Black water reflection - fix in post?

<p>Hello all. I have a problem with a difficult image. A friend of mine is exhibiting an artwork - a boat skeleton covered in a pitch-like coating, 'floating' on water. The water's dyed black, and the coating is glossy.<br>

Hopefully images will be uploadable below, but what happens is that everything turns silver. We anticipated this, took photos on a cloudy day, and I experimented with a polariser (which helped a bit). The images shown are the best of the bunch and definitely don't look like the live article.<br>

I've tried to do things in Photoshop (levels etc.) and am getting nowhere. So I'm requesting advice, either for post process or for a re-shoot, which can be done.<br>

~Laurence</p>

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<p>And a second one</p><div></div>

<p>Without an image, it's hard to tell, but the "silver" comment suggests the possibility that the images are over-exposed. Try loading the image into ACR and manipulate the exposure/highlight/etc sliders to see where you can take the images you have already. Metering will always push black to the so-called "18% gray"*<br>

Now I see the images -- of course black water is a mirror, so that's one problem.</p>

<p><br /> _____________<br /> *don't write, folks, the actual percentage is not the issue here.</p>

<p>Here's with the exposure down, recover up, black up, etc. Short of shooting this without ambient light somehow, I'm not sure how to get the water black and still show the boat.</p><div></div>

<p>Shoot at night to make use of the black sky (which will be reflected in the water), and then use flash or hot lights to light the boat in such a way that reflections from your lights are not seen by your camera.</p>

<p>Tom M</p>

<p>Here's an atttempt</p><div></div>

<p>You need a piece of black cloth which you will locate in the "reflection" so that the reflection is black. Say black velvet.</p>

<p>It seems part of the problem is that although the water is black, the wall it is reflecting is not black, and in fact is a fairly light color. I would suggest using a black background (perhaps black matte poster board) and make sure to meter it as a black object -- i.e. underexpose by about 1 1/2 stops. </p>

<p>Or follow Tom Mann's suggestions which will yield something similar. Watch out that the flash doesn't light up the light-colored wall behind the pool though, because that will produce the same apparently over-exposed result. I suggest using a totally black background in that case too.</p>

<p>PS - IMHO, post processing of the current image (ie, lit by daylight) is NOT going to be productive.</p>

<p>Even if we had a full resolution version of this image, and ignore what appear to be sensor dirt marks, vignetting, sharpening and other artifacts, you are still going to run into severe problems with the light-to-dark transitions around each and every edge in the image.</p>

<p>In the current image, the boat is darker than the background, but you want it to be lighter than the background. If you try to mask out the boat and then separately darken the background and lighten the boat, you are likely to wind up with a bright pixel or two wide halo around each edge. This is entirely analogous to the well-known difficulties when you have a headshot of a person with dark hair against a light background, and then attempt to put the subject on a dark background. There are specialized PP techniques for doing this, but it's not easy.</p>

<p>However, once you have an image of the boat standing out against a jet black, night sky background reflected in the water, you can then easily do all sorts of more minor modifications to the dark areas, e.g., introduce subtle gradients, ripples, etc.</p>

<p>The attached image illustrates both the inevitable halo problem and general "fake" appearance you wind up with if you use a daylight image, as well as tries to suggest some of things that can be done to surface of the water in a night-time (or artificial black background) version of the same shot.</p>

<p>HTH,</p>

<p>Tom M</p><div></div>

<p>Well, what a great response from you all. Thank you so much. As soon as I started reading I understood where I had gone wrong, a pretty basic mistake not to consider what happens with reflections, but there you go. From what you have said I reckon that PP won't do (although I like your attempts), so it's a re-shoot. Can't do it at night it's in the courtyard of a gallery that will be closed. However the black cloth/poster board suggestion makes sense, so I'll set up for that.<br>

Thanks again everyone ~Laurence</p>

<p>Since your object is black, and the reflection in the water will be black-on-black, you might try some low-angle rim light to shot the objects shape and texture better against all that black.</p>

<p><Chas><br /><br /></p>

<p>Lawrence, when you re-shoot, make sure the boat is not back-lit. Your lighting should be in the general direction from the camera to the boat, probably off to one side. Reflections from the light source off the water will then be directed harmlessly away from the camera. Light bouncing off the boat will reflect in the water and be part of the image.</p>

<p>try under exposing 1 1/2 to 2 stops when shooting.</p>