Hall's Pond Sanctuary

[Alis]

Comments welcome as always:

[KentDub]

One word: "Wow"
Great color. It has a good forground, middle, and background. So much of the image seems to be in a slight shadow maybe brighten the entire image just a tad - the clouds don't look quite bright enough.

Great shot, Alis.

[Alis]

Originally Posted by KentDub

One word: "Wow"
Great color. It has a good forground, middle, and background. So much of the image seems to be in a slight shadow maybe brighten the entire image just a tad - the clouds don't look quite bright enough.

Great shot, Alis.

Thanks! I used a 3-Stop Singh Ray GND for this.

It was too windy or may be I oversharpened it again, the trees look very frosty.

Also, I think it needs a little bit more color, the scene was exactly like this in real life but I think the picture should be a little bit more vibrant

[arith]

I think it is great.

Is Singh Ray like Cokin graduated grey?

[Alis]

Originally Posted by arith

I think it is great.

Is Singh Ray like Cokin graduated grey?

Thanks, Arith!

I think it is, The difference should be just in quality of the picture they produce, only changing the exposure and not adding any colors to the image...

But someone like Colin should be talking about this. I only have tried SR for about a month now

[Alis]

Here is another one from the same place taken today:

[Colin Southern]

Originally Posted by Alis

But someone like Colin should be talking about this. I only have tried SR for about a month now

Here I am -- sorry I'm late

With regards to the first shot ...

- Yep - definately over-sharpened. What's your workflow on these? You're not applying capture sharpening after down-sampling are you? (or applying too agressive output sharpening?)

- Keep in mind that GND filters are used primarity for dynamic range control and balancing an exposure - but the first question is "do you want/need to do that in the particular scene you're looking at"? In this case the plants in the foreground are as bright as the sky - which breaks the rules of local contrast. I'd suggest giving the foreground a wipe-over with the burn tool set to shadow and same set to mid-tones.

- Colour looks OK to me - if you get the sharpening right you'll have less frosting which will improve the saturation anyway. In fact - if anything - I'd probably pop the vibrance back 15% or so.

- Needs a border to isolate the shot.

- No son?

[Alis]

Originally Posted by Colin Southern

Here I am -- sorry I'm late

Recently, I have noticed you are late more often. We keep beating you even in landscape section all more and more. Not sure what the reason is

With regards to the first shot ...

- Yep - definately over-sharpened. What's your workflow on these? You're not applying capture sharpening after down-sampling are you? (or applying too agressive output sharpening?)

I did apply capture sharpening (300/0.3) but I have trouble with the second round. And my output sharpening always looks too much, even when I go really low on "amount". I have to work on that.

- Keep in mind that GND filters are used primarity for dynamic range control and balancing an exposure - but the first question is "do you want/need to do that in the particular scene you're looking at"? In this case the plants in the foreground are as bright as the sky - which breaks the rules of local contrast. I'd suggest giving the foreground a wipe-over with the burn tool set to shadow and same set to mid-tones.

Could you please explain this a bit more when you get a chance. Thanks!

- Colour looks OK to me - if you get the sharpening right you'll have less frosting which will improve the saturation anyway. In fact - if anything - I'd probably pop the vibrance back 15% or so.

I have a few more shots and will try different settings on those. It was very windy, and I guess I should not try to extend the exposure in this situation. I was trying to get a smooth water surface and clouds but then the tree were also moving the whole time and trying to sharpen those I guess was what made the leaves look frosty.

- Needs a border to isolate the shot.

I keep for getting that part. Too many things to remember!

- No son?

Nope! Was at a Halloween party (as a firefighter, nothing scary!) I may actually post a few of those shots later on!

[KentDub]

Originally Posted by Alis

I did apply capture sharpening (300/0.3) but I have trouble with the second round. And my output sharpening always looks too much, even when I go really low on "amount". I have to work on that.

In my experience - that usually means you are applying too much presharpening. Presharpening should be fairly subtle (subtle yet significant) - this helps protect the image when you upsample or downsample it. Would be interested to get other peoples opinions though.

