciate that your taste and visualisation may be very different, but I think illustrates the potential in initial processing in ACR or LR without jumping into filters or luminosity masks - of course they have their place and can be very useful but perhaps better to concentrate on getting the most out of your capture first within your chosen raw editor, then considering what 'improvements' can be made to meet your vision and what tools needed to accomplish such?
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In scenes like this…
That was good, thanks.
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You nailed it, Tony. I'm now convinced I should never underestimate ACR/LR "Auto" setting.
On close inspection of your corrected jpeg the artifacts in the shadows indicate either the OP shot jpeg instead of Raw or a Raw converter with poor noise reduction was used to generate the initial posted jpeg.
Don't know why clicking on the OP's linked full version launches my email program. That's odd. I even tried another browser and gave up attempting to download the image.
There's also no EXIF data embedded in the OP's jpegs.
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I never had much success with HDR… I recently did a photo where I added a layer of a longer exposure on top of the normal one…
Instead of HDR or manually blending different exposures, you can try using Enfuse (http://enblend.sourceforge.net/) to automatically blend different exposures. (I find it helpful to use an alpha mask, to mark which parts of each exposure should not be blended.)
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hmm, I checked my photoshop and it's in RGB mode. I don't really know much about this. I tried saving a sRGB file, I used save for the web. Is this one better?
the full size can be seen here:
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can you make the two originals available? were they shot in raw or jpeg? There are ghosting artifacts in the trees and the general rendering of the image looks like it almost posterized at the small detail level in the mid and shadow tones.
kirk
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.... I'm now convinced I should never underestimate ACR/LR "Auto" setting.
...Don't know why clicking on the OP's linked full version launches my email program. That's odd. I even tried another browser and gave up attempting to download the image.
There's also no EXIF data embedded in the OP's jpegs.
Hi Tim
TBH trying Auto setting is not something I normally do as I have an aversion to software that has such features feeling I can always do better on my own :) ;) - seems like I have also underestimated the potential ;D
The OP's link does launch my email program but this http://giancoli.deviantart.com/art/Dsc2973-489017320 I think is probably the one intended? Hope giancoli is ok with me posting the link - I will remove if this is wrong
I guess the EXIF data is being stripped out either by Save for Web or being stripped when uploaded to Deviantart?
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they where shot in raw. Postericed is exactly the word I was looking for, I don't like that look at all. Those greyish trees seems to give that look for some reason.
When I come to think of it, it was because of that postericed look that I eventually ended up with rather dark shadows in an attempt to hide it.
There should not be much noise there, cause I shot with ISO 100 using a tripod.
I think I mistakenly used insert mail instead of insert hyperlink, sorry.
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I'm with Isaac
Faced with a similar scene and given that I was using a tripod, I'd have taken a range of exposures - to get good sky/snow exposure on the one hand, and a reasonable look into the forest, on the other. I'd then use LR Enfuse to blend the exposures. Used sensitively Enfuse doesn't result in the awful 'HDR Look'.
In my experience, I'm never able to successfully lift the shadow detail on scenes like the OP's 2nd image, using LR/ACR alone. I almost always end up with excessive noise or a false grey-looking murk.
FWIW
Tim
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Hi,
Hard to say without a raw image…
The included screen shot from Lightroom shows what is possible with just a few mouse clicks.
Best regards
Erik
Hi Guys, sorry for not coming back before now.
I thankful for all the responses,awesome to share and learn. I have a long way to go, in terms of both shooting in the field and the post processing.
I'm going to look into lumosity masks. I never had much success with HDR, not sure I'm going to give that up entirely. It sucks spending hours on a image that turns out looking like crap.
I recently did a photo where I added a layer of a longer exposure on top of the normal one, then I used a brush with low opacity brushing on the black parts of the image. What I dislike the most are small black shadows that look like dots, big dark areas isn't necessarily a problem, and can look good. But those spots often look like crap.
I wasn't really happy with the result though.
Here's the image:
(http://fc01.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2014/289/b/2/_dsc2972_by_giancoli-d8329f6.jpg)
It's okay, but nothing special about it. You watch it for a few seconds then move on. But there are no completely black spots. The problem was mainly on the grass in front, especially on the right side.
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You said you don't like HDR. Then your second picture also needed a graduated neutral density filter when it was shot. You can only do so much with software when the dynamic range is so large and you need to capture it in one image.