Scouting landscape

ziggy53

I recently rediscovered some images from 2005 I shot waiting for my son and other Boy Scouts. I always liked the composition of this image, but the light was very dull from an overcast sky.

After considerable post-processing, I like this version best and cropped to 16:9:

Miguel Delinquento

Outstanding
This is just a great shot. Great contrast, strong color, and the depth of clouds hits my sweet spot. Oh, and the composition is lovely too.
May I ask, how you brought out the clouds like this? Is this an HDR?
Thanks,

M

shniks

ziggy53 wrote:

I recently rediscovered some images from 2005 I shot waiting for my son and other Boy Scouts. I always liked the composition of this image, but the light was very dull from an overcast sky.

After considerable post-processing, I like this version best and cropped to 16:9:

Very cool ziggy... i like it a lot... it might look great in black and white too (what with those fantastic clouds)

ziggy53

Miguel Delinquento wrote:

This is just a great shot. Great contrast, strong color, and the depth of clouds hits my sweet spot. Oh, and the composition is lovely too.
May I ask, how you brought out the clouds like this? Is this an HDR?
Thanks,

M

Thanks Miguel,

I'll give some details about the processing later, but I am trying to garnish some comments first about the overall qualities of the scene and if I achieved something satisfying to a broad audience first.

ziggy53

shniks wrote:

Very cool ziggy... i like it a lot... it might look great in black and white too (what with those fantastic clouds)

Thanks Nikhil,

I did take a look at some B&W treatments but I lose some drama from the red building against the green, unless I really mess with the tones a lot.

ktdid

I personally can't comment on the more technical aspects since I pretty much don't know what I'm doing , but I can say that this shot is very appealing to me. I think it is well composed and, well, I just like it. I'm sure there are more vocabulary words for me to tell you why I like it, but I don't know them yet.

I'm going back and forth on the little branchy things hanging into the top of the shot from the big tree on the left. I'm not sure how I feel about them.

I do like this shot very much, though!

ziggy53

ktdid wrote:

I personally can't comment on the more technical aspects since I pretty much don't know what I'm doing , but I can say that this shot is very appealing to me. I think it is well composed and, well, I just like it. I'm sure there are more vocabulary words for me to tell you why I like it, but I don't know them yet.

I'm going back and forth on the little branchy things hanging into the top of the shot from the big tree on the left. I'm not sure how I feel about them.

I do like this shot very much, though!

Ktdid,

Thanks for the comments.

I did consider removing the branches from the tree but in the end I was trying to keep the original scene elements as original as possible, even though the tonality is completely different from the original.

Before I posted this thread I put the image onto a 30x20 "canvas/border" (in PhotoShop) and then ordered prints at 30" x 20" and they just came today. I can say that at that size, the branch "stubs" seem justified in that they both fill the empty space and direct the viewer into the scene.

Richard

ziggy53 wrote:

Thanks Miguel,

I'll give some details about the processing later, but I am trying to garnish some comments first about the overall qualities of the scene and if I achieved something satisfying to a broad audience first.

I like it a lot. Great composition, wonderful sky and splash of red to boot. I am not looking at it on a calibrated montior, so take this with a grain of salt, but I think it might help to lower the saturation of the yellow just a bit. It looks a little too strong to me.

Marc Muench

Hey ziggy happy to see a post from you again

I also enjoy this composition and treetment. However, the sticks play an important part in connecting the tree with the wrest of the subject by breaking up the line created by the trunk. Therefore I would have liked to see a few more. I know they were not there but........

Technically, the background is getting lighter near the trunk where I assume a gradated mask goes to white. This mask should really be hard up to the tree trunk allowing the clouds to be as dark near the trunk as they are in the center of the sky. Just some improvement thoughts

ziggy53

Richard wrote:

I like it a lot. Great composition, wonderful sky and splash of red to boot. I am not looking at it on a calibrated montior, so take this with a grain of salt, but I think it might help to lower the saturation of the yellow just a bit. It looks a little too strong to me.

Thanks Richard,

While lowering the saturation of the yellows also reduced the "pop" of the scene, altering the hue of the yellows towards green and then a slight lightening of the greens looks very nice.

