Do Two Raws Make a Right?

cletus

Was out shooting at the Belton Railroad yard last week. A locomotive and its reflection in a small puddle caught my eye. After uploading and doing some basic processing the loco looked O.K. but the puddle and reflection weren't looking too great:


What I tried was:

• leave basic Camera Raw settings alone
• open image as a Smart Object in Photoshop
• copy the smart object inside Photoshop
• open the smart object copy in Camera Raw
• adjust settings to get the puddle looking better
• switch back to PS
• mask off the adjusted smart object copy, hiding everything but the puddle

Here's what I came up with:


I thought the puddle and reflection stood out a bit too much so I dialed back the opacity of the smart object copy:


I've put up some more details on the entire procedure here.

Any other thoughts on how I could have adjusted the puddle and reflection?

<i>Edit: Darkened the sky up a bit</i>

pathfinder

Creating two separate exposures in RAW as Smart Objects, as you describe here, is almost a routine step in my workflow at times. Your second Smart Object can be in B&W to blend with the original Smart Object in luminosity mode to have more precise control of shadow and highlight details also. So many ways to skin a cat in PS these days.

I think in your image I might have included some of the sky along with the reflection, and darkened it with a steeper curve, perhaps, as well, for a more dramatic, foreboding sky.