Learning Thread — Landscape Photography

Tamron SP AF 28-75mm f/2.8 XR Di for Canon

07/12/2006 10:26:40 AM · #1051

The color selected version does look much more natural in the greens...that greyscale layer is a lot more detailed, that's for sure!

Nice illustration.

tsheets

Tamron SP AF 28-75mm f/2.8 XR Di for Canon

07/14/2006 02:02:03 PM · #1052

Originally posted by Bear_Music:

Originally posted by stdavidson:

Your question, "How is a highlight defined, and how much feathering?" is a good one. That is something I have wondered about myself regarding 'contrast masking' and never really found an answer. In Photoshop there is a setting in Curves that divides the display into fourths. Highlights are defined to be everything on the upper right 4th part of that display. Whether that applies to "CTRL-ALT-Tilde" and how much feathering is applied I do not know... maybe Bear_Music does.

Nope, don't have a clue. I'll see if I can find out.

R.

Bear,

Sorry to bother you with this, but was curious if you ever got a chance to look into this?

Thanks!

Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS

07/14/2006 02:20:37 PM · #1053

Originally posted by tsheets:

Originally posted by Bear_Music:

Originally posted by stdavidson:

Your question, "How is a highlight defined, and how much feathering?" is a good one. That is something I have wondered about myself regarding 'contrast masking' and never really found an answer. In Photoshop there is a setting in Curves that divides the display into fourths. Highlights are defined to be everything on the upper right 4th part of that display. Whether that applies to "CTRL-ALT-Tilde" and how much feathering is applied I do not know... maybe Bear_Music does.

Nope, don't have a clue. I'll see if I can find out.

R.

Bear,

Sorry to bother you with this, but was curious if you ever got a chance to look into this?

Thanks!

What I have found out so far is that what we are calling "contrast masking" requires the generation of what is called a "luminance mask". That's our cntrl-alt-tilde mask, and this is what I have learned:

"Commonly known as a "luminance mask", this layer mask hides the shadow tones while fully revealing the highlight tones, while the other image tones are mapped to transparency at their relative grey level."

So it isn't really "feathering, except to the degree to which the tones themselves naturally feather. Based on that, I'd assume a luminance mask of a white square on a black BG would show no feathering whatsoever.

Still exploring...

R.

justin_hewlett

Canon EOS-1000D Rebel XS

07/27/2006 12:20:36 AM · #1054

I hate to see this thread die, so...

I'm a huge fan of vertical composition, as you can see. I'll try to tie this in with the earlier discussion on the strengths/weaknesses of vertical composition.

What works well about the compositions of these photos? What doesn't work or could be improved? Would any of them look better with a horizontal framing? Discuss ;)

OdysseyF22

Panasonic DC-G9

Olympus 12-45mm f/4.0 Pro

07/27/2006 09:06:48 AM · #1055

Originally posted by justin_hewlett:

I hate to see this thread die, so...

I'm a huge fan of vertical composition, as you can see. I'll try to tie this in with the earlier discussion on the strengths/weaknesses of vertical composition.

What works well about the compositions of these photos? What doesn't work or could be improved? Would any of them look better with a horizontal framing? Discuss ;)

The first shot, to me, seems to lack any definitive subject, and is more a study in contrast between the light rocks, shadows, and sky - although the vertical comp. gives it a greater sense of depth.
The second, as is, seems to highlight the empty space around the barn, more interested in the location and holding the building as secondary. This could have worked as a horizontal orientation too, I think, and would have focused more on the barn than on the surroundings. So depending on the intent, it could go either way.
The third shot, definetly stronger with the vertical, gives a sense of size.
I'm undecided on the last one - it's rather ambigious and would have worked in either orientation. I'm going to depart from the options totally and say that it might be a strong shot if cropped square around the base of the stump.

I haven't been as active as I would like lately in this thread, but I don't want to see it die, either.

Pentax SMC DA 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 AL WR

07/27/2006 02:42:32 PM · #1056

Nice to see there's still some interest :-) I've taken the liberty of making a couple quick adjustments to three of Justin's images, trying to grab more of a sense of "focus" or "drama" out of them. These are just quick doodles, not perfected edits:

R.

Message edited by author 2006-07-27 15:27:28.

Prism

Pentax K-30

07/28/2006 11:24:54 AM · #1057

I really like what you did with justin's log shot bear. Can you post your editting steps? I prefer justin's own version of the cliff but then I am partial to blues :)

I also find that I have a tendancy to shoot more vertical compostions for a lot of landscapes. What do you think of this one?

Edit to add that I am going camping in the mountains this weekend so am hoping to get some good mountain and lake shots to post.

Message edited by author 2006-07-28 11:26:34.

07/28/2006 11:46:18 AM · #1058

Originally posted by Prism:

I really like what you did with justin's log shot bear. Can you post your editting steps?

