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Archive 2015 · The enchanted bridge

  
 
lighthound
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · The enchanted bridge


While I was smoking a couple of Boston Butt's yesterday my ADD took over and I found myself playing around with this old photo from last year. This is not your "normal" request for critique of a single image but rather a critique based on before and after images.

This is the "normal" exposure SOOC from a bracketed 3 frame set for an HDR image I made. I thought this would be a good photo to experiment with different things inside of Lightroom that I normally don't use and wanted to use this image as a learning exercise.

Of course I just had to make my life miserable by using a photo with tons of green (my nemesis) in it but I thought this would be a good "test" for me.

What I'd like to know is, OVERALL how did I do with my post work? I say overall because I know that many things are subjective. Some might want to see more shadow recovery and others less or perhaps more red hue and less yadi yadi yada.
I'm curious as to if I broke any "rules" or completely missed something in my post processing like colors being completely off or wrong.

Looking at the "before" and "after" images below ....

Does the crop I made work for a better composition? I thought loosing the partial tree on right and some of the (top) bright sky/trees in the background helped.
Did I get the WB correct? To my eyes the original was way over saturated with a green hue or color shift or something.
Do your eyes easily pick up on the cloning I attempted on a few branches in the stream?
Do you agree those clones (if done properly) help the image or could those branches have been left in there?
Did I drastically mess up any colors especially greens and reds?
Are there any glaring mistakes that you see from a PP or "good" photography point of view?

Again, I'm just trying to get a general feel for how I should be thinking and/or possibly where I should not travel inside of LR during my PP work.

Thank you for any advise and feedback.








Feb 09, 2015 at 01:08 PM
ben egbert
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · The enchanted bridge


The clone work and the crop work ok for me.

The SOOC green looks ok for hue, but needs a bit of saturation or perhaps just a good black point and some curves (darken it). The finished greens look overdone to me but I am also color challenged.

So far as the photo goes, I would be looking for a way to eliminate that dead bush lower right corner. Maybe standing closer to the lower left side of the bridge.

That sort of advice is not always possible in reality and of course requires returning to the scene which might also be impossible.



Feb 09, 2015 at 01:50 PM
lighthound
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · The enchanted bridge


Thanks Ben. That's good info for me. It's funny that you see the green as over cooked because that is the one color I pulled down on in the HSL in an attempt to remove that funky color cast in the SOOC that I think I see. I wonder if by also reducing the blue and violet colors it might have had that effect on the greens? I dropped them (B & V) down because I was seeing a strange color on the wooden vertical rails and the water shimmer at the very bottom of the large rock. I dropped the reds also now that I think about it.

I'm going to play with SOOC image and adjust the black point and curves like you suggested, but when you say saturation are you saying to pull it down or bump it up? And do this globally or everything except the greens?

And yes, I hear you on that nasty brush in the lower right. I played around with crops trying to make that go away but I would have chopped off the nice rocks and ferns in the foreground and part of the bridge. Looking at this image after the shot was taken has taught me to look much closer at my composition before I hit that shutter button. At the time I shot this I never noticed all that crap in the frame. I think I was too focused on getting the large rocks and ferns into the foreground to give it a little depth and interest.



Feb 09, 2015 at 03:19 PM
RustyBug
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · The enchanted bridge


Take your mouse and glide over the rock in the both images.

Take note of the RGB numbers in the first one, then in the second one.

I chose the rock because it is likely a neutral gray (or somewhat close). I typically "pick four" (limited in PS) points that I think should be the same @ close to neutral. LR affords more points of selection, or just gliding through the area can be a "watch & read" thing (depending on how much your ADD lets you collect info).

Then, I review the "relationship" of the RGB values for what I THINK should be a neutral.

Take note of in the first one if the values are approximately equal @ all three RGB, or is there ONE that is "odd man out" @ higher or lower than the other two. This give me a NUMERIC indication of a possible cast. I could close my eyes and let you read me the numbers ... I'd know how much cast there is.

Rinse & repeat for the rework image, scanning through the numbers and assess if your former "odd man out" is now closer in line with the others ... or have you created a new "odd man out" scenario.

The key to this is to select a natural neutral (or close to). For natural neutrals, if I can get my numbers to within 5 points of each other, I'm good. within 10 points isn't terrible.

My point here is that learning to read your numbers can augment what you can't trust of your eyes (hey, I don't trust mine and I've got excellent color vision) as an objective confirmation of what you THINK you are seeing.

As to this image ... I'll wait a bit to hear what your thoughts are on the numeric values of the rock @ before & after.



