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DPChallenge Forums >> Hardware and Software >> Gradients and workflow
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 10/13/2006 06:26:32 AM · #1
OK, so believe it or not, I've not actually done any playing around with gradients yet...

Ok, so it's not hard to believe. My camera has been sitting in safe storage for the last few months...

Anyhow, I went to the mountains the other day and ***FORGOT*** my graduated ND filters.. (slaps himself SILLY)...

An overnight trip into the mountains as high as the Rockies (3900 meters) on a full moon night, 1500 meters above the cloud line and me with a single Polarizer filter, stupid 50mm and a borrowed kit lens with no thread adaptors..

Result: lots of wrestling with flashes and a bunch of pics with really washed out skies. We just had the first meeting of the photography club and the University too and he brought out his pictures of the same place with these gorgeous smooth blue skies. Almost enough to make ya cry...

Anyhow, I've been looking around for a brief introduction to gradients.

I've figured out how to make a gradient and apply appropriate masks. In this case, I used color burn mode for the layer as it seemed to provide the most useful result.

Here's the problem though. It looks like *POOP*.

Ok, slightly better than poop... (please note that this is IN PROGRESS and I do realize that I have some color cast correction to deal with as well as the image being very rough for sharpness still).

I had some specific issues though.

#1 The gradient was anything but smooth. I used dither, but it still increases the graininess a lot more than I thought it would.

#2 This raised the issue of WHEN to do the gradient in my workflow. Should I do it before hitting it with the color and contrast adjustments? (sorry, I've already forgotten if I did a Neat Image on this one or not I think I did - and yeah, I know that's the first step)

These pics are just me messing around and aren't exactly works of art. I do hope to put 20 or 30 pics together and slap them on 25 cent CDs for my friends.

I suppose that I could possibly add straight color as a gradient instead, but would this improve the smoothness?

I'm just getting my feet wet here... Any advice or links or cool tutorials out there?

Thanks!
 10/13/2006 09:29:53 PM · #2
Well, I realized that what I had been missing was simply to choose a color to use with the gradient tool and use 'overlay' mode...

Anyhow, I'd still be interested in hearing what other people do for their skies to get:

#1 smooth gradients

and

#2 good coloring

as well as perhaps how and where they fit gradients into their workflow.

I ended up using a grey gradient layer in color burn mode (to increase the contrast and help keep my clouds white) and a blue gradient layer underneath it to actually add the coloring.

Both layers used similar masks, but the grey gradient layer I also used a bit of brushing for a 'cheater' burn layer for some of the scenery, but that was specific to the picture, not to the technique.

Message edited by author 2006-10-13 21:32:38.
 10/13/2006 11:11:02 PM · #3
I use lots of sky gradients. I use Multiply mode on a blank layer, overdo the gradient, then adjust hue/sat within that layer and fade the layer in/out to get the look I need. I start with a basic blue and fine-tune with the hue/sat. I use "foreground to transparent" gradient.

My gradient layer lives ABOVE all my other adjustment layers, so it can be done early or late int he workflow but you need to work underneath it for global adjustments if you do it early. I generally save it for near the end, works better for me.

Robt.
 10/13/2006 11:44:36 PM · #4
And if needed, the gradient layer can be expanded (Edit, Free Transform and have image zoomed out a bit to make it easier to control grab points) in all dimensions and dragged around if needed to feather effect more, and then blend to adjust opacity, and and and...
 10/14/2006 03:45:48 AM · #5
Thanks so much guys. I know you often work with gradients and I was really hoping to get a bit of wisdom from ya bear! Thanks!

I mucked about with this when I got bored of my homework and I ended up with:

Mostly I spent my time wrestling with my rotten selection techniques and trying to customize my layers.

I did the gradients first, then the final adjustments.

In the full size picture, there is banding and .jpg artifact in the sky gradients. The pic got noisy as hell too...

my sharpening layer absolutely required masking off the sky...

I wonder what others would have done with it...
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