New England in the Fall

[Viana]

I love playing with highly rendered techniques.


What do you think?

[Harpo]

Viana- I think its a real good image to start with, so they both look good. The artsy version is not overdone and the clouds are more interesting there than the first. I notice the leaves on the shade side are lit up. Strobe/flash?

[kdoc856]

Viana<

On Sunday, I prefer the plain; on Monday, the artsy. Both excellent and emotive in different ways. Purely a matter of taste (and mood). Sometimes I feel highly rendered images are trying too hard, and sometimes they seem genius. I'd be proud of both of these

Kevin

[Viana]

Thanks for the comments guys.

Viana- I think its a real good image to start with, so they both look good. The artsy version is not overdone and the clouds are more interesting there than the first. I notice the leaves on the shade side are lit up. Strobe/flash?

No flash or strobe.


Actually, Mike in the original SOOC the leaves are in silhouette. I debated about leaving them dark, but decided that I preferred the “Fill Light” look.


Everything is done via PSP in Lightroom and Photoshop.


It is easier to recover dark areas in a photo than blown highlights.

Viana<


On Sunday, I prefer the plain; on Monday, the artsy. Both excellent and emotive in different ways. Purely a matter of taste (and mood). Sometimes I feel highly rendered images are trying too hard, and sometimes they seem genius. I'd be proud of both of these


Kevin

Thanks Kevin. I try to not make the “artsy,” rendered photos look weirded out.


Your response was rather like mine: One day this, another day that. I like them both; so it is a matter of mood and personal taste as to which one is superior to whomever is looking.

[jjbacoomba]

Both are amazing!

[Viana]

Both are amazing!

Thank you, Joe.

[Colin Southern]

I thought the composition (and timing) was superb, but there were aspects of both versions that I didn't think did them justice (the first is a little flat and soft, whereas the 2nd is too surreal for my taste), so I thought I'd try an alternative look for you. Hope you don't mind ...

[Harpo]

Whoa! Colin, thats a nice one too. Did you sorta combine both images or work off the first one on PP and make it like this? I really like what you did.

[Colin Southern]

Whoa! Colin, thats a nice one too. Did you sorta combine both images or work off the first one on PP and make it like this? I really like what you did.

Hi Mike,

I just worked off the first one. It had quite dark shadows, but obviously very light midtones, which can make this type of image difficult "to attack" processing wise, so a technique I use is to apply a positive vignette to lift the shadows way up - then apply clarity and adjustments to fine-tune the low end - and then re-apply a vignette (all in one ACR operation) so that I get some punch in the sky, but without killing the shadows. In Photoshop I just gave it a quick sharpen, and a minor tweak to the levels.

[Harpo]

Geez, colin, you make it sound so easy!