Feb 09, 2015 at 04:49 PM
ben egbert
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · The enchanted bridge


Here is my take on it. I added some contrast an a bit of levels to the shadows, then I used Kents method to work up color. I show the point on the post I used for a neutral target. I then used color balance to adjust for blue and green to be about 225 but red ended up around 240. I did not like pulling it down more.









Feb 09, 2015 at 05:07 PM
lighthound
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · The enchanted bridge


Ben, thank you for working that up. I noticed you kept your edit pretty bright but it looks like you got rid of that color cast or what it was I was seeing. I have a tendency to move images like this more to a dark warmer mood. Now that I think about it I do that with most of my images. Hmmmm
Do you see that blue tint right below you rock. That's what got me off on a tangent when I tried to make that a little more subtle then I got off track and started messing with a bunch of different colors. Bad idea for me.


Kent, yes I see what you are saying here. Thanks for explain that. I like the idea of using real values instead of trusting my eyes. I'll keep using this method from now on. When I checked the rock area in the SOOC image I was seeing RGB @ 80/77/66 roughly and on the "finished" image I was reading roughly 70/65/68 which was a little better but still off a bit.

You sorta left me hanging here a little, you didn't say what exactly I should be adjusting to correct this. I went ahead and tried another copy from scratch and used "Temperature" to bring the blue up a little until I read roughly RGB 63/61/62. Is temperature the correct way to adjust something like this? You gotta remember I'm not too bright so ya kinda spell things out to me.

I did bump up the Saturation and Vibrance to make things pop a little but did not mess with individual colors like I did in the first edit.

Thoughts?




Feb 09, 2015 at 10:55 PM
RustyBug
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · The enchanted bridge


Personally, I use color balance tool in PS on a layer.

I prefer being able to separately / independintly adjust color in the shadows, mids, highs.

There are other ways, but they act on a global basis rather than a selective basis already built in. Of course, you can always use a feathered "blend if" to restrict to a given range (and I do at times).

Some folks use a "color" range in the saturation tool to simply change THAT color, but I find this should be a "last resort" because it doesn't afford for the influence on all colors to occur @ cast influence removal.

That may sound a bit contradictory because on one hand I like the separation (low/med/high) but on the other hand I don't like the isolation to a color. The reason for this is that our shadows are often times a different color of light (typically more blue) from out highlights. A global shift of warming shadows, can take highlights too warm. The fact that (when) a scene has mixed lighting, it warrants a "split" adjustment to get all parts neutralized (if that is your goal).

That isn't always the desired objective, but depending on the uniformity of lighting color (or non-uniformity) will suggest which tool you may want to use.

We have multiple tools at our disposal (not well versed in LR, been a few years), so you'll figure out your own way @ tools of choice. Mostly, I ust wanted to share the numeric read capability as an aid. The key to making the numeric aspect work best, is to read your light and choose (which may only be a guess) a good neutral. Sometimes my first "guess" at it turns out to be an errant one, but even then, the process starts to reveal the color puzzle.

One other thing you might consider ... crank up your saturation to 100% (watching as you progress through 50% - 75%) and you can get an easy read on your colors / cast. Armed with the numeric values and the enhanced read through saturation amplification ... you can get your clues more readily than your eyes alone might provide.

Here's the 100% supersat of the first image. This makes it easier for me to see the color of the dirt ... some dirt is brown, some is black. Not knowing the area ... it becomes a sleuthing game. Some rocks are neutral, some have color in them. Some bark is grey, some is not. Not having been there ... I'm at the "color blind" disadvantage on what it is supposed to be a bit. Sometimes it isn't a matter of figuring out what it should be ... but a series of deductive reasoning @ what it shouldn't be.

Then, it is a matter of subjective preference @ S&P to taste.

HTH












Edited on Feb 10, 2015 at 09:50 AM · View previous versions



Feb 10, 2015 at 09:33 AM
FarmerJohn
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p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · The enchanted bridge


Lighthound... I think you're currently on LR?
Temp/Tint in LR is the main way to go for adjust color balance.
If I want to be selective in LR, then I use a brush with temp/tint.
I save the HSL panel for specialized adjustments (lowering blue luminance for darker skies, for example) , typically not color balance. As I think you've seen, it doesn't always work quite the way you want.

It's not quite as powerful as the Color Balance tool in PS, but it will get you most of the way there.
I really wish LR had the Color Balance tool, that would be sweet.



Feb 10, 2015 at 09:41 AM
RustyBug
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p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · The enchanted bridge


FarmerJohn wrote:
I really wish LR had the Color Balance tool, that would be sweet.


+1 ... I might put LR to more use if it had it.

But, as an ambient shooter in mixed lighting ... it's where all my workflow starts.



