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^^I'd say that's a very accurate portrayal of how the scene appeared in person. It was overcast but not dark, so the lighting was soft. My original shot is darker than the real thing because I tend to underexpose my shots to prevent blowing out the highlights. I probably had the camera in Velvia mode, but I can't remember for certain.
Being able to separate highlights, mid tones, and shadow detail and work each by themselves is good digital darkroom tool. I'd like to shoot that type of landscape with a very wide angle lens with several different films. That type of location will challenge you to pull out all the stops to get all the details and shapes and textures. Cloudy conditions IMHO negative film wins with its greater latitude for exposure. So much for getting on the road today. Plans changed. Leaving about daylight in the morning to get back and shoot some FL landscapes while I have my wife available as helping hands. l do have some more photos to share when I can convert them from RAW to jpg untouched other than sizing.
Lamp, was that taken at Hoh or nearby? That was a challenging place for me to photograph but then my camera then was rather limited in ISO range.
That shot was taken at Whatcom Falls Park, which is in my town. It's a great place, but I've found it challenging to get shots of the forest that are actually interesting. Having a water feature helps a lot, IMO.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nomadicus
Being able to separate highlights, mid tones, and shadow detail and work each by themselves is good digital darkroom tool. I'd like to shoot that type of landscape with a very wide angle lens with several different films. That type of location will challenge you to pull out all the stops to get all the details and shapes and textures. Cloudy conditions IMHO negative film wins with its greater latitude for exposure. So much for getting on the road today. Plans changed. Leaving about daylight in the morning to get back and shoot some FL landscapes while I have my wife available as helping hands. l do have some more photos to share when I can convert them from RAW to jpg untouched other than sizing.
Here's another shot from the same area. My limited Photoshop skills hurt me on this shot, because I struggled to lighten the picture without blowing out the waterfall (which is already blown out in spots!). I could lighten it by adjusting curves, but that made everything I lightened look sort of...dull. I probably could have done a little better if I spent a lot more time on it, but I gave up.
That was taken on a different day, and late in the day, and it really was nearly that dark. I may play with it again to see if I can do better now, and of course anyone else it welcome to edit it.
After seeing these great edits, I decided to have another go at my own photo. I have Photoshop 7, and I don't believe there's an option to just adjust shadows. I can tweak it in curves, but that always results in my underexposed areas looking sort of grayish and dull. I duplicated the layer, adjusted the new layer to get the darker areas the way I wanted, then erased the blown highlights so that the original layer was visible just in those areas. But now the light areas in the water don't look natural to me. My attempt doesn't look right at all so I'm not even going to post it.
I used a plugin set called Power Retouche to add light coming from the left, but adjusted it not to brighten the white or light areas of the water. Then I used the same plugin to boost the red in the picture, and used the auto tone and auto color settings of CS5.
After seeing these great edits, I decided to have another go at my own photo. I have Photoshop 7, and I don't believe there's an option to just adjust shadows. I can tweak it in curves, but that always results in my underexposed areas looking sort of grayish and dull. I duplicated the layer, adjusted the new layer to get the darker areas the way I wanted, then erased the blown highlights so that the original layer was visible just in those areas. But now the light areas in the water don't look natural to me. My attempt doesn't look right at all so I'm not even going to post it.
I started with 7.0 and it seem like there is a place to work on highlights, midtones, and shadows in it too. Just in a different place in the menu. The help file may take you right to it. I try now to avoid curves. I was taught to use them but I have found better ways to do things. My memory tells me I could even work on shadows and highlights way back in Photoshop Elements 3.0.
After seeing these great edits, I decided to have another go at my own photo. I have Photoshop 7, and I don't believe there's an option to just adjust shadows. I can tweak it in curves, but that always results in my underexposed areas looking sort of grayish and dull. I duplicated the layer, adjusted the new layer to get the darker areas the way I wanted, then erased the blown highlights so that the original layer was visible just in those areas. But now the light areas in the water don't look natural to me. My attempt doesn't look right at all so I'm not even going to post it.
the new lightroom version 4 and cs6 have seperate sliders for highlights ,midtones and shadows.
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