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

06/28/2007 10:28:18 AM · #1

I received a couple comments on this shot

saying they think it's a little flat. I got a comment on a current challenge that says it's a little flat.
I'm not really sure what that means but I sure would like some input so I can improve. Thanks! :)

wsl

Nikon D80

06/28/2007 10:40:06 AM · #2

Might be refering to the lighting. Its a great image, but maybe deeper shadows or higher contrast would bring out the subject better? Everything seems to blend together and needs a little more wow.

And I think they were spot on by saying a little flat. Wouldn't take much to make give it a push.

Sony 24-70mm F4 Vario-Tessar T* FE OSS

06/28/2007 11:54:24 AM · #3

thanks...yeah I see what you're saying.

Bear_Music

Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra

06/28/2007 12:30:13 PM · #4

It's not so much that it's "flat" (after all, it has true whites and true blacks) as it is that it lacks "local area contrast", which is what tone mapping is designed to work with. Your subjects are dark and muddy, all the tonal interest is at the extremes. Here's the same image with moderate tone mapping applied, NO local adjustments at all:

You can emulate tone mapping with "shadow/highlight adjustment" if you have CS or higher.

R.

Message edited by author 2007-06-28 12:30:54.

Brad

Olympus OM-D E-M1

Olympus 40-150mm f/2.8 PRO M.Zuiko

06/28/2007 12:36:26 PM · #5

Here's a simple and quick edit:

(open each in a new window and switch between them in the taskbar to see changes)

Was a simple as open your image, Layer, new layer via copy, Image, Adjustments, Brightness/Contrast and upped the contrast to about 30, then used a soft brush eraser and erased back the baby's dress. Flattened layers and using the burn tool in shadow mode at about 5%, slowly burned the detail back in the dress. (History brush tool at about 10% in multiply mode would do about the same). Made a new layer via copy again, used the elliptical marquee tool to select one eye, hold the shift button and select the other eye (lasso tool would work as well), then went to image, adjustments, levels, click options, and used my defaults of 0.5 in both the shadows and highlight boxes and clicked OK. Then using a soft-edged brush again on the eraser tool, slowly erased the surrounding areas of here eyes I didn't want changed. Flattened and saved. Overall saturation could be dropped a bit if the tone wasn't to your liking, as was done to the 2nd edit above. All in all, the editing took about 2 minutes, if that.

Message edited by author 2007-06-28 12:42:11.

06/28/2007 12:38:28 PM · #6

I really appreciate the info and I'll play around with that.
I think I do tend to go for the dark and muddy look for some reason. Now that I see your processing I think I understand what they were saying in the comments! Thanks!