Feb 10, 2015 at 09:55 AM
lighthound
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p.1 #10 · p.1 #10 · The enchanted bridge


RustyBug wrote:
Personally, I use color balance tool in PS on a layer.

I prefer being able to separately / independintly adjust color in the shadows, mids, highs.

There are other ways, but they act on a global basis rather than a selective basis already built in. Of course, you can always use a feathered "blend if" to restrict to a given range (and I do at times).

Some folks use a "color" range in the saturation tool to simply change THAT color, but I find this should be a "last resort" because it doesn't afford for the influence on all colors to
...Show more

Click on the "show more" above as I embedded some questions inside your quote.


So to give me an idea of where I'm at right now, can you and anyone else let me know point blank how my second edit "looks"? Did I completely miss the short bus or is it much improved over my first edit image? Is there still something glaringly wrong with the WB or colors?

Keep in mind that although I'd like to get the "oh wow very nice" type of response on my images, I'm really just trying to make them "reasonable" such that you folks don't think "OMG those colors and WB aren't even close to being right, what the hell is he thinking".


And thanks for the help and your patience with all this.



Feb 10, 2015 at 11:15 AM
RustyBug
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p.1 #11 · p.1 #11 · The enchanted bridge


The cyans in your last rendering are showing rather prominently (short / shadow side of the rock, etc.) ... carrying into your greens a bit as well.

On the "temporary supersat" ... it will DRIVE your colors FARTHER apart. Your areas that are already neutral will remain neutral. But areas that are not neutral will become even less neutral. This is primarily for IDENTIFICATION of areas that aren't neutral (for the areas that you want / expect they should) ... to get a clue at which way the cast is leaning.

We often times get the warm / cool thing fairly readily. But, that magenta / green thing can be more challenging to detect, so the push can help us distinguish between warm @ red vs. warm magenta vs. warm @ yellow.

I'll take my "supersat" and try to color correct it ... THEN pull back the saturation to normal and see how that direction changed things. Because you may be working off of a blown channel at 100% supersat, the adjustments may not be correct. A 75% or 50% supersat might be helpful so you aren't trying to alter a blown channel.

These just some things to HELP ME SEE what I'm doing ... they aren't always going to provide you with the definitive answer, but they typically aid with knowing the direction you want to go. Likewise, the "supersat" can be a cross-check to see if you missed something after you're happy with what you've done.

It's really nothing more than a color microscope or magnifying glass to help you see things that are challenging to detect in a "normal" realm. From there ... color theory is the order of the day. Often times, after I make my adjustments, I have to go back an adjust the opacity layer to "split the diff" to retain a slight cast for the mood I want to invoke. Other times, I want it to be clinically neutral.

As always, S&P to taste.

Edited on Feb 10, 2015 at 11:44 AM · View previous versions



Feb 10, 2015 at 11:30 AM
lighthound
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p.1 #12 · p.1 #12 · The enchanted bridge


FarmerJohn wrote:
Lighthound... I think you're currently on LR?
Temp/Tint in LR is the main way to go for adjust color balance.
If I want to be selective in LR, then I use a brush with temp/tint.
I save the HSL panel for specialized adjustments (lowering blue luminance for darker skies, for example) , typically not color balance. As I think you've seen, it doesn't always work quite the way you want.

It's not quite as powerful as the Color Balance tool in PS, but it will get you most of the way there.
I really wish LR had the Color Balance tool, that would
...Show more

Thank you John. I do have PS elements but I seldom go in there as LR does most of everything I need for now. If Elements has the same Color Balance feature as the full blown PS does, would it make my life better to use it for the first stage WB corrections before I move over to LR. The only thing that worries me about that is that it would be permanent where as LR is not destructive and I can always go back to my SOOC.



Feb 10, 2015 at 11:39 AM
lighthound
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p.1 #13 · p.1 #13 · The enchanted bridge


RustyBug wrote:
The cyans in your last rendering are showing rather prominently (short / shadow side of the rock, etc.) ... carrying into your greens a bit as well.


Ok great! Thank you Kent.
Being that I only used the "temperature" slider to adjust the WB and I had to move it to a much cooler level that would have caused the cyan to come out more. To counteract that I would then move the "tint" slider to a warmer color to make a global change?



Feb 10, 2015 at 11:44 AM
RustyBug
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p.1 #14 · p.1 #14 · The enchanted bridge


Brain dead atm ... but yes, the balance and harmony's of temp & tint can be an iterative process till you get it where you want it.


