| Author | Thread |
|
|
01/27/2009 04:27:46 PM · #1 |
Well the thing is that I am not at all happy with my shots. Sometimes I think that something destroys my shots. May be the lack of a good camera / lenses. Or may be the PP. May be all of them together. So I ll put two shots before and after I ll describe my work flow and I ll wait for your comments.
This was a rainy night and I tried to catch the rain (which did not work!)as it was shinning under the lights of my backyard! Well here is what I really got.
The before
ISO 200, 10mm, f/8, 15sec,no flash
Steps in Lightroom
exposure: +1.14
contrast: +12
curves
Steps in CS3
Create a new layer (Ctrl-Shift-N) Used a brush to darken the grass in the bottom of the picture, according to idnic'stutorial
Unsharp Mask
Save for the WEB
Here is what I got:
After
I d like to hear comments mostly about the workflow and the final result (focus, noise, sharp, anything that can help me improve my shots).
Message edited by author 2009-01-27 17:35:40. |
|
|
|
01/27/2009 06:12:23 PM · #2 |
I guess I have some questions first.... what exactly were you trying to accomplish with your editing? To bring out the rain... or to recover the rest of the scene?
It still seems really dark to me, with only a slight improvement on the left tree.
Ran this through Capture real quick and got this:
I'll mess with it in CS4 tonight to do it in ways other than how I did it in Capture, since the workflow will be different, just wanted to know if this is what you were looking for or what....
What were you trying to recover?
|
|
|
|
01/28/2009 03:07:55 AM · #3 |
Originally posted by spiritualspatula:
I guess I have some questions first.... what exactly were you trying to accomplish with your editing? To bring out the rain... or to recover the rest of the scene?
It still seems really dark to me, with only a slight improvement on the left tree.
Ran this through Capture real quick and got this:
I'll mess with it in CS4 tonight to do it in ways other than how I did it in Capture, since the workflow will be different, just wanted to know if this is what you were looking for or what....
What were you trying to recover? |
Not the "unvisible" rain! The scene! Thanks for the nice try.
But the question is still here! This shot is not sharp enough, I doubt if its focused and trying to improve it I get a lot of noise. So?
-Is it the camera/lens, or
-the adjustments, or
-the post proccesing?
|
|
|
|
01/28/2009 03:14:17 AM · #4 |
Due to the length of your shutter, were you using a cable release/timed exposure and a stable tripod?
I've got the same camera and don't recall the sharpness issues you are having, even with longer exposures. Also, since the posted images aren't originals it's hard to say. What sharpness settings were you using?
Also, were you using the autofocus with the assist lamp or trying to manual focus? That's another thing to consider...
In addition, keep in mind that because of how underexposed the scene was initially, a good amount of the noise is introduced in trying to pull details out of those shadows, so with either a lower aperture or longer exposure, this noise could be alleviated a bit. The nice thing about the small sensors is you get better depth of field, so you can open the aperture a bit and not see as drastic of a decrease as with an DSLR. Lastly, some of the sharpness was probably lost in my example because I quickly ran some noise correction and was working from a downsized jpeg.
Message edited by author 2009-01-28 21:37:16. |
|
|
|
01/28/2009 03:24:01 AM · #5 |
The photo you start with is waaaaay too dark. You adjusted the exposure by +1.14 and it was still way too dark. Boosting the exposure like that in PP is bound to result in high levels of noise, you have to start off with a better exposure.
From your initial picture and the effect that a +1 exposure had, I would guess that you need to increase your exposure time by a factor of at least three - i.o.w. 30sec or more.
Trying to correct for extreme underexposure in PP is never going to be very successful. First get the basic photo right, then do the PP to make it look better.
BTW I saw another photo of yours on the 2009 Landscape thread and it was also too dark. Do you have your monitor adjusted correctly? Check on the greyscale bar below any voting photo that you can see all the shades of white through black. |
|
|
|
01/28/2009 03:27:45 AM · #6 |
| If you're consistently getting very underexposed photos, make sure to check your exposure compensation to ensure it isn't -3 or something aggravating like that. Did that once myself.... |
|
|
|
01/28/2009 08:35:30 AM · #7 |
| All the comments were pretty helpful. Thanks guys for taking the time and sharing your experience with me! |
|
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: 09/06/2025 03:30:17 AM EDT.
