Would appreciate some guidance on how to do this picture better in the future

 

 

<p>Hello,<br>

I was hoping to get some guidance on how to handle this scene better using natural light (no flash allowed)<br>

So here is the picture:<br>

<a href="http://i.imgur.com/C2WCW.jpg">http://i.imgur.com/C2WCW.jpg</a><br>

The scene was under a pretty dense tree so there was very little natural light, and I couldn't use flash....<br>

I tried a bunch of different exposures, iso settings, etc, but the one I uploaded was taken with:<br>

f/4.5<br>

1/640<br>

iso-320<br>

24mm<br>

I was using a 7d with the 24-70mm f/2.8 lens<br>

The only post processing was to raise the exposure in light room, but as you can see the back of the picture (out in the woods/field) looks really unnatural, but it was necessary to make the foreground objects (the kids, the tour guide, and the sheep) light enough to show features.<br>

So basically the issue is I was in a very low light situation, needed to get many objects into the picture and in focus, couldn't use flash and right behind the main scene was a field on a brightly lit day (obviously very different lighting between the front objects and background). <br>

I know that I could have brought down the f stop for better light but that didn't seem to keep the whole scene focused as well.<br>

I would appreciate any tips/tutorials/videos on how to handle this situation better in the future....</p>

 

 

<p>Whether you bring the overall exposure up in post, or simply spot-meter for the subjects in the shade at the time you shoot, the same thing is going to happen: your background is going to get over-exposed. The only other option would be to bracket and use some sort of multi-exposure HDR stitching process to keep those background highlights under control. There's simply too much dynamic range in a scene like that to get around the problem without fill flash. So, meter for the part of the image you care about, and let the (background) chips fall where they may.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>I know that I could have brought down the f stop for better light but that didn't seem to keep the whole scene focused as well.</p>

 

</blockquote>

<p>I don't understand what you are saying? Personally, I think the image is slightly over-exposed. I think f/5 or f/5.6 might have been better. This would give you <em>more</em> DoF, but DoF really isn't the issue here.</p>

 

<blockquote>

<p>I would appreciate any tips/tutorials/videos on how to handle this situation better in the future....</p>

 

</blockquote>

<p>Well, to make it better you need to define what you don't like? Right now, the dynamic range exceeds what the camera can capture. With wide shots such as this, about the only thing you can do is change your position so that the sun is behind you. Beyond that, frame a tighter shot that has less dynamic range in the shot. As example, right in the center of your shot is a group of children, frame the shot with just them in the shot and you have chosen a frame with less dynamic range. But no matter how you slice it, you need to be aware that your camera can only capture so much dynamic range.... and that is far less than what the eye can capture!</p>

<p>@ john<br>

it looks overexposed now because I had to raise the exposure in light room to get the people & sheep bright enough which made some areas really bright and obviously the background extremely bright</p>

<p>It seems like I just need to understand dynamic range better, this wasn't a professional shoot (my kid is one of the ones sitting on the ground), I just wanted to learn how to do it better.</p>

 

<p>A tough one if you're not allowing yourself to use flash. However, there are ways to tame the contrast a little better.</p>

<p>Firstly and most importantly - shoot raw (CRW) files. This gives you the full 12 or 14 bits of camera dynamic range to play with in post processing.</p>

<p>Secondly - learn how to use the curves tool in PS or whatever your image processor of choice is.</p>

<p>Thirdly - use layers and learn how the various blending modes work.</p>

<p>Put all 3 together by creating two separate images from the RAW file; one image adjusted in ACR for the highlights and another adjusted for the shadows (with appropriate noise filtering). Import them into PS and use the curves tool to get the best tonal compromise from both pictures. Don't be afraid to chop the tone curve off flat in one image if need be. Finally combine them as layers into one image, possibly using the "lighten only" blend mode and adjusting the opacity of the top layer to suit.</p>

<p>@ rodeo<br>

I do shoot in RAW but my post-processing skills are very weak. I have lightroom, but not photoshop, but I still can only do (mostly) basic manipulations.</p>

<p>I will look up some tutorials on the PS abiltiies you are describing though to see the effect..</p>

<p>Exactly whose rule was it that flash wasn't allowed. From the very well-defined shadows and highlights, it appears that the sun was out, so I doubt that a bit of fill flash even be noticed, let alone disturb anyone. This isn't exactly a funeral or the somber induction ceremony of new Nobel prize winners being photographed, situations in which a no-flash rule can be understood. </p>

<p>To add insult to the injury, I would bet that the flashes on half the point and shoot cameras being used by other people probably came on automatically, if only because their owners didn't know how to turn them off.</p>

<p>There are times to either ignore illogical rules and deal with the consequences (if any) later, or complain to the organizers --- IMHO, this was one of those times.</p>

<p>By any chance did you shoot in in RAW + JPG, or in JPG-only mode? If the former, post the RAW file, and I'll bet we could do a lot with it. If the latter, even if it looks dark to you, post the JPG that came straight from the camera. It won't display in-line, but ignore that, and let's see what we can do for you.</p>

