Question about darks and lights

idiom

Hey All,

I shot this photo this summer, and I just wondered what you might do with the shot.

The problem as you can see is that the falls and sky were bright, and the canyon wall was mostly in shadow. I enjoy the natural look to this photo, but have had a few comments about the rock being dark.

Would you mask and brighten up the rock face or leave it as is? Also any other CC is welcomed.



Thanks!

Darren Troy C

I would definately try and get more detail.....especially out of that left face.

scole

How was this shot? JPEG or RAW?

You should be able to work with the single shot RAW file using an HDR program to regain the detail in the shadows, which might be easier than trying to manually create a mask. If you don't have an HDR program, both Photomatix and EssentialHDR have free trial versions which you can play around with.

Then again, you can just use the Shadows/Highlights tool in Photoshop (including Elements) to just brighten up the dark areas. In my work, I've used this tool to lighten the dark areas with a value somewhere between 5-25% depending on the scene.

idiom

Yep, it was shot RAW, maybe i'll play around with photomatrix and see what comes out.

Thanks for the input.

thapamd

Hi, Gage. First of all, the image is lovely. I do agree with the above posters that you should try to get s bit more shadow detail out the the image. For conditions, I often bracket the scene and combine the different exposures manually later in PS. It's more work but worth the extra effort, I think. Trying to finesse too much out of one RAW image, often leads to unwanted noise and color shifts.

hawkeye978

It's a good shot that just needs a little tweaking. Since it's RAW, another simple approach would be to use the 'Fill Light' control in ACR to bring up the darker areas. You might also have to increase the Contrast slider to compensate for potential flattening that occurs when you do this. You could then continue in Photoshop. Another possibility is to generate two separate exposures with ACR, one exposed for the brighter areas and the second to bring up the darker areas. Then merge the two layers in Photoshop and blend.

idiom

Great ideas, thanks to all.

Bracketing would have been a great idea. I have to keep that in mind next time, I kind of forgot about that ability entirely.

Here is my attempt at blending two exposures to bring out the rock face a bit.

Thanks again for the tips and opinions.

thapamd

Gage, I think the image is much improved. Nice job bring out detail in the shadows while keeping the noise level down. Beautiful!

ront

Very nice work in the second image Gage. I like what you did a lot. There is much more visible detail in the rock cliff now.

Ron

redleash

Very nice job in the second one--it's a definite improvement and makes for a lovely image.

idiom

Thanks for the CC and the comments! Much appreciated.