1. Make duplicate BG layer
2. Contrast masking to tone down highlights and bring back shadow details
3. Flatten image into dupe layer
4. New contrast masking shadow layer with vivid light, 50% opacity, to put some pop back into shadows
5. Flatten into dupe layer
6. New contrast masking highlight layer in soft light mode to crisp highlights back up
7. Flatten into dupe layer
8. Hue/saturation concentrating on yellows and greens, especially shifting greens into a redder hue, and adjusting relative brightness of yellow and green to get more modeling in grass
9. Gradient from foreground on a new, empty layer set at multiply mode, opacity adjusted to best effect
10. USM applied to flattened image, and save for web

That's as close as I can remember. I didn't bother writing it down because these adjustments were done on an already-manipulated image that was too contrasty, I suspect from previous levels adjustments. I am 100% sure this could have been accomplished more easily from an unedited original.

R.

Tamron SP AF 17-50mm f/2.8 Di II LD Aspherical (IF) for Canon

07/31/2006 02:11:44 PM · #1059

Jumping in this thread after i spent a week in Washington, and this thread is a little long. So excuse for probably asking questions already asked.

1) What are some general tips for post processing landscape pictures?
2) What the best way in photohop to get rid of haze?

For an example (though not a hazy picture) how would you post this picture?

Message edited by author 2006-07-31 14:12:13.

07/31/2006 02:59:19 PM · #1060

Originally posted by vprndsg:

I look at this scene and it is a decent photograph that suffers from "muddy" post processing. There's almost no detail in the trees, the sky is a very muddy blue, and none of it is helped by the very flat lighting; there is little modeling of shapes happening here. But what you shot is what you shot, so we can't do anything now about the lighting.

Now, one thing you can do in future, when shooting at high altitudes, is to use a UV filter on your lens. You're so high up that the atmosphere is not filtering out as much UV radiation as we are used to, and so the sky colors, especially, get corrupted. This is very common in mountain photography; I'd use a UV filter full time up there.

When it comes to post processing, our goal would be to have less blocking of the shadow areas (primarily the trees) while maintaining the full tonal range on the brighter mountains. When we lighten the picture up by conventional means (curves, levels) we will make the mountains too bright if we get the trees where we want them. So this scene is a good candidate for "contrast masking", which is described in considerable detail earlier in this thread.

Here's a quick remake of the shot with NO adjustments to color at all, just contrast masking and some gradients applied and a little dodging in some small areas of the trees:

My steps were as follows:

1. Duplicate base layer, apply auto levels. This was a checking procedure. Autolevels made no difference at all, suggesting you had already done them, so I reverted this step, leaving the unaltered duplicate of the base layer as the second layer.

2. Used cntrl-alt-tilde and cntrl-j to create a highlights mask layer, and cntrl-alt-tilde, cntrl-shift-i (to invert the selection) and cntrl-j to create a shadow mask layer. Set the highlights layer to "multiply" mode at 100% opacity and the shadows layer to "screen" mode at 100% opacity.

3. This was a significant improvement, but it hadn't gone far enough. So I merged both those layers into the dupe base layer and did the contrast masking a second time. This time I set the opacity on the highlights mask at 50% and kept the shadows mask at 100%.

4. I went back to the duplicate base layer (the one we had already merged the first set of contrast mask layers into) and made another duplicate layer from that. I then turned off the first two layers and merged the latest contrast mask layers into that. So now we have a base layer (unaltered), a duplicate layer with first pass contrast masking applied, and another duplicate layer with second pass contrast masking applied. Since all these layers are at 100% opacity, neither of the first two layers is visible at all.

5. Now, the visible image was in most respects much better, but the foreground grass was too bright and too saturated compared with the appearance of the intermediate layer, and this area was very flat. So I used the eraser tool at a 15% opacity and with a soft edge to start erasing some of the foreground at the very bottom, allowing the darker, underlying foreground to become partially visible. This produced a little bit of a modelling effect.

6. Now I created a new, empty layer set to "multiply" mode and selected a dark blue foreground color with the color picker, and laid a foreground-to-transparent gradient from the very top down to the middle of the mountain. I faded the opacity of this layer until the gradient looked natural, and then merged it into the underlying layer.

7. Next I repeated the above but with a dark green foreground color and applied the gradient up from the bottom, and faded that and merged it down. End result; we have some "modeling" in both the sky and the foreground.

8. Finally, I created a new layer in "overlay" mode and clicked the box to "fill with neutral gray". I used a medium-sized, soft, white brush to paint on this layer and dodge some more detail into some of the tree areas on the left center, and also picked up some brightness in a couple of the grass areas.

I flattened all this, resized to 640 pixels, applied USM, saved for web, and loaded it up. It all is much simpler than it sounds when you get the hang og it; total time spent maybe 5 minutes. With more time I could do a more sophisticated job, but this will illustrate one appraoch to rescuing/enhancing a shot like this.

