Wednesday Landscapes, 8 November 2017

You are invited to upload one or more of your landscape photos and, if you’d like, to accompany your image with some commentary: challenges you faced in making the image? your intent for the image? settings? post-processing decisions? why you did what you did? the place and time? or an aspect you’d like feedback on? And please feel free to ask questions of others who have posted images or to join the discussion. If you don’t feel like using words, that’s OK too—unaccompanied images (or unaccompanied words, for that matter) are also very much welcomed. As for the technicalities, the usual forum guidelines apply: files < 1 MB; image size <1000 px maximum dimension.

 

It was around 4 pm at Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park, and the sun was disappearing over a ridge—its last flourish before exiting was to spotlight this big-leaf maple under a canopy of coast redwoods. This turned out to be a difficult exposure—either the maple leaves blew out or the redwoods blacked out. I ended up spot-exposing off a patch of blue sky, then used an adjustment brush to bring a bit more light to the forest floor (mostly by upping the clarity there).

 

The usual view around the Ranch , with a little frosting. Ricoh GXR with A16 module.

Taken at Garden of the Gods, a national natural landmark in Colorado Springs, CO, on a road trip from Boulder to Santa Fe. I shot this a moment or two after I slipped and fell on a gravel path, later to learn I'd broken my ankle. The lighting more than compensated for the pain . . . until later that night!

 

Saint Mary Lake

An Idaho wheat field and road

Shot along the St. John River in St. John, New Brunswick, Canada . . .

Early morning, after an hour's drive and a bit of a hike, I got out to the marsh as the fog was lifting from the surrounding land, but still thick and heavy over the water.

50mm prime, 1/50" @ f/5.6, ISO-280

 

Path The The Edge Of The World

A view from Island in the Sky/ Canyonlands NP

View south from Wukoki pueblo, Flagstaff, Arizona

I must apologize for my contribution this week. Quite honestly, I'm embarrassed that I didn't correct the blue cast in the background.

gsmart, I've made photos from that very spot on multiple trips. It's my favorite sunset spot in the Island In The Sky.

I didn't correct the blue cast

No worries, Michael! From a pure abstract color point of view, I enjoyed the way the blues and golds interacted--kind of a Fauvist interpretation of reality (since we've meticulously avoided defining "landscape photography," there's no reason that abstracted or experimental landscapes wouldn't fit here, too). And please feel free to post an edited version too, if you'd like.

Hey, no problem, Michael. Everybody gets the blues from time to time. I second Leslie's motion for posting an edited version...

Leslie, William - - I just revisited the image and made adjustments in both ACR and PSE15. There's still a bit too much blue for me to be happy with it, but I think it's an improvement. I will appreciate your thoughts.,

Michael, it's still quite blue. Can you post the original file? I'd be curious to know if there was a strong blue cast to begin with or if it crept in in post. I don't know what controls you have in the programs you work with, but I tried just desaturating the blue channel quite a bit and got a bit more natural a result, though that kind of desaturation creates its own issues that need to be finessed to work. I suspect, though, it would be easier to start with the RAW file, if you have one, or a jpg straight out of the camera. If you look at the greens along the upper left slope, they actually have an unnatural amount of blue in them as well. Compare those greens to the greens in the foreground trees and brush. Edited November 11, 2017 by Norma Desmond

What did you see when you made the exposure? Was there any post on the initial image posted here? There is an interesting article on another popular photo site on Inverting the image to correct color casts.

Fred and Sandy, I've double-checked the original image. There is no blue cast whatsoever. It contained lovely fall colors, only. After I posted it, I tried desaturating the blue channel in the revised version, and got a disappointing result. Thanks for your helpful suggestions. Perhaps I should have converted to b&w!

Michael, not sure it would work in bw, since the fall colors seem to be at the core here. If there was no blue cast in the original, do you have any idea how it got in there? Taking it out at this point would probably not work, as you say. But what about starting from the original and just noticing as you post process what might cause the blue and trying to avoid it? Or, maybe you already did as much work on it as you want. Anyway, something to be on the lookout for in the future. One thing I've come to realize from experience is that there is often a bit of blue in shadows. When increasing saturation, which I'm guessing you did for the oranges and yellows, the blue can grow in intensity. I don't know how your processing software functions, but in Photoshop I'm able to just saturate and play with individual colors as opposed to doing things globally, which I find limits unwanted side effects like what may be at play with the blues here.

Fred, believe it or not, I had forgotten that Color Efex (in NIK) has a curves and levels filter. PSE has both of these as separate tools, but the curves feature is quite limited. Just for the hell of it, I used the Color Efex filter and lowered the blue channel considerably with respect to the shadows and midtones. You be the judge - - please!

Fred, believe it or not, I had forgotten that Color Efex (in NIK) has a curves and levels filter. PSE has both of these as separate tools, but the curves feature is quite limited. Just for the hell of it, I used the Color Efex filter and lowered the blue channel considerably with respect to the shadows and midtones. You be the judge - - please![ATTACH=full]1219244[/ATTACH]

 

Clearly this has been learning experience for me.

Michael, glad you've learned stuff about the software. That's always a plus. Sorry to say, the photo isn't working for me. It still retains some of that strong blue and the rest now feels even more over-processed to me. It's like there's an overlay of mucky yellow-green over the whole thing. Not sure if you've had enough of this particular image yet, but if not, I'd start from scratch and use a much lighter hand. I think you can still bring out the stellar fall glows without losing touch with reality.

I have found that blue skies get shifted to violet when I upload them. I desaturate the blue sky a bit to compensate.

Michael, glad you've learned stuff about the software. That's always a plus. Sorry to say, the photo isn't working for me. It still retains some of that strong blue and the rest now feels even more over-processed to me. It's like there's an overlay of mucky yellow-green over the whole thing. Not sure if you've had enough of this particular image yet, but if not, I'd start from scratch and use a much lighter hand. I think you can still bring out the stellar fall glows without losing touch with reality.

 

Fred, in no way did I expect comments on the image's overall merit. I was using it to demonstrate what I learned in Color Efex. Thanks for recognizing that.