Landscape Processing Question

AngryRed

Hi guys,

I'm looking for some help with controlling the overall contrast between dark skies and bright landscape. Besides taking 2 shots with multiple exposures I'm looking to even things out in Photoshop some.

I think my edit makes the original worse.


Original


Any suggestions would be welcome.

Thanks.

Sam

While I think the edit is an improvement the way I approach these kinds of images is to mask off three separate areas. The fairground, the mountains, and the sky. Then process each separately, but be careful that each individual adjustment works with the other two adjustments, and the over all image.

Sam

AngryRed

Sam wrote:

While I think the edit is an improvement the way I approach these kinds of images is to mask off three separate areas. The fairground, the mountains, and the sky. Then process each separately, but be careful that each individual adjustment works with the other two adjustments, and the over all image.

Sam

Thanks Sam,

So in fear of allowing my ignorance to show I'll ask a dumb question anyway. So far I've tried magic wanding the sky to separate or attempting to lasso the various layers to separate them. Can you elaborate on a better way? Whenever I do manage to get the sections separate you can almost always see some distortion where the various layers but up together.

zoomer

Try darkening the foreground a lot with the burn tool. Then do a levels adjustment on the whole picture and contrast adjustment then it looks pretty good...I played around with it some and it worked pretty well.

Remember when you take this kind of picture to use a graduated neutral density filter, in this case on the bottom to even out the light.

If you don't have a couple of these filter and you want to take landscape pictures..you will be spinning your wheels without them.

Good luck.

AngryRed

zoomer wrote:

Remember when you take this kind of picture to use a graduated neutral density filter, in this case on the bottom to even out the light.

Good point... Thanks guys.

pathfinder

You can select the sky easily with a Quick Selection tool, or you can use the Quick Mask technique.

Since the advent of CS3 and the Quick Selection tool and Refine Edges command, the Magic Wand is much less important than in previous version of PS.

The easiest is Quick Mask, if you do not need a sharp edged precise selection, but a smooth graduated selection will do. Type "Q" to begin the quick mask technique. Set your brush ( B key ) with black ink in the forground at 100% with a very soft brush and paint a red mask over the areas to be selected. Hit the "Q" key again and you have your selection outlined with marching ants. You can add or subtract from this selection with the Magic Wand or the Quick Selection tool, by holding down the shift key or the option key as you paint with the Quick Selection tool.

With the Quick Selection tool. selecting outside the desired area while holding down the option key ( alt key on a WIN box ) you deselect areas, and you can add to your selection by holding down the shift key.

Do your curves on the selection for each area on a layer, and adjust the opacity for final seasoning.

I wrote a bit about this for another poster here

I think your edit increased the brightness and contrast in the near fore ground too much. I like the greater contrast in the mountains and the sky.

ChristopherJAshdown

Here's an option
Here's an edit.

1. S Curve on the foreground to brighten the highlights and darken the mid and low tones
2. S Curve on the mountains to bring out the details - highlights brighter and darken the low tones.
3. S Curve on the clouds to bring out the texture
4. Crop to bring the focus on the mountains and give a pano type feel.
5. Sharpen the sign and foreground that leads to the mountains (leaving the rest soft)



But it all depends on the look you are going for.

wfeller

Thought I'd give it a shot--

(CS2)
Used the polygon lasso to select the playa (bottom half)
Feathered 12
Made an adjustment layer and adjusted levels
Added layer mask to selection and inverted selection
Made an adjustment layer and adjusted curves
Copied layer, sharpened- erased sharpness in the sky and flattened

DRT-Maverick

I noticed that in the desert, because of both haze and the high temperature of colors in the day, it's easiest to shoot in high dynamic range mode, (HDR) whether using my camera's built in HDR expansion or using multiple exposures. Not sure if you want to go down that lane though, but you can get extremely realistic shots using HDR.

Tango

wfeller wrote:

Thought I'd give it a shot--

(CS2)
Used the polygon lasso to select the playa (bottom half)
Feathered 12
Made an adjustment layer and adjusted levels
Added layer mask to selection and inverted selection
Made an adjustment layer and adjusted curves
Copied layer, sharpened- erased sharpness in the sky and flattened