| Author | Thread |
|
|
09/13/2006 11:05:07 AM · #1 |
I took these snaps 4r Single tree challenge but couldnt post process them to my satisfaction........Could some one post process them into challenge worthy entries......both color and B/W will do.....
|
|
|
|
09/13/2006 11:33:24 AM · #2 |
How's this?
First (and most important) step was to autolevel in photoshop; this gave a much better contrast range. Then I selected the white sky with the magic wand + "select similar" and, with the selection loaded, created a new blank layer in "multiply" mode and laid down a blue-to-transparent gradient, then faded the layer so the sky looked reasonable. I did a hue/saturation layer and tweaked the saturation, hue, AND lightness of both green and yellow channels to get a more expressive grass. The result at this point was a big improvement.
Next I did a "gothic glow" action on the whole thing and pasted that as a new layer. This exaggerated the greens of the grass too much, so I did another hue/sat tweak of yellow & green to compensate, and I did a little dodging in the trunk areas, which the GG had made too dark.
Finally I cropped to the "horizon" where grass meets tree fell on the 1/3 line, and I did a touch of vignetting to darken in the corners.
Robt.
|
|
|
|
09/13/2006 12:01:44 PM · #3 |
Awesome......i really need to work on post processing techniques...
Thanx 4r the help |
|
|
|
09/13/2006 12:24:20 PM · #4 |
Originally posted by Bear_Music:
How's this?
First (and most important) step was to autolevel in photoshop; this gave a much better contrast range. Then I selected the white sky with the magic wand + "select similar" and, with the selection loaded, created a new blank layer in "multiply" mode and laid down a blue-to-transparent gradient, then faded the layer so the sky looked reasonable. I did a hue/saturation layer and tweaked the saturation, hue, AND lightness of both green and yellow channels to get a more expressive grass. The result at this point was a big improvement.
Next I did a "gothic glow" action on the whole thing and pasted that as a new layer. This exaggerated the greens of the grass too much, so I did another hue/sat tweak of yellow & green to compensate, and I did a little dodging in the trunk areas, which the GG had made too dark.
Finally I cropped to the "horizon" where grass meets tree fell on the 1/3 line, and I did a touch of vignetting to darken in the corners.
Robt. |
Bear - I saw a clip of a gary fong video where he was talking about how its bad to use levels (dragging the shadow and highlight triangles to where the histogram starts showing information) on a picture because it kills the midtones??? I had always heard that this method increases the dynamic range of the image and gives you the highlight, midtone, and shadows information that the picture needs.
Gary fong is well respected I imagine...why would he say something like this? |
|
|
|
09/13/2006 01:06:34 PM · #5 |
Originally posted by KevinG:
Bear - I saw a clip of a gary fong video where he was talking about how its bad to use levels (dragging the shadow and highlight triangles to where the histogram starts showing information) on a picture because it kills the midtones??? I had always heard that this method increases the dynamic range of the image and gives you the highlight, midtone, and shadows information that the picture needs.
Gary fong is well respected I imagine...why would he say something like this? |
I have taken the DPC "test strip" and imported it to Photoshop. Then I made a composite image to post here. The bottom strip is the test strip as imported. The top strip is what it looks like when you slide the right and left sliders a third of the way in on each side. See what's happening?
Many more of the squares are white and black in the leveled version, and the remaining squares in the middle show a MUCH less subtle demarcation of tones. That's what Gary is talking about; when you compress this way the middle tones get less subtle, less evocative.
However, this is an extreme example. In moderation it doesn't seem to be a problem to me. You can, however, use curves to keep the mid-tones smooth while containing the extremes. In difficult images, that's the way to go; but it's quite a bit more labor-intensive.
R.
Message edited by author 2006-09-13 13:07:53.
|
|
|
|
09/13/2006 01:48:21 PM · #6 |
Originally posted by KevinG:
Bear - I saw a clip of a gary fong video where he was talking about how its bad to use levels (dragging the shadow and highlight triangles to where the histogram starts showing information) on a picture because it kills the midtones??? I had always heard that this method increases the dynamic range of the image and gives you the highlight, midtone, and shadows information that the picture needs.
Gary fong is well respected I imagine...why would he say something like this? |
The issue is really a matter of tonality and information contained in the image. If you are editing an 8bit jpeg file you are somewhat limited to the amount of information you have spanning across the histogram. This is especially true if you use the channel mixer to convert to B&W and only have 1 channel of information--in this case you have 1/3 the acutal information you started with. You will notice in the PS histogram that the curve may become more choppy and less smooth-curve-like after you make a levels adjustment of this nature. This is because you are taking a portion of the information--the amount between where you dragged the level endpoints--and streching it across the entire span of the histogram. As this gets worse you will begin to notice that the tones in your image may become banded instead of having smooth transitions. This will only happen after you make somewhat extreme adjustments. So, as Bear mentioned, it is just fine in moderation--actually prefered because if you don't adjust the contrast somehow you often end up with a muddy image without black blacks or white whites. Just don't overdo it.
Hope this helps. Or even makes sense, sometimes I can talk myself into circles.
~Ab |
|
Home -
Challenges -
Community -
League -
Photos -
Cameras -
Lenses -
Learn -
Help -
Terms of Use -
Privacy -
Top ^
DPChallenge, and website content and design, Copyright © 2001-2025 Challenging Technologies, LLC.
All digital photo copyrights belong to the photographers and may not be used without permission.
Current Server Time: 09/14/2025 10:46:36 AM EDT.
