Please critique this develop

wellman

I've had LR2 for a while now, and have been using the Develop Module since the LR1 beta days. However, I'd not had a reason to experiment with the adjustment brushes until recently.

Below, I've attached two shots of Laurel Falls in NE Tennessee. The develop settings are the same with the exception of exposure settings, which have been pushed with the adjustment brush. #1 is the "original," while #2 has the lower half of the shot +1 stop and the area to the left of the waterfall +2 stops. How'd I do? Thanks for your comments - I'm wanting to learn.

Links: #1 full jpg, #2 full jpg, RAW (DNG)

#1:


#2:

Art Scott

I think you did a superb job clapthumbthumbbow....the second one is by far the best.....but maybe you need to darken the upper portion (water.....it looks a bit blown....just a tad) a bit ........

wellman

Art Scott wrote:

I think you did a superb job clapthumbthumbbow....the second one is by far the best.....but maybe you need to darken the upper portion (water.....it looks a bit blown....just a tad) a bit ........

Thanks!

One thing I learned while working on this image is that +1 minus 1 does not always equal zero. Let me explain...

My first inclination with the image was to push the whole thing +1 and then pull back the exposure on the water -1 with the adjustment brush to compensate (since the water is the smallest part of the image). That gives poor results - look at this...

#1: +1 global exposure / -1 adjustment brush on water


#2: No exposure adjustment


I suppose the moral of the story is that the adjustment brush doesn't "undo" exposure changes on the base image. It uses the results of the globally-adjusted image as its own baseline for changes. Not what I expected, but good to know...

arodney

Art Scott wrote:

I think you did a superb job clapthumbthumbbow....the second one is by far the best.....but maybe you need to darken the upper portion (water.....it looks a bit blown....just a tad) a bit ........

I agree completely. 2nd is far better, I'd just like to see a tad of highlight recovery in the water. Are you clipping much? Hold down the Option/Alt key while clicking on exposure to see what might be clipping there.

pathfinder

I like the brighter foreground also. That is a definite improvement.

If it were my image, I think I would split the difference in the upper left corner, and lighten it a bit from the first version, but not as much as the second, as it is in the shade and farther away than the foreground.

I would like to see better detail in the waterfall also. Unless there is not detail in the original shot, I would try again to retain the highlight detail there as much as possible.

My opinion only - every body has one

the Pixel Doctor

Greetings!

Nice shot.

Like the second one. I would definitely tweak it in the "shadows/highlights" adjustment in Photoshop. It's a great tool. One of many ways to bring back some of the highlights. Quick and easy.

Here's what about 5 seconds in the "shadows/highlights" adjustment in Photoshop gets you. It will bring back some of the highlights and then you can tweak to your hearts
content.

New to Smugmug and DGrin. Hope it was ok to "lift" your image and tweak it in shadows/highlights to show you what you would get. If it's not proper then I apologize and will remove the post.




Dennis
aka: the Pixel Doctor

Psalm 150:6

arodney

the Pixel Doctor wrote:

Greetings!
I would definitely tweak it in the "shadows/highlights" adjustment in Photoshop. It's a great tool. One of many ways to bring back some of the highlights. Quick and easy.

I would suggest that doing this in the Raw converter is not only quick and easy but that Photoshop can't bring back data that isn't rendered from the Raw data in the first place. Sure, having a rendered image without the Raw would suggest trying to "fix" the document in Photoshop. But considering the huge amount of data in a Raw file, unless you need to do very precise local correction, the Raw converter is the place to not fix but render the data, especially with respect to highlight data and here's why:
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/expose-right.shtml

the Pixel Doctor

recovery

arodney wrote:

I would suggest that doing this in the Raw converter is not only quick and easy but that Photoshop can't bring back data that isn't rendered from the Raw data in the first place. Sure, having a rendered image without the Raw would suggest trying to "fix" the document in Photoshop. But considering the huge amount of data in a Raw file, unless you need to do very precise local correction, the Raw converter is the place to not fix but render the data, especially with respect to highlight data and here's why:
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/expose-right.shtml

Totally agree. I only shoot in RAW, develop in LR2 and post process in CS4. Wouldn't have it any other way. However I have had times when even after LR2 that I found a little tweaking with the shadows/highlight tool helped rather than go all the way back to the RAW image and start the whole process over. It's a given that everything that can be done should be done in RAW but Sometimes when you're 15 layers deep going back to RAW and starting over just isn't worth it. The point was to show how to get a little recovery in the PSD file.

Dennis
aka: the Pixel Doctor

Psalm 150:6

wellman

Thanks for all the comments, folks. This has been a great learning opportunity.

• I checked the clipping, and while there technically wasn't any, the detail in the water was so fine that it was basically invisible. So I bumped the Recovery slider all the way to 100 and also painted in a touch of negative exposure on the middle of the waterfall.
• I agree with pathfinder's comment on the background area to the left of the falls. I turned it down a touch.
• I also noticed that my early-on "auto exposure" had pushed the Blacks slider to 0. I brought it back to 3 for a touch more overall contrast.

Final image below. Thanks so much, again!

pathfinder

Nicely done!