McWay Falls, Big Sur

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Archive 2009 · McWay Falls, Big Sur

nrferguson
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p.1 #1 · McWay Falls, Big Sur

Continuing through our California trip. Our day on Big Sur was a disaster photographically as I did not realise the circ polariser on my 17-40mmL had cracked from a fall at SF airport until the end of the day. However, one shot of the falls was salvageable.
C&C appreciated
Niall

Canon EOS 5D Mark II 54 mm f/13.0 1/320 sec 1000 ISO 0.0 EV

Nov 05, 2009 at 02:13 PM

Amador
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p.1 #2 · McWay Falls, Big Sur

The scene is nicely framed, but the harsh lighting and the fact that the image apears to be leaning to the left kind of ruins this one for me I affraid. Bummer about your CP!

Chris

Nov 05, 2009 at 03:20 PM

nrferguson
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p.1 #3 · McWay Falls, Big Sur

Amador wrote:
The scene is nicely framed, but the harsh lighting and the fact that the image apears to be leaning to the left kind of ruins this one for me I affraid. Bummer about your CP!

Chris

Have (I hope) corrected the rotation (only 0.4 degrees change- 0.5 looked as if leaning the other way!)
I may have another go at the lighting but I haven't done much to it except lighten the framing tree top right to stop it being a black silhouette.
Niall

Canon EOS 5D Mark II 54 mm f/13.0 1/320 sec 1000 ISO 0.0 EV

Nov 05, 2009 at 04:03 PM

Amador
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p.1 #4 · McWay Falls, Big Sur

Still looks tilted to me. You can use the horizon line at the top of the image as a guide. I don't think that you would want it level, but I think that you could definitely rotate it quite a bit. Of course, if you are happy with it, leave it alone!

Chris

Nov 05, 2009 at 11:39 PM

Dpic_arctic
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p.1 #5 · McWay Falls, Big Sur

Very cool scene, Niall. I love the waterfall and the flower going down the cliff.

Nov 06, 2009 at 02:18 AM

JimFox
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p.1 #6 · McWay Falls, Big Sur

Hi Niall,

A neat scene, and I like that you found a different way to compose it then normal. But definately the shot looks overexposed to go along with the harsh lighting. Also the WB seems to be off a bit. If you will look, you will see all detail is lost down in the surf.

The composition you attempted is a tough one with that tree being in almost complete shade, compared to the lighting of the cliffs and the water. There is really no way you could make this work properly without taking 2 or even 3 exposures and then manually blending. But even with that, one of the #1 keys I have learned through the years, is that you have to expose for the highlights. And shooting at the ocean, or most any water is one of the easiest ways to get blown highlights if you aren't watching the histogram and don't have your burnt Highlights option on your LCD screen.

You are shooting in Raw right? There is only so much highlight detail that can be recovered when it's burnt out, but I would definately reprocess this shot starting at 1 stop or more underexposed. While you may not recover all of the highlights from the water, atleast the cliff sides and other rock surfaces should be able to be brought back to where they should be.

It's too bad you cracked your polarizer! They are not cheap!

Jim

Nov 06, 2009 at 03:36 AM

nrferguson
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p.1 #7 · McWay Falls, Big Sur

Having played with RAW file by making two copies, altering the exposure on one and the colour temperature on the other, I merged them and now find that for some reason I can't save in jpeg format in order to make it small enough to upload. It is in tiff at 20Mb and, no matter what I do PS4 won't let me save as a jpeg and "save for web and devices " is greyed out. Any suggestions?
Niall

Nov 06, 2009 at 05:17 PM

finnianp
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p.1 #8 · McWay Falls, Big Sur

Check to see what bit depth your pictures are in:

Image > Mode

Jpg's can't be above 8 bits / channel

Nov 06, 2009 at 05:45 PM

nrferguson
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p.1 #9 · McWay Falls, Big Sur

finnianp wrote:
Check to see what bit depth your pictures are in:

Image > Mode

Jpg's can't be above 8 bits / channel

Many thanks - I knew I had to change it to 8 bits but couldn't work out how to do it CS4 help file is amazingly unhelpful, as were all the books on it that I have!!

