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06/08/2010 12:55:09 AM · #1 |
Alright guys, I am here to learn! And hopefully some of you are here to teach me :-)
This past Free Study I submitted an image that I really loved, but that did not do as well as I would have hoped. Some of it of course has to do with the image itself, but I also firmly believe that the score could have been higher if I had edited it better.
I am a super super beginner when it comes to editing. It was not long ago that I submitted all of my pictures online straight from the camera.
This was my submission:
I was trying to keep the image dark, to make it obvious that it was taken at night rather than during the day, and that was the moon not the sun. Looking back at it, it is clear that I overdid that. This image can use a lot of lightening.
I also stupidly edited the jpg rather than the raw that I had of the image, because I couldn't find the raw. I still have issues with that. Somehow my computer "loses" my raw images, but then if I check back at a later time its in the same place that I looked previously. I don't get it.
That being said, I am also sure that plenty of other things could have been done to it to make it better, that I just don't have the know-how of.
So, I was wondering if people could take a look at my image, and try their own hand at editing it, and possibly write how you did it. I am really hoping to learn, so that I can submit better looking images in the future.
I couldn't figure out how to upload a straight raw (wrong format), so here is the RAW that I took the liberty to convert to jpg. Probably not as good as you guys could but oh well. Ironically, just the converted RAW already looks better than the jpg that I spent an hour on trying to edit. Sigh...
I wish I could provide you with three bracketed RAWs, but since I was using a monopod (read that as: balancing my camera on my hiking stick) it wasn't possible to create three completely identical images.
I will love you forever (or maybe just for a little while ;-) ) if you can help me improve on my editing
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06/08/2010 02:15:36 AM · #2 |
Originally posted by Fiora:
How would you edit this? |
must resist. must resist. must resist. must resist. must resist. |
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06/08/2010 02:25:54 AM · #3 |
couldn't resist. couldn't resist. couldn't resist. couldn't resist. couldn't resist.
The thread title is like heroin to me. :-/
Wish I could help with the edit. I agree it could have done better with some solid processing - maybe hdr (which I suck at). I'm sure you'll get some help soon. |
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06/08/2010 02:50:35 AM · #4 |
| I saw the thread title, I saw the last poster was Art, sure enough... |
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06/08/2010 02:51:23 AM · #5 |
More like this...? If I had the RAW I could pull out a bit more detail from the shadows so the whole image wasn't quite as dark.
Edit to add: I would probably crop some of the image away starting in the lower left corner.
- Alex
Message edited by author 2010-06-08 02:54:33. |
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06/08/2010 08:45:40 AM · #6 |
First I would crop to get the composition I am after. In this case I would remove most of the bottom left corner as it appears to have some one with a bright yellow top in it. To begin with I would increase the exposure a little, then boost the saturation a little and add some clarity while dodging the trees and the darker patch snow. I would also do some noise removal as you shot at 800iso.
It will end up looking ok but I think it get the most from this shot you need to look at you camera settings.
At f5 you are not going to have good front to back sharpness. You would want to consider something more like f8-f16. I am guessing you had to shoot at f5 and 800iso so you could hand hold or rest the camera on a rock. This is ok but not as good as you could have done with shooting on a tripod with iso100 or 200, f16 and shutter of 6-8sec. Of course this would blow out the moon and the sky surrounding it so you could take a second shot exposing for the moon and then combine the two images. |
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06/08/2010 09:21:53 AM · #7 |
| Can you pm me and send me the original jpg? Ill edit to see what could have been done differently. |
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06/08/2010 09:33:37 AM · #8 |
Originally posted by kenskid:
Can you pm me and send me the original jpg? Ill edit to see what could have been done differently. |
The full sized jpg is on the op under view full size
Not that is helps now, but you could have taken an exposure for the moon so it wasn't blown out and merged that into an exposure for the rest of the shot
ps. great edit art :) |
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06/08/2010 09:57:22 AM · #9 |
Here is a quick edit I did
in cs3
cropped the bottom left off to remove the branches from the bottom and the other distraction on left
duplicate layer and then Shadow highlight on the new layer with a gradient mask to have most effect on bottom left
gradient fill layer going from white to transparent - bottom left to top right in overlay mode
a dodge and burn layer to lighten the lake
a dodge and burn layer to lighten the snow
a dodge and burn layer to lighten the snow around trees
levels layer boosting mid range and dropping blacks
medium curves contrast layer
colour balance layer moving cyan/red slider to reds and yellow/blue to yellow
flatten, resize and noise ninja
I can send the psd if interested
eta. I'd probably try and drop the cyans a bit on the snow on the left as well
another eta. photomatix is quite good at aligning hand held hdr, especially if you already have the camera balanced on something to reduce movement
Message edited by author 2010-06-08 10:03:56. |
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06/08/2010 02:49:46 PM · #10 |
I'm at work now, but I'm going to come back to this later.
I feel your pain on the "not scoring as well as I'd like" thing, and this one's worth some attention. |
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06/08/2010 03:05:42 PM · #11 |
From dpp make 2 jpg files. One for normal exposure other for +1 exposure and combine them as hdr.
Might give some new look :) |
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06/08/2010 06:56:31 PM · #12 |
Thank you so much for the people who have posted! And keep em coming if you haven't ;-)
These are really helpful. Its really helpful to see the same image from different perspectives and interpretations. Yes, even Art's :-) I think its awesome how you could manage to get a reflection for godzilla.
I think the main thing I need to do more of is use masking layers. I tend to just edit everything on one layer, which just doesn't work as well. |
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