Originally Posted by Alis

Could you please explain this a bit more when you get a chance. Thanks!

Let me give this a shot. In a normal shot (without the GND) the sky is much brighter than the rest of the scene. When you use the GND you are making the sky overlap in tonal ranges with the rest of the image. We do same for HDR shots so you can see both inside and outside (say, looking though a window). When things overlap they look odd, but arn't necessarily obvious. A shot without GND has a liner luminance curve, dark things are dark, bright things are bright. When you use the GND, this is no longer the case, Dark things are dark, but some bright things are bright and other bright things are midtones.

As opposed to Colin's suggestion - I wouldn't touch the plants because they look so fantastic. I would recommend trying brighting the sky so the clouds bearly start to clip and see how it looks. In natural lighting, it's uncommon that anything is brighter than white clouds. Use a curves adjustment layer instead of levels so you can protect the detail. Try both and compare

Hope this helps

[Alis]

Originally Posted by KentDub

As opposed to Colin's suggestion - I wouldn't touch the plants because they look so fantastic. I would recommend trying brighting the sky so the clouds bearly start to clip and see how it looks. In natural lighting, it's uncommon that anything is brighter than white clouds. Use a curves adjustment layer instead of levels so you can protect the detail. Try both and compare

Hope this helps

Thanks, kent! We beat Colin once again

I actually brightened the foreground and the plants a little bit during PP. I will leave them alone this time to see how it looks.

[Colin Southern]

Hi Ali,

Just to eliminate capture sharpening as the source of the problem, can you just confirm that you did it before you down-sampled the image?

300/0.3 is safe on virtually all images - it's only affects high-frequency components, but thats what the anti-aliasing and demosaicing are softening. It HAS to be done on the full resolution image though.

For content/creative sharpening on that type of image you'll need to keep the amount down around the high-frequency stuff - but (try 20%) but up the radius to something around 2 to 4 (remember to view it at approx final SIZE (not resolution). Output sharpening probably won't work to well, but you could try something like 125/0.3.

With regards to local contrast ... it's the "knowledge" in our brains that tell us that the sky (up there where the sun is) is going to be brighter than the foliage at the bottom of the frame - and yet because of your filter you've inverted this - so the foliage is brighter than the sky (slightly) - and that tells the brain that "something's wrong". Having just said all that, you almost get away with it because of the shadows over the area. It's the kind of shot that I probably wouldn't have used the GND on - fill light would probably have done enough.

[Colin Southern]

Originally Posted by KentDub

In my experience - that usually means you are applying too much presharpening. Presharpening should be fairly subtle (subtle yet significant) - this helps protect the image when you upsample or downsample it. Would be interested to get other peoples opinions though.

I've never hear of "pre-sharpening" - I'm assuming that you mean "capture sharpening". If so it's not a "protection mechanism" per sec - it's just a compensation for the softening introduced by the anti-aliasing filter and demosaicing process (the digitization process as well, but that's pretty much a "given"). If doesn't make any difference to the final (printed) image unless you were printing really big; it just makes the image much easier to work on at 100% view.


Let me give this a shot. In a normal shot (without the GND) the sky is much brighter than the rest of the scene. When you use the GND you are making the sky overlap in tonal ranges with the rest of the image. We do same for HDR shots so you can see both inside and outside (say, looking though a window). When things overlap they look odd, but arn't necessarily obvious. A shot without GND has a liner luminance curve, dark things are dark, bright things are bright. When you use the GND, this is no longer the case, Dark things are dark, but some bright things are bright and other bright things are midtones.

As opposed to Colin's suggestion - I wouldn't touch the plants because they look so fantastic. I would recommend trying brighting the sky so the clouds bearly start to clip and see how it looks. In natural lighting, it's uncommon that anything is brighter than white clouds. Use a curves adjustment layer instead of levels so you can protect the detail. Try both and compare

Hope this helps [/QUOTE]

[KentDub]

Originally Posted by Colin Southern

I've never hear of "pre-sharpening" - I'm assuming that you mean "capture sharpening". If so it's not a "protection mechanism" per sec - it's just a compensation for the softening introduced by the anti-aliasing filter and demosaicing process (the digitization process as well, but that's pretty much a "given"). If doesn't make any difference to the final (printed) image unless you were printing really big; it just makes the image much easier to work on at 100% view.