Here is my last attempt (for the time being) at getting it right. Two RAW file modified for exposure and WB, merged, and straightened.
Is it an improvement? Is it a good enough improvement?
Niall

Nov 06, 2009 at 06:10 PM

JimFox
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p.1 #10 · McWay Falls, Big Sur

Hi Niall,

It is for sure an improvement, and it is a nice shot of a very unusual place. The rocks and the foreground's exposure definately looks better. Still has the white water washed out though.

Jim

Nov 07, 2009 at 01:24 AM

briangg
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p.1 #11 · McWay Falls, Big Sur

You don't have to work the image as a whole. "lasso" your highlights. "lasso" your mid tones, and your shadows. Then adjust each one separately in respect with each tone until it flows.

Anyway, that's how I do it.

Brian

Nov 07, 2009 at 01:41 AM

fir_
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p.1 #12 · McWay Falls, Big Sur

What was the reason for using a high ISO?

Nov 07, 2009 at 03:58 AM

digitalbug30d
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p.1 #13 · McWay Falls, Big Sur

fir_ wrote:
What was the reason for using a high ISO?
wondering this myself

Nov 07, 2009 at 04:25 AM

nrferguson
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p.1 #14 · McWay Falls, Big Sur

I was handheld (didn't have long there as we were short of time and the domestic authorities would have gone mad if I had carried my tripod down) so I wanted a high F stop and a fast exposure.
Thanks for all the comments/suggestions
Niall

Nov 07, 2009 at 09:27 AM

gdanmitchell
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p.1 #15 · McWay Falls, Big Sur

Regarding the 'not as a whole' approach, a few more details in case you are not familiar. Using CS4, let's imagine that you want a bit more detail in the forest at upper left but you want the dark tones to remain dark:

1. Open in CS4.
2. Select the lasso tool.
3. Draw a boundary around the area you want to work on - in this case the upper left trees. I'd err on the side of selecting slightly inside this boundary.
4. With this tool still selected fine the "Refine edge..." button, most likely on a tool bar near the top of your screen unless you've customized.
5. Click the red button (other options are possible) on the window that pops up so that you can your selection. Adjust the "feather" setting for a smooth transition between selected and non-selected areas. (The setting depends on man factors I won't go into.)
6. If the selection spills over into the surrounding area either reduce the feature, use contract/expand, or select again and start over.
7. Click OK.
8. Go to Layer --> New Adjustment Layer --> Curves and click OK in the dialog that pops up.
9. Adjust the curve to bring up the lighter areas of the forest a bit and perhaps also darken the darkest tones just a touch. (There is much more to the methods of making this adjustment than I'll describe here.)
10. Note that the new layer in your Layers window for this adjustment has a mask now. You can fine tune the edges of the mask (or even add this effect to other parts of the frame) by selecting this mask and then "painting" on your image with a white paintbrush, gradually adding (or subtracting) this effect.

A couple final points.

1. This technique is fundamental to effective post-processing. In most cases, the use of masks to make localized adjustments like this is the primary technique for doing work in post. While some images may have only one or a few masked layers, others can have many, many of them.

2. The local masking technique can be used to adjust other things besides curves. (And curves can be used to adjust things other than "contrast.") Candidates include color balance, BW conversion, and much more.

3. There are a number of ideas regarding how to make and adjust the dimensions and borders of the selection that I won't go into here.

Dan

Nov 07, 2009 at 03:40 PM

nrferguson
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p.1 #16 · McWay Falls, Big Sur

Dan
Very many thanks. This forum is just the nicest, kindest place to improve one's abilities.
Niall

Nov 07, 2009 at 05:31 PM


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