<p>Cheers,</p>

<p>Tom M</p>

<p>@ tom<br>

As I said it wasn't a professionalm/paid shot, was just an outing with my kids. I shoot in RAW, and could upload the file, but I really am just interested how I could have made it before when taking it or in post-processing. Rodeo's post have given me a number of things to read about it in PS.<br>

The flash wasn't used out of just customary way of doing things when it involes people/animals.. I have a 580 EX II and the cord to take it off camera that I might have been able to use, and I know it would have greatly helped.</p>

<p>Andrew, here's a shot I took this afternoon which has far too much contrast just like your example. The Jpeg was very overexposed, leading to off-colour highlights, and with deep inpenetrable shadows. The raw file was just about rescuable.</p>

<p>I created two Tiff images from the raw file using Capture One - but Canon's raw processor would do just as well. On one image the "exposure" was reduced by 1.5 stops and on the other it was increased by 2/3rds of a stop. The two images were then imported into GIMP, which is free and IMHO only second best to PhotoShop. The images were superimposed as layers and then merged using the GIMP's "value" blend mode. Opacity was set at somewhere around 50% and the layers merged down. Job done!</p>

<p>The left is the "pseudo HDR" image created and the right is the jpeg straight off the camera. You should be able to see how the highlight detail has (mostly) been retained and the shadows opened up, as well as the overblown colour in the red apples rescued.</p><div></div>

<p>Other than suggesting you move to the other side against the fence, there is not much you can do in this type of situation. Even that probably won't help much either.</p>

<p>This group is far too deep for a single on camera fill flash to work on the people at the front and rear with blowing out something as badly as the sun has already.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>The best advice is given above, but from someone who has shot with film in the past where RAW and PS were not available, I would have left the background out altogether. With film especially color film there was not that much room for second chances.</p>

<p>Usually you would take an in-camera reading of the sky, or the brightest object in the scene, then you would take a reading of the darkest "detailed" object in the scene.</p>

<p>After that you would count the stop differences between the two readings. If there was more than a 5 stop difference between the two readings, your best bet would be to compose the shot differently, or you could avoid the bright area altogether and meter for the shadows. Another technique was to average the two readings and pick something in between. Or as a last resort, you would just let the main subjects fall in the shadows and hope that you could fix it in the darkroom.</p>

<p>Color film only had a 5 stop dynamic range so anything over a 5 stop difference between highlight and shadows would be very difficult to correct in the darkroom. </p>

<p>I shot a similar scene under high contrast shaded conditions. I shot Raw without flash, handheld and tested exposure so the sky portion was just a bit away from the right side of the histogram viewed on my camera's LCD. The results looked dark on the screen but I knew I could fix it in ACR/LR adjusting Recovery, some Fill, Clarity and Black point and Brightness. See results below.</p>

<p>And yeah, that's my finger in the upper right corner. Doh! I'm going to eventually clone it out.</p><div></div>

<p>Andrew, your RAW file probably had most of if not all the information you needed to balance this shot out ... maybe, I can't be sure without seeing it. The image you presented to us has already been ruined in post, so there is little that can be done ... BUT, I tried anyway just to demonstrate a few thing discussed below in my post.</p>

<p><strong>SHOOTING:</strong> The key to exposing scenes like this is to expose the camera's histogram to the right ... meaning the histogram graph <strong>shouldn't</strong> be packed up past the right edge, but instead trail down and end at or just past the right edge. This will preserve the highlight areas which are very hard to impossible to recover in post processing. It will also tend to block up the shadow areas in cases like this shot, but those are easier to recover. See your camera's manual on how to access the histogram, which will appear on your LCD.</p>

<p>In lieu of that, if you have a very bright area in the scene it will trick the camera's meter and underexpose the scene to much, so you have to either meter manually and exclude some or all of the bright area, or set a + compensation on the camera when working with aperture priority automation. However, you still may have to adjust exposure a bit to keep some information in the bright areas even if just a little bit ... which is why the histogram is useful.<br>

There are many articles on exposing properly on the web. </p>

<p><strong>PROCESSING:</strong> If you use Lightroom you will have to improve your skills in extracting all the image quality possible. </p>

<p>To begin with, go into your LR preferences and make sure the working color space is ProPhoto RGB. This setting extracts the most color data possible from the RAW file, where sRGB extracts the least. It doesn't matter if you will output the image in sRGB later, what you want is ProPhoto RGB when <em>working</em> on the image. (BTW, if you ever shoot jpgs in camera, be sure to set RGB color space, NOT sRGB).</p>

<p>Lightroom has become so sophisticated, that with practice, you rarely have to work in Photoshop unless there are layers involved, or you need a special PS tool like Content Aware fill etc. ... BUT, PS is totally compatible with LR, and can be set as a plug-in for LR so you never have to leave LR while working on an image in your LR LIbrary. See the Lightroom tutorials on how to do this.</p>

