Learning Landscapes

[Brownbear]

A foggy day landscape of Vancouver photographed from the top of Grouse Mountain. I focused on the top of the mountains at the horizon. I used a polarizing filter, and dodged and burned to try and balance the exposure. Something new for my postprocessing skills.

The white balance is set at sunny which it was, but I'm not sure if the photo is too blue.

I can see some horizontal streaks in the sky. I'm not sure what caused this. I did not sharpen the sky but I did decrease the exposure.

F11 SS 100 ISO 100

Un-cropped



Cropped



C&C please, comments on focus especially. Thank you.

[tbob]

Christina : The focus seems fine. I cannot fully expand the photo but the trees in the lower right seem sharp and the fog will fuzz out the background so this seem s real.

I would go for a more aggressive crop. Trim to just above the light line of clouds over Mount Baker. The light sky is still too dominant in my opinion.

I am not sure if that area on the lower left (just below the line of bright clouds) is a spot where the fog is clearing or an error in the burn but it sort of jumps out.

I do feel you need to get more separation between the clouds and mountains in the back (Baker et al) so maybe try burning them a bit more.

[Stagecoach]

Hi Christina,

Landscapes and mountains are an area I have not dabbled with so my comments on these are very limited. The foreground trees do not appear overly sharp to me with the image expanded and it's difficult to compare sharpness with the trees farther back as they will be affected by the fog and distance. But saying this it does not detract things from the beauty of the scene.

This seems like one for the 'processing' learning curve so I look forward to reading more comments as Trevor has already mentioned the separation.

Out of interest I had been planning a trip into the interior of the island last week to try and capture mountains and cloud but the weather was way too bad, maybe this week will be o.k but it must be good for next Saturday as car sprints at an old airfield are happening

Grahame

[pnodrog]

Trevor is putting you on the right track. The cropping is personal preference but certainly the background mountains need to be emphasized a bit more than in your photo. Below is a version adjusted using CS6 with the mountains manually selected with a mask and then the curves adjusted.

[Brownbear]

Thank you Trevor, Grahame and L. Paul for your helpful replies and advice. I am concentrating on learning to to post process so I will work on this image later today trying all of your suggestions and I will post my attempt later today or by tomorrow the latest.

Separation is something new for me to think about so thank you for sharing. I think I lightened the mountains and sky, and it looks like L. Paul did the opposite so I will play with that idea.

Trevor I will check out that spot in the lower left.

Grahame, sending you lots of good weather!

[Hui Song]

Maybe you can use GND for the sky part.

[Brownbear]

Hi Hui,

Thank you. I will give it a try.

Maybe you can use GND for the sky part.

[Dusty]

This may sound strange, even though I shoot raw all the time I always leave my WB on 'cloudy' as it gives it a warm tone to the image. It's a good starting point in pp.
Dave.

[Brownbear]

Thank you for sharing Dave. I will give it a try next time around. In my edit below I did choose a warmer white balance.

Here are my edits... I followed Trevor's and Paul's tips to achieve more separation in the mountains using curves applied just to the mountains, and selectively darkening the sky and clouds. Trevor that spot is the fog dissipating around the trees.

I find it very hard to selectively edit anything with trees or mountains so I think I will invest in a gradient filter... It is just too hard to do well.




Thank you to everyone for your help... The exercise taught me a lot and helped my post processing skills. Now it is time for me to move on to another landscape and hopefully do it better.