Thanks; it was done on my laptop which isn't calibrated very often.
No selective area color adjustments. All global. Warm highlights w/ Y & R, accent mids with M, cool shadows with C & B. Adjust final levels w curve. Then adj. saturation. Only other selective color work was to desaturate and lighten slightly the B & C channels.
I thought I might add another shot for people to have a crack at if they want to. I would be particularly interested to see any (sucessful) HDR attempts.
First off, you should always start with the best capture possible, which in many high DR cases means using graduated NDs. But this isn't always the best option with jagged horizons, trees, etc, so...
The fact is that most, if not all high DR scenes, can be represented in two exposures: ground/sky, foreground/background, interior/exterior(for you architecture shooters). So why do I have to take 5+ exposures for my HDR software? I don't...
Capture the scene in two exposures (one for the bright area and one for the dark area), then use a semi-automated masking/blending technique like this one from fellow FM'er and excellent photographer realkuhl. This is not only quicker than the HDR process, but it is much more efficient as you don't have to take a 7 shot bracket to capture a 2 exposure scene:
Interesting thread!
I tried Photomatix, and also Photoshop's version of HDR. Got nicer results from Photomatix's plug-in, which simulates HDR, but never really liked any of 'em.
The biggest nits I have with HDRs, even when done well, are muddy, grayish casts to the blues of sky and/or reflections of sky, and obvioulsly overly brightening of shadowed areas.
Blends always let you keep the vibrance of the blues, and offer much nicer, more natural results, imho.
The time needed to adjust those issues could be used to do a blend from start to finish. And once you get a method and into a rythm, the blends don't take all that much time.
Of those above, I favor Floris' last effort, with the black matte, and darker toning of the pre-dawn. Most especially, the trees and grass on the far shore line feel very naturally lit....some details are seen, but they're still naturally dark.
Your last is very nice, Scott, but it still carries a little bit of the muddiness in the blue sky, to my eyes, anyway. Still a very appealing image!
Here is manual blend using a proprietary workflow (developed by Varina and myself) called iHDR (Intelligent HDR). The technique requires a user to create “Luminosity Clusters”. Then refine these luminosity clusters to control the amount of blend in different areas of the image.
I spend 20 minutes this morning before I left for work to produce this image. With this technique you can spend as little as 10 minutes to blend or as much as 40 minutes...depends on how much refinement you are willing to do. Most of my images take about 15-20 minutes to blend.
You might have trouble claiming that technique for you own but the results speak for themselves. Very nciely done, for me, this is the best conversion so far.
As far as the broader topic goes I think the advantages of digital blending on scenes such as this are considerable and personaly I do not beleive the image would be as good with grads or with HDR (unless a lot of local work is done to correct it)
jsuro wrote:
Is it photography or is it Photoshop (Photo Art)? That will forever be the question in our digital age. Whether the end result is called art is not the issue. Art takes all forms. The question becomes: Is the art photography?
I don't think it is a new question at all, and it certainly is not limited to the "digital age." These are roughly the same processes and techniques that photographers have applied to chemical photography for well over a century.
The object is not really to "capture" a perfectly accurate "recording" of the scene as it existed objectively. In fact, this is both impossible and completely uninteresting. If it were the object, we could send any photographer out to take one photo of a place and be done with it.
The real goal is to create (not capture) an image the communicates the photographers subjective experience of the real subject.
floris wrote:
Dan - regarding dark prints - in my experience they work just fine, they just require proper lighting, and likely a dark mat. Of course, most homes are rather poorly lit, and unless you have expensive anti-glare glass, you need to be really careful using direct lighting. So in that sense, a lighter rendition may end up looking better in a poorly lit environment. But take a dark print out into the sun and it looks just spectacular, IMO. To my eye, your version looks more like the light levels I would expect on a cloudy day at midday.
Interesting reactions. I see your point - perhaps it illustrates your other point about trying to recreate what the photographer saw (and I didn't in this case) or create what one imagines the image/scene to look like.
About dark photographs. I used to print quite dark, going for a very dramatic effect. Then I had an opportunity to see some work by another landscape photographer who doesn't go that route - and my mantra became "lighten up!"
All of that said, I like what many of the other posters have done here, and I'm not at all certain that my quick example (all of 20 minutes, I think - between work on four of my own prints) is where I would take this image if I actually were to print it as my own. To be honest, I kind of like the monochrome rendition - especially in light of the good observation that the bird makes this photo work.
I cant wait to play with this in the evening when I get home. I like manual blends and grad filters. Oh....I came from the womb with a filter holder....my left hand.
I have a tutorial here you might want to play with.
theres plenty of scotts pictures so here is my 10min interpretation of alex`s shot.
no complex masking here, just a straight reveal all layer mask with the gradient tool.
alot of the blown sky in the -1.5 shot was due to the warm WB. i cooled that in both images to match.
then the above mentioned mask/graident. then brought the warmth back in with the colour ballance sliders, slight curves which re blew those top left / right patches. two small lasso selections, quick mask and levels to return it. http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/parsonssp/_wp_generated/wp5f79b4c8_0f.jpg
Alex Nail wrote:
You might have trouble claiming that technique for you own but the results speak for themselves. Very nciely done, for me, this is the best conversion so far.
As far as the broader topic goes I think the advantages of digital blending on scenes such as this are considerable and personaly I do not beleive the image would be as good with grads or with HDR (unless a lot of local work is done to correct it)
Alex
We certainly didn't develop the idea of HDR, Alex. However, we did develop our own workflow - and I think that's what Jay is referring to here. There are a thousand ways to accomplish HDR. When we teach our classes, we use our own workflow... one that we've spent years refining. We call that workflow "Intelligent HDR"- do differentiate it from typical HDR software and the thousands of other techniques that others have developed.
We certainly don't claim to have created the concept of HDR!
I am also trying to leave the realm of photomatix and get into manual blending. But i cant find any good tutorials. Can someone show me a good tutorial on Manual Blending?
Thanks
also talking about HDR in general, does a tiff file work for these blending techniques? As I use a Canon 1D, the raw file from this cam are tiff files. So when I do HDR with the tiff file in photomatix I get a real small image. But when I convert the tiff to jpeg and do the HDR, the image has funny colors and it looks as if something went really bad with it. but its acceptable most of the time if its a bright scene. Does anyone know why this happens?
I am also trying to leave the realm of photomatix and get into manual blending. But i cant find any good tutorials. Can someone show me a good tutorial on Manual Blending?
Thanks
also talking about HDR in general, does a tiff file work for these blending techniques? As I use a Canon 1D, the raw file from this cam are tiff files. So when I do HDR with the tiff file in photomatix I get a real small image. But when I convert the tiff to jpeg and do the HDR, the image has funny colors and it looks as if something went really bad with it. but its acceptable most of the time if its a bright scene. Does anyone know why this happens?
Thanks ChrisDM.
I already saw that but couldnt quite get the last step. The painting part.
Sorry, but I am new to the whole layer thing. It would be helpful for beginners like me to have have a tutorial that has pictures of the steps on them
I was doing multiple exposures for a while. Never got the HDR to work to my liking. found layering and blending just so much easier and better. than I bought a Hitech 2 stop gnd filter. started using it with the filter holder, then just started and holding it, and its fairly quick. I find that I can often process a single file with darkening of the sky esp with 5d2 having some headroom in raw files in both shadows and highlights.
