Recovering a blown out leaf

wxwax

Nice work, kids. I agree wrt the face, it's the very first thing I noticed.

zero-zero

I'd love to help out, Baldy, but for once I can't see your images . I wouldn't worry, though - you're in great hands. Andy is my postprocessing hero! D

Baldy

zero-zero wrote:

Andy is my postprocessing hero! D

And mine as well. :D:D

At the end of the day, this is the version we ended up printing. It wasn't the best pic but we did a few of these in the a.m. with her hair down and all the rest were done late in the day with her hair up. She wanted at least a few with hair down for the groom.



The lightened face didn't sell with the bride, but curving up the photo in general did. The white dress and subdued wrinkles made a huge difference. Never was able to rid the grass of the blue UV haze coming off the dress entirely.

I worry that the grass looks a little too saturated but it's what we see out our window and it subdues the blue haze some. So I pulled it back from an earlier version but no so much that the UV haze made it more blue than it was.

I scouted the church where she and the groom will be exiting at 10 this saturday and spoke to one of the wedding photogs there shooting another wedding. He was using medium format film because of the contrast issue and I think our inclination is the same. Digital will be fine for the softer lighting of the evening reception.

wxwax

RAW.

Baldy

wxwax wrote:

RAW.

?? These were shot in RAW.

wxwax

Baldy wrote:

?? These were shot in RAW.

My bad, I understood you to say you typically didn't shoot in RAW.

Baldy

One thing we didn't consider in this thread is using a polarizing filter to cut out a lot of specular reflections. I noticed that Ron Kimball, man of great photos, had a polarizing filter on his lens.

We lucked out and got hazy skys but still the MKII's histogram showed clipping on both ends.

DavidTO

RAW Processing
Do yourself a favor and download the demo of C1. I much prefer it over PSCS.

You can get it here.

pathfinder

DavidTO wrote:

Do yourself a favor and download the demo of C1. I much prefer it over PSCS.

You can get it here.

David, can you please describe why you pefer Phase one to PSCS? Is it the quality of the image, ease of work flow, speed of processing etc. It certainly is an additional significant expence, but I am interested in our comments. Thank you

DavidTO

pathfinder wrote:

David, can you please describe why you pefer Phase one to PSCS? Is it the quality of the image, ease of work flow, speed of processing etc. It certainly is an additional significant expence, but I am interested in our comments. Thank you

Workflow is the primary reason. C1 is folder based, not file. You open a folder and can set the processing up for all or some of the files in the folder, then let it process while you get a cup of coffee, or maybe catch up on your dgrin reading.

You can also apply settings from one image to multiple others. This is good for shots made with the same setup, and for ballparking many shots quickly, then fine-tuning.

I find I get better results with C1. Admittedly, this could be because that's what I'm used to. I have tried both on the same image, and I got better results with C1.

I bought C1 before there was an LE version available for the Mac, and I payed 250 for the SE version. I had the opportunity to downgrade, but passed it up, since I had gotten used to the features in SE. Starting over again, I would definitely just get LE, see if it fit my needs and upgrade later if needed. LE is $100.

If you have more questions, you could peruse the tutorials.

The ease with which I can correct for slightly off level shots is great. Draw a line with the tool along the horizon, and the image is automatically rotated and cropped. Process out the jpeg or tiff, and the original is left as is.

The basic message is that it works better for me, and makes more sense to me. It might for you, too.

wkwork

Ok I tried a shot dialing back the EV - maybe too far back. What do you guys think? Left is the original, right I changed the bright/contrast and the curves to bring it out more. Still dark and too grainy, but...

wxwax

wkwork, I guess it's a matter of what you want the final image to look like. If it were me, I'd play with layering the two shots, keeping the background darkish and the figure lighter.

DavidTO

wxwax wrote:

wkwork, I guess it's a matter of what you want the final image to look like. If it were me, I'd play with layering the two shots, keeping the background darkish and the figure lighter.

I would add that the color balance seems off, and I would cool the shot considerably.

wkwork

I agree it is too warm and the background is certainly not the greatest - it's just a test shot. But I do think I got the lights and darks with a good bit of detail. I'll have to try it on a "real" shot.