Bright Path

Thanks for your time...Dave

is it film? it looks like it blows out a little. it could be really stunning if it's film and you could bring up the bottom a bit while gentling down the highlights.

Thanks for the comment and generous rating. It's digital. It was the classic back lit exposure conundrum, and this time the "expose for detail in the shadows" won out. If I bring down the highlights anymore it looks artificial.

 

yep, film would have been better, or at least maybe I should have bracketed or been more careful!

Very well composed. Good B&W but the path is too blown out. I know this is very difficult to maintain when shhotig from the shade. Nice image anyway.

Hi Douglas. Thanks for understanding. See my comment, above.

Hi Dave,

 

Two shots digitally combined would have done the trick too if you like PS work.

there's a real trick to letting things blow out gracefully. i think it's done pretty well here. i have never combined images in photoshop, and i don't think that ever looks very natural or good, but i do bracket religiously and then work a lot with curves.

Have fun with it if you want. You can use this image, and meantime I will e-mail the original to you. If you can return your completed psd, and tell me what you did, that would be great. You have a real knack with PS and I want to learn all I can!

 

One thing I notice that with B&W film that latitude is so great I could just carry around an ambient light meter, set the camera, and shoot away. Not quite that way with digital although I feel pretty good about the results I've been getting on the whole. Am going to have to start shooting RAW at the very least.

 

Thanks

Dave

before i could shoot raw, i noticed that being off of the correct exposure by 1/3 of a stop made the image unacceptable, and that there was sometimes no acceptable exposure. that really impressed me because i used to shoot 2 1/4 without any meter at all. i just used my intuition. the pictures were always fine. film is good. raw closes the gap to some degree, at least.

I definitely need to shoot raw then, the camera is capable of it. I have my hands full, new camera + learning more about photoshop + raw.

1. Curves with a single point at (155,95). This step softens the clipping edge.

 

2. Convert to b/w with blue filter ("Image" -> "Adjustments" -> "Black & White"). This darkens the trees.

 

I think I like it better. What do you think?

Yes, it is better. It's a noticeable difference. I will try to reproduce your results here. Thanks for taking the time with this! God there's a lot of tricks in photoshop.

 

Dave

Dave, Will you send the file to me to and give me a shot? It's not a competition, I am just curious to see what I can do with this exposure.

Thats okay with me! Check your email.

 

Dave

Dave

 

I love how this image invites me to walk down it's pathway and explore what lies ahead. Great angle and very intriguing light.

 

deb

Thanks very much Deb. A portfolio of shots that 'invite one to explore' is an idea I'm working on!

I still like it!