R.

Tamron SP AF 17-50mm f/2.8 Di II LD Aspherical (IF) for Canon

07/31/2006 03:05:21 PM · #1061

Thank you very much Bear, that picture is the orginal - nothing has been done to it.

I didnt know to use a UV filter (I had one, but i had a polarizer on it. And I heard you cant mix those two together, and a polarizer i thought would be best to use).

Thanks for the steps, i'll try them out on some of my other photographs

07/31/2006 03:11:47 PM · #1062

Originally posted by vprndsg:

In my experience, the polarizer is extremely dangerous at high altitude. If you do use it, to gain foreground saturation for example, you need to be VERY careful not to overpolarize the sky, which is what happened here.

R.

Incidentally, looking back at my quick edit I can see a couple areas where I dodged too much. If it were my image, I'd go back and fix that, but no need for that here :-)

Message edited by author 2006-07-31 15:12:55.

Tamron SP AF 17-50mm f/2.8 Di II LD Aspherical (IF) for Canon

07/31/2006 03:17:10 PM · #1063

I learn something new everyday!

Does that go with all landscape photography in general?

07/31/2006 03:23:36 PM · #1064

Originally posted by vprndsg:

I learn something new everyday!

Does that go with all landscape photography in general?

No. The higher you go, the more extreme the polarizing effect gets, to the point where if you polarize on top of Everest the skies are essentially black. In general, a polarizing filter is an excellent thing to use in all landscape photography, if you bear in mind the fact that by rotating it you can put it anywhere between neutral (no effect) and full (sometimes extreme effect). For example, if you are photographing a scene with both sky and reflections in foreground water, you may find that when you polarize to maximum effect on the sky you completely eliminate the reflections, so obviously a middle ground is needed here.

One of the best things about the polarizer is actually not the sky (you can usually fix that easily enough in post) but the way it eliminates stray reflections from complex foliage, rendering it with much better saturation of color.

R.

Tamron SP AF 17-50mm f/2.8 Di II LD Aspherical (IF) for Canon

07/31/2006 05:11:57 PM · #1065

Okay, thanks.

So how's this one?

this image - click here

Message edited by ursula - large image.

07/31/2006 06:10:55 PM · #1066

Originally posted by vprndsg:

Okay, thanks.

So how's this one?

Much better overall, but blown out in the bright areas. Could use some gradient in the sky. Would be nice if there were more foreground too, seems a little cramped there.

R.

Tamron SP AF 17-50mm f/2.8 Di II LD Aspherical (IF) for Canon

07/31/2006 06:27:02 PM · #1067

I cropped it, so maybe i'll uncrop it.

If you couldnt tell, i hand burnt the mountains. Is their an easier way to do an overall burn? instead of doing it by hand?

Prism

Pentax K-30

Pentax SMC DA 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 AL WR

08/09/2006 11:15:10 PM · #1068

I took this shot just at sunset on my rainy, rainy, rainy.... camping weekend to the mountains. The light conditions were minimal and while I have processed it to get the colour and detail where I am somewhat happy with it, I would like to be able to make the loon stand out a little more. Can anyone suggest ways I might be able to accomplish that?

Edit to add:
OK, I played around some more with the gray layer technique and and modifying the histogram. This is the result. Any comments or other suggestions?

I have often wondered how big a factor does a balanced histogram play to overall presentation of a shot. Any discussion on this?

Message edited by author 2006-08-10 10:36:03.

Pentax SMC DA 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 AL WR

08/22/2006 08:14:29 AM · #1069

Prism,

I'm sorry I missed the "Loon" shot earlier this month. That's a very appealing image. The second one is noticeably better than the first attempt, particularly in a much more realistic rendering of the sky upper left, but also in its much crisper detailing of the tree reflections in the center and, to a lesser degree, a little better definition on the shadowed trees themselves.

It falls short of being an "optimized" image in the treatment of the loon, but I'm not sure THIS exposure can be improved in that area. The problem is the loon is disappearing against the background. It's possible that some very careful dodging could "carry" the lighter tree reflections around the loon, visually, and it might pop a little more...

Nice shot!

Robt.

Prism

Pentax K-30

08/23/2006 09:49:17 PM · #1070

Originally posted by Bear_Music:

Thanks Robert. The clarity of the second shot was done after I read about the "clarify" tool in PSPX in another thread. I think I am going to like that discovery :) I also applied a duplicate layer, equalized the histogram on it, then reduced it to 22% opacity and set it to soft light mode.

I tried your suggestion and did a little dodging around the loon. I found an interesting brush shape in PSPX to apply it with called smoke wisp. It seemed to go well with the rising mist.

So any more ideas for assignments or other new techniques you care to share to try and keep this thread alive?

Ricky