Feb 10, 2015 at 11:46 AM
FarmerJohn
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p.1 #15 · p.1 #15 · The enchanted bridge


lighthound wrote:
Thank you John. I do have PS elements but I seldom go in there as LR does most of everything I need for now. If Elements has the same Color Balance feature as the full blown PS does, would it make my life better to use it for the first stage WB corrections before I move over to LR. The only thing that worries me about that is that it would be permanent where as LR is not destructive and I can always go back to my SOOC.



Look up the "Elements Plus" addon... it brings a bunch of full PS adjustment layer capabilities to Elements (curves/levels/etc as well).

You can add a "Color Balance Layer" via Elements Plus. It's non-destructive in that you can enable/disable the adjustment layer.

The limitation with Elements Plus is that the layer adjustments are one-time only, in that you can't edit them once the layer has been created. But, you should try it! It will definitely give you an idea of how useful the Tool is, and you can always create a new layer if the first one didn't work the way you want.

Edited on Feb 10, 2015 at 12:10 PM · View previous versions



Feb 10, 2015 at 12:09 PM
ben egbert
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p.1 #16 · p.1 #16 · The enchanted bridge


lighthound wrote:
Ben, thank you for working that up. I noticed you kept your edit pretty bright but it looks like you got rid of that color cast or what it was I was seeing. I have a tendency to move images like this more to a dark warmer mood. Now that I think about it I do that with most of my images. Hmmmm
Do you see that blue tint right below you rock. That's what got me off on a tangent when I tried to make that a little more subtle then I got off track and started messing with a
...Show more

This image looks over saturated to me and has some blue/green stuff on the bottom of the rocks and in some other places. Maybe its me, because Kents also looks over the top and he seldom does that.

Mine is bright, but I would darken by other means than changing colors. To my eyes, the colors are about right.



Feb 10, 2015 at 12:10 PM
RustyBug
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p.1 #17 · p.1 #17 · The enchanted bridge


Ben ... that's a SUPERSAT @ 100% I posted ... not a rework.


Feb 10, 2015 at 12:15 PM
ben egbert
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p.1 #18 · p.1 #18 · The enchanted bridge


RustyBug wrote:
Ben ... that's a SUPERSAT @ 100% I posted ... not a rework.


Gotcha, and I was going crazy without that explanation. And ideas on mine? All I attempted was color correction and some contrast.



Feb 10, 2015 at 12:35 PM
lighthound
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p.1 #19 · p.1 #19 · The enchanted bridge


FarmerJohn wrote:
Look up the "Elements Plus" addon... it brings a bunch of full PS adjustment layer capabilities to Elements (curves/levels/etc as well).

You can add a "Color Balance Layer" via Elements Plus. It's non-destructive in that you can enable/disable the adjustment layer.

The limitation with Elements Plus is that the layer adjustments are one-time only, in that you can't edit them once the layer has been created. But, you should try it! It will definitely give you an idea of how useful the Tool is, and you can always create a new layer if the first one didn't work the way you want.
...Show more

Thanks John, I'll look into that and see if that would help me. I just did a little quick read on this E+ and it sounds like it simply unlocks many functions that are already there but can not be selected. I first started with Elements but later moved to LR because I found myself experimenting with masks and making composite images when I realized that I really need to learn good basic photography skills first and learn basic editing. I see this feature as being something that could help me with this "color issue" and yet stay on track.
---------------------------------------------

ben egbert wrote:
This image looks over saturated to me and has some blue/green stuff on the bottom of the rocks and in some other places. Maybe its me, because Kents also looks over the top and he seldom does that.

Mine is bright, but I would darken by other means than changing colors. To my eyes, the colors are about right.


Thanks Ben, I did go a little heavy and the Sat & Vib on my second edit in an attempt to make it pop a little. I didn't use colors to darken it though. I dropped the exposure down just a tad and dropped highlights way down to help make those leaves/trees in the top background less obnoxious. I also dropped the blacks down and bumped up the shadows a little like you had suggested.

I thought Kent was testing me with his edit at first until I read what he was explaining to me. At first glance I thought holy crap! There ain't no way I'm going to make my image look like THAT!

---------------------------------------------

RustyBug wrote:
Ben ... that's a SUPERSAT @ 100% I posted ... not a rework.


What do ya mean? It looks perfectly fine to me!
Thanks for that additional explanation of what this trick is used for. That makes total sense and I have printed that out for future reference.



Thanks again for all the advise and help folks. I much appreciate it.



Feb 10, 2015 at 01:10 PM
ben egbert
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p.1 #20 · p.1 #20 · The enchanted bridge


Here is a darker version of my edit. Lots of ways to darken it, exposure/gamma, curves. But what I did was add a layer, change to multiply, set the opacity to 70% and then did a gradient from upper right to lower left.







Feb 10, 2015 at 01:18 PM
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