Early light

I can only see defects in this scene, where I do not feel I made

justice to the amazing light on these mountain sheds...

 

I would greatly appreciate your sincere feedback on this shot: what

works and -most important- what does not and what you would have done

differently.

 

Thanks, s.

Quite simple IMO: I would vote for a sacrifice @ the right side, because there is not much contribution to the impact of the shot. Otherwise, a breathtaking scenery, wonderful the foggy atmosphere, mysterious, arcane.

 

Cheers

 

Carsten

This is so lovely. I am a tad distracted by the sun streak upper left. However, the mystery is there because we don't see too much of the light source. Thanks very much for this experience. Linda Peck

Carsten, thanks.

How much would you remove?

I think I've to go for a strange aspect ratio... a square seems too tight for the sheds.

 

Linda, welcome on photo.net and thanks. In the original frame I had a horrible flare from the sun to the left, and cropped away part of it, the streak can only be cloned, maybe I should do so...

I sympathize with your distress. I would first try to lighten the border - something less than 95% gray would alter the overall timbre significatnly to the better... perhaps 30% gray or 40%?

In the old world of the dark room I would have dodged the right side of the photograph, attempting of course, to keep the sweep of lightest to darkest from left to right.

Difficult, but saveable if you want to go to the pains and expense of fixing it.

Best of luck!

Rich Hugunine

Rich,

 

thanks for your insight. I am fond of those borders but I do see your point that the full right-hand side plunges into darkness here.

 

I am quite bad with the dodge function in PS... maybe I should really give it a try. Conversely, if I knew how to do it, a gradient applied to the right-hand side could also do the trick.

Salvatore, I agree about the crop and border so how about this?

 

Exclente ,,,de Cine,, magnifico color y composicion,, un cordial saludo Salvatore,,,6/6.

http://www.hectorbrandan.com/images/julio-carmona.gif

 

It has a real special atmospher. the light on the foggy weather, is engulfing the houses but not the mountain that is seen on the blue sky.

 

I think that the croping on the Rhs. is a good idea, and another frame as well.So what about this one?...

Pnina, Jeff, I guess yours is definitly the way to go. The only problem I have -and it's indeed my problem- is that I'm getting use to a standard aspect ratio, and the suggestions are too tall for this width (Jeff, with your squares you know what I mean)... Thanks for your time.

 

As for this whole thread, for sure it tought me something about thinking more before shooting in the fog. Looking forward practicing this upon the next chance I'll have.

Salvatore, too bad about the right side here. You were in the presense of some special light. I'm wondering how much the filter contributed to the problem here. Did you shot RAW? If so there may yet be a way to get at more detail on the right side. Also have you read this? I found it most helpful.

 

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/expose-right.shtml

Here I've opened it up a bit...

David, I do shot RAW but having spent far too many hours in front of a computer in my PhD times makes me hate spending too much more than that, and end up with a fast-and-dirty conversion into .tif with irfanview, and then basic level fixing with PS Elements 2.0.

 

All this told, thanks for the link: I indeed have the habit of checking for over-exposed higlights and sometime chimp for the histograms.

 

The question is: how did you do a opening up of the side in a short time? Pedestrian tutorial welcome.

 

Thanks for your time, s.

I used a plug-in filter from NIK that is used within PS. It allowed me to rotate the effects of a ND filter focusing on the right hand side. Again I think the right side still has more potential working with the raw file. Carsten is far better at post work than am I. He might be persuaded to have a go at this one.This one is worth some effort...

David, thanks for the commendation ;-) Salvatore, if you have a RAW/ NEF, it should be possible to make two TIFFs, one with exposition as shown here on the left side, and one with possibly 1 to 1,5 stops brighter. I dont know PS elements functions, but in PS you can make a composite of both TIFFs, like two stacked slides. Put the brighter on top, and hold off the brightening effect from left to right with a gradient mask, looks and acts like a ND filter for in-camera work. At last, adjust opacity of the top layer, for fine tuning.

 

Cheers

 

Carsten