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DPChallenge Forums >> Individual Photograph Discussion >> Some suggestions on this photograph
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 08/04/2007 05:35:08 PM · #1
After all this time using PS Elements I've finally decided to try to actually bend it to my will. this picture represents a first attempt.



If you have the time and the knowledge please drop a comment on how I might have made this picture a better picture.

BTW I am not fishing for compliments - I know this photo is lacking. I'm also pretty thick skinned, so as long as it's constructive I beg you to comment away.

Thanks,
Mik
 08/04/2007 05:42:07 PM · #2
What all did you do?
I don't know how the smokestack would print. There is a lot of 255 there, meaning that there wouldn't be any ink laid down. Other than that you have an awesome tonal range and excellent separation of tones. The contrast hasn't been jacked up to unreal porportions either.
 08/04/2007 05:51:44 PM · #3
I actually toned down the brightness and the contrast, so maybe the first step is to shoot the photo with spot metering on the smoke to make sure it does not totally "white out"?

As for what I did, it involved lightening the shadows, darkening the highlights and adjusting the brightness and contrast.

Thanks for the thoughts (they actually did help). Next photo I edit I'll make sure the keep a running list of what I did to fill in.

Mik
 08/04/2007 06:29:10 PM · #4
you should spot meter on a neutrally gray tone, no?

maybe the middle part of the large stack - or somewhere on the medium dark part of the clouds.


08/04/2007 06:31:19 PM · #5


Boosted Contrast on lower part (matted out the clouds on an adjustment layer)

Dodged the shadows of the sky
Burned the highlights of the sky in places
Tried to remove the wires very quickly.

Hope that helps.

ETA - when I'm going to black and white I'm boosting contrast at just about every step - something a Bear taught me here a hundred years ago. When you pulled contrast, I think you went the wrong direction, and I took steps to add it back in - but in different ways to different areas.

Message edited by author 2007-08-04 18:34:09.
 08/04/2007 06:37:23 PM · #6
the smoke is still blown though. no point fixing the rest, when the focus point is all done already...

Message edited by author 2007-08-04 18:37:38.
 08/04/2007 06:38:14 PM · #7
Not a user of Elements, but overall could use a bump in black levels. Either by selective colors, black, bumping the blacks 20% or so, or by whatever means Elements can increase the black levels, even dropping overall exposure level by -0.50 roughly.
When metering, only way to prevent blown out sections, which aren't always a bad thing, is to meter on the brightest and expose for that. The shadows will be deep, but overall, details can be brought back from the depths,but once blown out to the 255 levels, there is no longer detail.

As an example:


Message edited by author 2007-08-04 18:42:30.
 08/04/2007 06:42:18 PM · #8
i dunno, but if you meter on the brightest part of the frame, the camera is going to under expose the shot. the brightness it's reading with a 'spot' meter is going to turn your whites grey/under-exposed...

if you're using average meter mode brad's theory would work, i think.

ETA - use the histogram ! expose to the right as best you can w/o getting too much being clipped off the right side.

you can create shadows, but you can't bring back lost detail.

Message edited by author 2007-08-04 18:44:40.
 08/04/2007 06:44:21 PM · #9
Originally posted by soup:
i dunno, but if you meter on the brightest part of the frame, the camera is going to under expose the shot. the brightness it's reading with a 'spot' meter is going to turn your whites grey/under-exposed...

if you're using average meter mode brad's theory would work, i think.


I should have said that when using a spot on the brightest, meter for it, and compensate by about +1/2 - 2/3 of a stop. I do stuff so much without thinking, I forgot to add it in.
 08/04/2007 06:44:59 PM · #10
;}



Message edited by author 2007-08-04 18:46:54.
 08/04/2007 07:03:19 PM · #11
Hope you don't mind...I had a try at the processing. I added some contrast, played with the curves and levels, burned parts of the clouds, used color balance to give it an older look, and added a border. I didn't even attempt the power lines, cuz I'm not that good at that type of thing yet.

Hope it helps you.



Message edited by author 2007-08-04 19:03:43.
 08/04/2007 07:11:04 PM · #12
i got bored =]



Message edited by author 2007-08-04 19:11:35.
 08/04/2007 07:56:05 PM · #13
perhaps a bit more contrast as it seems a bit blown out. Maybe a bit of dodging and burning to add some drama? I would also clone out the wires/cables across the middle of the pic.
 08/04/2007 08:35:11 PM · #14
Originally posted by soup:

ETA - use the histogram ! expose to the right as best you can w/o getting too much being clipped off the right side.


This is not good advice for black and whites. You want to preserve as much of the tonal detail in the middle of the range as possible, and that is generally best acheived by not running this histogram up to the right edge. You need room to push areas of the shot in post without blowing out brighter portions. You're better off underexposing slightly and dodging things up later.
 08/04/2007 08:42:04 PM · #15
Getting the exposure right is always going to be the toughst part.

Here is an example of why I would rather under-expose slightly, than over-expose.



Note the 0EV shot includes -0.50 EV in the camera. Had no compensation been done on this, the default exposure would have been halfway between the 0EV and the +1EV shots. That would probably been close to unrecoverable highlights. Using the base image of 0EV, the background shadow detail can be pulled back out in a pleasing manner:


08/04/2007 09:02:06 PM · #16
Originally posted by soup:
i dunno, but if you meter on the brightest part of the frame, the camera is going to under expose the shot. the brightness it's reading with a 'spot' meter is going to turn your whites grey/under-exposed...

if you're using average meter mode brad's theory would work, i think.

Maybe it's because I'm always shooting with P&S cameras, and usually in "Center-Weighted Average" metering mode, that even when I meter of the brightest part of the cloud it will still gote to a pretty pure white. Sometimes I'll shoot with Exposure Compensation to under-expose even further -- it's almost always easier to brighten dull highlights and boost contrast than to recover blown highlight detail.

Cloud Examples
08/04/2007 09:30:40 PM · #17
Originally posted by Brad:
Getting the exposure right is always going to be the toughst part.

Here is an example of why I would rather under-expose slightly, than over-expose.



Recently I have started to under-expose the photos I take and it has improved a lot on final results I get.
 08/04/2007 09:36:23 PM · #18
Try and limit the exposure compensation around 1/2 stop. Going to to the full stop under yields a lot of noise generation in the post-processing, getting the details back out of the shadows. Proper exposure is still going to make the cleanest images, but I would rather take a little noise over blow-outs that hurt the image.
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