<p>What is important in LR is learning to use the tools provided to their fullest effect. There are global tools that effect the whole image, and there are localized tools that allow you to alter select areas of the image. Learn to use them. For example, I can brighten a whole image, or use the local brush to just brighten a face a little bit. and so on, and so on. Don't be afraid to use these tools because everything is reversible in Lightroom... which is a non-distructive post program. </p>

<p>Below is a crude attempt to restore your image done in Lightroom. When you <em>globally</em> increased the exposure to see into the dark areas you also grossly overexposed all the highlight areas ... <strong>which wasn't necessary</strong>. You can globally open the mid and dark tones with the Fill Light slider without grossly affecting the bright areas, and you can use the Recovery slider to restore the highlight areas. Then go in and use the localized brush to adjust select areas.</p>

<p> </p><div></div>

<p>Reduce the EXPOSURE a bit from what you have posted in the example, less then a 1/3 stop, then use the RECOVERy slider to about 50 or 60 (may have to fine tune), and up the CONTRAST a bit if you like, and the BLACK slider may have to been adjusted too. When you get it close to what you like, use the brush tool to adjust exposure to individual areas of the photo that you think need more or less exposure (this too is a fine tunning that takes practice and time). You can use the GRADIENT tool on your sky and trees to fine change the exposure levels there. This can take you 3 minutes or 3 hours depending on how much you want to play. BW conversion? Sometimes a photo will look so much better when converted so think about it. TOM</p>

<p>What Marc Williams said. And let me emphasize a point he mentioned, but could have emphasized a bit more: use your adjustment brush. You can make very localized adjustments in the exposure, contrast, brightness, and all sorts of other things. It's like having a darkroom again, only with way better control. And I agree with an earlier commenter: this image as you now have it looks overexposed throughout. That suggests to me that you actually have quite a lot of information to work with in it. One quick and dirty approach that might work for you would be to start on the original image, then click on the auto tone button, then mess with the brightness slider if needed so that the background looks pretty good, then use the adjustment brush (with the brightness slider moved some distance to the right) on the people, or at least the parts of them you want to bring out. If that doesn't get you where you want to go, then, as others have mentioned, try using the fill light slider after having gotten as close as you can with your other adjustments. I think the thing to remember is that you can always bring up the shadow areas locally, so when making global adjustments, look more towards getting the highlights right. </p>

<p>@Andrew - OK on not using flash because of animals - I hadn't picked up on that. WRT composing / positioning yourself differently to minimize the contrast you have to deal with, you've received some very good advice. WRT post processing, you've also received some very good advice in terms of always starting with the RAW file (not the in-camera JPG), and then pulling up the shadows, not increasing the overall exposure, making use of the adjustment brush in LR, etc..</p>

<p>Rodeo also had very good suggestions about blending multiple layers, but, if I understand your situation, you only use LR, not PS, so unless you use onOne's "LR Layers" product, you can't use this approach since LR doesn't have layers.</p>

<p>WRT Marc's suggestion to use the ProPhoto color space for processing in LR, I'm quite sure that LR always uses ProPhoto (or equivalent) internally, so, in contrast to PS, the only choice one has regarding ProPhoto is when LR outputs a file, but since you are putting these pix on the web, you always want sRGB for this step (as Mark correctly points out). For further background on ProPhoto in LR, just Google {+prophoto +sirota +lightroom +internally +site:photo.net} and you will find many posts that discuss this.</p>

<p>That being said, below is an example of the sort of results one can get more or less following Rodeo's suggestion, albeit using PS, not LR. As you can see, it's not quite as HDR-like as Marc's result in which he really had to push LR to tame the contrast. Had you made a full resolution RAW file available to us, the results would have been substantially better.</p>

<p>Cheers,</p>

<p>Tom M</p>

<div></div>

<p>And, for ease of comparison, here's your original, just down-rez'ed so that it can display in-line in this thread.</p><div></div>

<p>I am glad Mark mentioned what he did in Lightroom, as i work in this program almost exclusively, and have saved images like this when contrast is high etc. As Mark mentioned, don't go to the exposure slider right away. I usually deal with the over-exposed areas first using the recovery slider, and then adjust the levels in the tone curve area. Good luck.</p>

<p>Yeah, the solution here isn't to bring the Exposure up so high that you blow out the highlights (as you did in the original shot you posted). Instead, you might bring exposure up some, but mainly the Fill slider is your friend, along with Recovery, to <strong>reduce the contrast </strong>in this image. </p>

<p>The problem is that the image includes too-wide a dynamic range: the brightest spots are so much brighter than the darkest spots in which you still want detail that the camera sensor can't express the scene adequately. In other words, there's too much contrast. If you bring Fill up and increase Recovery (which pulls the brightest tones down), you basically decrease contrast by moving some of the darker tones toward the middle and the brightest tones also toward the middle.</p>

<p>Simply increasing the Exposure slider just moves <em>everything </em>higher, and you've probably got some highlights already blown out in the original image, so that's probably not the place you want to start. Start by increasing both Fill and Recovery.</p>