I Cheat

wxwax

Neither of these scenes looked like the following images.

The first, I knew what I wanted to do in PS and got what I wanted to make it possible, more or less.

wxwax

The second image is even faker. Well, the trees and rocks and water are real, but that's about it.

I am a child of modern technology. I hope to god we never go back to film.

Andy

Cheater, cheater, pumpkin eater!



Seriously, nice wide angle I love it.

wxwax

Thanks Andy. I, um, learned from the best.

Nikolai

Oh...
I see: you were describing your post proc results..
I thought it was new iMac product

Cheers!

harjtt

wxwax wrote:

Neither of these scenes looked like the following images.

The first, I knew what I wanted to do in PS and got what I wanted to make it possible, more or less.

That first shot just looks great ! How did ya cheat with that pic ??? Just curious ya know

Cheers

HarjTT

D

wxwax

harjtt wrote:

That first shot just looks great ! How did ya cheat with that pic ??? Just curious ya know

Cheers

HarjTT

D

Thanks Harj!

The water and trees are a combination of 3 different RAW exposures.

And the sky was shot about an hour after the rest. That's a lot of standing around and waiting.

wxwax

Nikolai wrote:

I see: you were describing your post proc results..
I thought it was new iMac product

Cheers!

Andy

wxwax wrote:

That's a lot of standing around and waiting.

Enter if you dare:
http://www.darwinwiggett.com/main.html

He was profiled in May's Rangefinder:
http://www.rangefindermag.com/magazine/May06/8.tml

Amazing composite:
http://www.darwinwiggett.com/RoadsFull/NMP108.jpg

ehughes

Love that first picture Sid, awesome work

DavidS

Great work. I love them.

wxwax

ehughes wrote:

Love that first picture Sid, awesome work

From you, that's quite a compliment. Your galleries are outstanding.

wxwax

Andy wrote:

Enter if you dare:
http://www.darwinwiggett.com/main.html

He was profiled in May's Rangefinder:
http://www.rangefindermag.com/magazine/May06/8.tml

Amazing composite:
http://www.darwinwiggett.com/RoadsFull/NMP108.jpg

Wild site, fun work. Thanks for the link!

Awais Yaqub

Great
How can i learn cheating sir ?

Nikolai

Awais,

Awais Yaqub wrote:

Great
How can i learn cheating sir ?

Easy...
4 to 6 books on Photoshop, 3 to 6 months of extensive training - and you're Da Master Cheater!

wxwax

Awais Yaqub wrote:

Great
How can i learn cheating sir ?

Do you have Photoshop, Awais?

I'm not familiar with other photo software.

ginger_55

Sid, are you that Darren Wiggit person?

Who are you? Smile.

I love the "cheating".

A "recipe" book would be great!

Beginning cheating would be my style first!

(and I suppose this implies the use of a tripod!)

ginger

wxwax

ginger_55 wrote:

Sid, are you that Darren Wiggit person?

Who are you? Smile.

I love the "cheating".

A "recipe" book would be great!

Beginning cheating would be my style first!

(and I suppose this implies the use of a tripod!)

ginger

Yes, definitely a tripod, the basis for all cheating!

Simple, really. An ND filter to smooth the water. Wait until the light's not direct sunlight.

Take a long exposure, protect the highlights. Then wait around for the sun to go below the horizon so the sky can pickup some interesting colors. I really wanted the deep dark blue that comes with clear skies, but it was too hazy for that, I guess, so I settled for squeezing some pink out of what I was able to get.

In PS, three exposures from a single RAw file for the water: foreground, middle ground and background. On the sky image, severly maim the sky with Curves to bring out all the color that's there.

Then Layer Mask in the sky (this was the hard part, because of the trees to the left. I did a lot of cheating there too, wonder what it would look like as a print?) Then another round of curves and a bit of saturation to finish it off. Very little sharpening (the masked trees couldn't take much.)

Et voila, a cheating landscape.

athos

love the first 1.

you have nice post processing skills.

if i keep lookin at that pic it may be hte kick in the ass i need to start really learnin ps2.

ginger_55

wxwax wrote:

The second image is even faker. Well, the trees and rocks and water are real, but that's about it.

I am a child of modern technology. I hope to god we never go back to film.

how did you cheat the fog?

ginger

DoctorIt

Cheaters never win, you know. :nono


(I love that first one, the sunset sky is like a cherry on top, yum!)

NHBubba

Meh, works for me!

I 'cheat' to save myself from having to buy graduated ND's.. I think this technique works better anyhow since you never have a graduated ND that matches the skyline or whatever profile you want to match..

wxwax wrote:

An ND filter to smooth the water.

Certianly you mean a 'Neutral Density' filter... There, now the search engine will pick it up. 'ND' gets rejected for being too short!

DoctorIt

NHBubba wrote:

Certianly you mean a 'Neutral Density' filter... There, now the search engine will pick it up. 'ND' gets rejected for being too short!

a man after my own heart. always thinking ahead for the poor soul trying to search for something

wxwax

ginger_55 wrote:

how did you cheat the fog?

ginger

Photoshop has a clouds filter.

I used it on a blank new layer, compacted it, then copied it to multiple layers and moved it around to give it depth. Used Layer Styles to remove the black from the clouds.

(On the first of the two sliders on the bottom of Layer Styles, Alt-click on the right side of the slider, move it all the way to the right. Half of the slider icon goes with you, the other half stays put on the left side. This removes the black automagically. I did a Google to learn this.)

I did each Layer individually, then I flattened all the cloud layers.

I changed the cloud layer to Luminosity blending mode, 'cause it seemed to look good. I reduced opacity to about 25%. Then I used Gaussian Blur at about 50% . Then I made a Layer Mask and used my brush tool at anything from 10% to 70% to remove any hard lines, remove anything that looked odd... and I cleared away the mist over the sunlight rocks, which I wanted to feature.

The gold color isn't natural either. I used Andy's toning method to give the highlights a gold tone. Then, oddly enough, when I did another color layer of deep blue (I was trying to get the sky a darker blue) I discovered that it gave me an even richer gold! Serendipidity. I liked it and left it, albeit at a reduced opacity and, I think, Multiply blending mode.

I was just playing at taking a fairly ordinary shot and trying to make something out of it.

wxwax

NHBubba wrote:

Certianly you mean a 'Neutral Density' filter... There, now the search engine will pick it up. 'ND' gets rejected for being too short!

NHBubba

DoctorIt wrote:

a man after my own heart. always thinking ahead for the poor soul trying to search for something

Think I might speak from experience?! This thread still doesn't show up on a search.. I had to find it by way of another search!

Awais Yaqub

wxwax wrote:

Do you have Photoshop, Awais?

I'm not familiar with other photo software.

i have it

wxwax

Awais Yaqub wrote:

i have it

Cool!

I tried to explain how I cheated, above. I hope it helps.

wally5656

The first image rocks no matter how it was achieved. I like it!!!

dbaker1221

Teriffic job On the 2nd photo I think I might have taken a shoft brush & earased some fog off of the tree & branch close to us. That would have put the fog just past the first tree. Outstanding job though.

wxwax

dbaker1221 wrote:

Teriffic job On the 2nd photo I think I might have taken a shoft brush & earased some fog off of the tree & branch close to us. That would have put the fog just past the first tree. Outstanding job though.

Good idea. Tricky to execute, maybe, because you'd have to erase only along the branches, so the background kept its mist.