I am experimenting with it.

ziggy53

Marc Muench wrote:

Hey ziggy happy to see a post from you again

I also enjoy this composition and treetment. However, the sticks play an important part in connecting the tree with the wrest of the subject by breaking up the line created by the trunk. Therefore I would have liked to see a few more. I know they were not there but........

Technically, the background is getting lighter near the trunk where I assume a gradated mask goes to white. This mask should really be hard up to the tree trunk allowing the clouds to be as dark near the trunk as they are in the center of the sky. Just some improvement thoughts

Marc,

Thanks so much for the comments. Since both you and Ktdid mention the tree limbs, I'll see what I can do. I will probably graft something from another image.

I guess it's time to reveal the original image:



Note the rather poor lighting and add to that the fact that I only shot JPGs (my bad).

The clouds did form an interesting pattern in the sky and the combination of a rolling hillside and unusual shade from the tree lent to the visual composition.

I used a product called "Dynamic Photo HDR" in its "Eye-Catching" and "FITYMI" (Fake It Till You Make It) mode which applies an HDR-like tone-mapping process to the scene. Then into PS CS2 for all additional processing.

Awais Yaqub

Beautiful !

Marc Muench

ziggy

Good to see the original.

I think you did a good job on your post with two exceptions. One being the crop and the other being the black point. The density change was needed and the extra contrast is very nice maybe a tad too much. The black point is too dark and the soft feel of the rolling hills is lost. If you are using sliders to set the bk point just dont slide so far right, if you are using a curves or levels layer in PS to set the bk point just change the opacity of the layer to 50% or something close.

ziggy53

OK, a complete redo.



I kept the clouds and much of the mystery of the principle tree (from the HDR software), created seperate layers for the hills/grass and the rest. Treated the hills (yellow) like I replied to Richard (yellow tones pushed toward green and slight lightening of greens). Kept a more normal black point in the grass. Now the hills have a more gradual transition from lighter to darker and a more natural feel overall. This also allowed a 6x4 crop and I kept more sky and tree limbs, as well as a bit more foreground.

ziggy53

Awais Yaqub wrote:

Beautiful !

Thanks Awais,

I do wish there had been a bit more sun, but sometimes you take what you get.

Richard

ziggy53 wrote:

OK, a complete redo.

Much better, IMO. It might be compression artefacts, but some of the trees look a little crunchy on my screen.

ziggy53

Richard wrote:

Much better, IMO. It might be compression artefacts, but some of the trees look a little crunchy on my screen.

Thanks Richard,

I noticed that too. Partly because I used sharpening after I resampled for the Web and then SmugMug does sharpening on the preview sizes (so the image was double sharpened) and partly because the trees in question had way too much red in them from too much processing. I also reworked the red building to reduce some color noise resulting from excess processing.

Here is a more pleasing (hopefully) final image:

schmoo

Hey Ziggy, great clouds! The thing that I keep missing in these shots is the detail in the cloud highlights. There's nice shadows and shapes in there but the blown out bits get in the way for me.

Lovely spot!

canon400d

schmoo wrote:

Hey Ziggy, great clouds! The thing that I keep missing in these shots is the detail in the cloud highlights. There's nice shadows and shapes in there but the blown out bits get in the way for me.

Lovely spot!

Hi Ziggy,
To me that photo is brilliant and I love it just as much as you do. Well done.
Regards
Bob

ziggy53

schmoo wrote:

Hey Ziggy, great clouds! The thing that I keep missing in these shots is the detail in the cloud highlights. There's nice shadows and shapes in there but the blown out bits get in the way for me.

Lovely spot!

Schmoo 'tis true, those clouds are blown in areas. I checked the original and those large white areas are indeed 254,254,254. Short of painting something back in, not too much I can do.

I may visit the site again some day, but for now it is what it is. I think that's partly why I originally went with a crop which included much less sky.

Thanks,

ziggy53

canon400d wrote:

Hi Ziggy,
To me that photo is brilliant and I love it just as much as you do. Well done.
Regards
Bob

Thanks Bob,

It's turned into quite a project, but it's a labor of love.