Wednesday Landscapes, 6 September 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.

I’ve been continuing to scan color negatives this week, and have been trying a variety of strategies for dealing with the color corrections. In this case, I found two photos that serendipitously worked as a panorama (different views taken within a few minutes of one another), and I merged them in Lightroom and did a bit of cloning to make the waves line up (in retrospect, I should have gone to Photoshop and liquified at that point—the images were scanned as tiffs so I wouldn’t have lost anything in the translation). I then did the basic editing in Lightroom (increasing clarity, saturation, vibrance, white point, vibrance; then using the HSL sliders to cool the blues and warm the yellows). I was still having color problems, though: the (yellow) sand was still too green, and the (blue) sky was still too magenta, but un-greening the sand made the sunset radioactive, and un-magentaing the sky also messed up the rest of the image. At that point I went to Photoshop, moved to LAB color mode, and did the rest of the adjustments using A and B curves. Back in Lightroom, I found I needed to deal with what looked like noise in the dark areas, but the usual anti-noise strategies didn’t work because the basic issue was larger-scale grain. I used an adjustment brush with strongly negative whites, highlights and noise and moderate negative sharpening on the near rocks; I then sharpened the overall image and slightly reduced noise overall.

Last evening with Ricoh GXR A16 Module. Needed a shot for Mirrorless, this was a byproduct.

Leslie, I hope I don't enrage you by posting an edit of your picture. I've made my picture very small so as to make my offense smaller. LOL

If you are unhappy, I apologize and won't do it again. But, if you like the edit, I'll tell you how it was done.

if you like the edit, I'll tell you how it was done

I like the edit a lot, Julie, and thanks for the help! After I posted, I decided I'd still left the sky too violet, and was starting to play with a strongly feathered WB adjustment brush when your post showed up, putting the sky pretty much where I wanted it. What approach did you take? Looks like you went for a more global change than I was working on, and I think it works better than my adjustment brush would have because it keeps the color more consistent through the image--I think your edit works really well.

Looks like you went for a more global change than I was working on

You caught me! I did a fast and dirty edit, which it is very nice to call "global change." Gradient swipe and a couple of swipes of a fat brush on the mask of an adjustment layer. My excuse is I was being furtive: working on a file I shouldn't be working on, so if I did it really fast, it would be less of a crime.

I just used a Photo Filter > Cooling Filter (82) adjustment layer and the above described gradient swipe and brush on the mask. Here's what my fudge edit looks like, on the mask:

Please note that I was using a screen cap of your picture, which brought it into my editing via my very old Dell internet machine'smonitor which I can't remember if I've ever profiled ... Also note that I used the first adjustment that looked nice. You may want to try another one for better results.

I was browsing through some old works and found this. It was shot in Morro Bay, CA coast using a cheap ultra zoom camera, hence the grain. Some cropping was done. The BW conversion was done using Silver Efex and the dehaze function in LR was used to recover some of the house details through the fog. I have a print hanging on my wall, and it doesn't look that crude viewed from a distance as it does in the monitor.

Here is the original unedited version:

I was browsing through some old works and found this. It was shot in Morro Bay, CA coast using a cheap ultra zoom camera, hence the grain. Some cropping was done. The BW conversion was done using Silver Efex and the dehaze function in LR was used to recover some of the house details through the fog. I have a print hanging on my wall, and it doesn't look that crude viewed from a distance as it does in the monitor.

 

[ATTACH=full]1207933[/ATTACH]

 

Here is the original unedited version:

 

[ATTACH=full]1207938[/ATTACH]

Supriyo, each version has its own character. The original's emphasis is on nature, while the b&w reveals more of a human presence.

Supriyo, each version has its own character. The original's emphasis is on nature, while the b&w reveals more of a human presence.

Thanks, Michael for the comment. The original photo is how I saw the scene (may be more bluish). The BW treatment completely changed the scene, enhancing the drama at the cost of serenity. The sea looks more restless, and the fog looks like a storm cloud. I agree, the human presence is also highlighted because of the houses being more prominent. I also like both versions, may be the original version more because of personal nostalgia.

I also like both versions

I like both versions too, Supriyo—powerful energy v. powerful serenity (and the grain seems to suit the energy level for the first). I particularly like how the buildings sneak up on me in the second—it takes a few seconds for the forms in the fog to resolve themselves into something recognizable.

I just used a Photo Filter > Cooling Filter (82) adjustment layer and the above described gradient swipe and brush on the mask

It hadn’t occurred to me to explore the filters menu—thanks, Julie! (and I now know how I’m going to be spending this evening) (one of the advantages of being new to Photoshop is that there's always something new and intriguing to explore). Eventually what I’d like to be able to do is find a combination of global adjustments that I could turn into an ACR or Lr preset and a Ps action so that I can do a preliminary adjustment of all the scanned frames from this particularly troublesome film (Fuji Superia 400 ASA); then I’d be able to follow up with local adjustments on individual images. One of the issues seems to be dropping out of reds, which I’ve been dealing with using a tone-curve adjustment in Lightroom. A Photoshop photo filter looks like it might be an efficient solution for that.

It also hadn’t occurred to me how questionable the use of the term “global” is for a patch of real-estate that attains its maximum acreage at the scale of a computer screen. At least it’s not referred to as “universal”…

A Photoshop photo filter looks like it might be an efficient solution for that

It's kind of a last resort for me. I can't remember every using the Photo Filter adjustment layer, but if you get stuck with 'bad' colors that can't be separated by the good means you're already using, it's handy to have a blunt force, just-hit-the-darn-colors-one-by-one feature to go to. I have actually used a Solid Color adjustment layer at very low opacity set to Hue blend mode to 'fix' rogue color tints before. Photo Filter is doing much the same thing but it's already supposedly tuned to photos.

If you're going to be exploring, note that you always have the use of the Opacity setting in the Layers palette to dial down the effect. Most color adjustments need to be dialed way back before they even begin to look right. Also note that within most adjustment layer dialogues, there is a % amount that can be tinkered with to also dial back or up, the intensity. Further, if you see a color square anywhere in a dialogue, clicking that square will open the color picker where you can tinker with the color values.

More things to play with: Group With will cause your adjustment layer to only affect the layer that it's grouped with (the one directly below it). You may also enjoy playing with layer blend modes in the Layers palette. Try Hue to use only color and not value, or Luminosity to use only value and not hue. Or the juicy ones like Soft Light; try duplicating your image layer and setting the dup layer's mode to Soft Light with opacity at maybe 15% or less to make your colors sexier in combo with the image layer below.

Something that nobody will recommend any more but which I think are still useful are the Dodge and Burn tools for detail work on black and white images. They're ancient, and every sensible editor will tell you to use an adjustment layer and work from the mask. Adjustment layers are safe (they don't edit the image layer) and endlessly editable. But the thing that these two tools have, if you can find them (they're grouped with the Sponge tool) is a setting you'll see on the options bar: Range. In the Range menu, you'll see Midtones, Highlights, and Shadows. The cool thing is that if you set Range to Highlights, Exposure very low (always set Exposure very low!! 10% or less!) and brush over the highlight that you want to pop, it will ONLY bring the highlight up. The midtones and shadows are not affected. Likewise if you have a shadow that you want to drop out, you can push it down, bit by bit with a soft brush without affecting the other tones that are mixed in with it. Try it on a duplicate image layer, Crtl J, (NEVER use this irreversible tool on your master image layer) and if you get good results, then merged down (Ctrl E).

I better stop now ... I could go on all night. [i'm fine with global. It's better than cubal.]

High Plains Panorama

Wyoming