Yes, I refer to capture sharpening as raw pre-sharpening, if you ever hear me say that - that is what I am referring to. Indeed it is not a protection mechanism -- my statement was more to the fact that if you apply too much presharpening (capture sharpening) you can potentially cause issues when the image is resized, and may also cause issues when output sharpening is applied.

[Colin Southern]

Originally Posted by KentDub

Yes, I refer to capture sharpening as raw pre-sharpening, if you ever hear me say that - that is what I am referring to. Indeed it is not a protection mechanism -- my statement was more to the fact that if you apply too much presharpening (capture sharpening) you can potentially cause issues when the image is resized, and may also cause issues when output sharpening is applied.

Hmmm ... it's not really "pre-sharpening" ... it's just sharpening

99.999% of my images have a set amount of capture sharpening applied (300%/0.3 pixel as per Canon's white paper on optimising 1D3 / 1Ds3 images). I'd like to be able to do it in ACR, but the minimum is 0.5 pixel, which I don't like - so I just have it as an action in PS.

I can't imagine it having too much effect on an image before/after resampling, unless you used something like bicubic smoother to down-sample.

[Alis]

Originally Posted by Colin Southern

Hi Ali,

Just to eliminate capture sharpening as the source of the problem, can you just confirm that you did it before you down-sampled the image?

Thanks! I see now what you mean.

And yes, I did it before anything else, as soon as I opened it in PS.

[Alis]

Originally Posted by Colin Southern

I'd like to be able to do it in ACR, but the minimum is 0.5 pixel, which I don't like - so I just have it as an action in PS.

Very interesting, I made it an action in PS too. Just press F2 and it applies to the image, as soon as I open it in Photoshop.

[taken]

lovely colors! infact its a colorful pic! my only grudge is tha empty space showing the blue sky on the top corner! which keeps taking my eye away from the scene.....no matter how much i fight myself to keep my eyes in! its just not working! then the almost center dividing of the image btween the water and trees is sort off breaking the smoothness,landscapes demand!....... continous smoothness such images demand, is all over the place...like my eyes r playing ping pong!

[Colin Southern]

Hi Ali - thanks for the file - I'd rather have the first one though (you sent the 2nd which had too much motion blur due to some Doctor-practicing-medicine-until-he-breaks-into-photography taking it at F16 on a windy day with a shutterspeed of 1.5 seconds!) (but a depth of field roughly from the end of his nose to infinity and beyond!).

[Alis]

Originally Posted by Colin Southern

Hi Ali - thanks for the file - I'd rather have the first one though (you sent the 2nd which had too much motion blur due to some Doctor-practicing-medicine-until-he-breaks-into-photography taking it at F16 on a windy day with a shutterspeed of 1.5 seconds!) (but a depth of field roughly from the end of his nose to infinity and beyond!).

Ok, I just saw this. I will send it right now.

About the setting, you are right. It was using a crazy setting. Now what you do not know is that I was trying the VariND on top of all of this . I knew this is going to be a problem but thought I paid a lot of money for it so I have to use it somewhere.

But that is usually how I do it. Yesterday, I was just trying to act like a nature photographer. I am still practicing the logistics, how to change filters and lenses in the field, how to not pay attention to people around me, how to remember not to sit on the ground near the lake which might be muddy, how not to forget to carry my camera bag with me when I move the tripod and wander around, etc, etc. Very systematic!

Imaging if you go to the operating room for the first time and start operating! That is how I feel right now!

[Colin Southern]

Originally Posted by Alis

Ok, I just saw this. I will send it right now.

About the setting, you are right. It was using a crazy setting. Now what you do not know is that I was trying the VariND on top of all of this . I knew this is going to be a problem but thought I paid a lot of money for it so I have to use it somewhere.

Hi Ali,

I'd suggest practicing on a waterfall (or some kind of running water) with the Vari-ND - I think you'll like the results