iced in

[jiro]

I wish I could help you, John. Really. The problem is... I really haven't tried GIMP yet. All the basic adjustments that I did was actually done inside ACDSEE Pro, which can handle RAW files as well. I adjusted the highlight slider (more like pegging the brightness down) then I played around with the shadow sliders a little bit. Then, I exported the file to photoshop since ACDSEE Pro don't do layers. From there I made some more adjustment on the exposure and contrast. The best guy that I know who can help you with GIMP is Donald (if he has time since he's busy learning his new speedlite. Hehe, Just joking Donald). . I hope others who uses GIMP will help you here. I'm more at ease using photoshop that's why I did not try to use other program anymore.

Oh, I forgot to answer your question. I applied selective dodging and burning on areas that I need to isolate the bright and dark areas depending on how I interpret the lighting on the image. Hope this helps.

[Bad Monkey]

Ah this might be an unpopular first post and no offense intended, but I think that if the intent is realism, some of the comments are off target. Jiro's picture is dramatic but to my eye horribly unrealistic.

Jctonti only you have the memory of what the original scene looked like. But from your original post, just correcting white balance and adding a little local contrast enhancement give the following. I include the curves used in PS to show what I feel is necessary to correct white balance.

This isn't intended as a final version... only to show 30 seconds of color correction efforts, as a starting point.

(It is very common in my experience, by the way, for photos of ice and snow, water too, to end up too blue with auto-WB. I have dealt with photographing and videoing scenes in Antarctica and come across this routinely).

[Peter Ryan]

Peter

I find myself having to disagree with you on that one.

The secret of the in-camera light meter in Manual is to understand and appreciate that it is working differently to how it works in one of the semi-auto modes.

In Manual, the internal meter is telling you what you'll get with whatever ISO, Shutter and Aperture settings you've dialled in. Given that I use spot metering almost 100% of the time, I find it a highly effective means of helping my assessment of the tones across a scene. I then know what I've got in each part of the planned image and get make my settings accordingly.

So, using your in-camera meter in Manual is another skill set, but I don't agree with the view that it does not help you when shooting in Manual.

Hi Donald,

I wrote this over the weekend but my email was struggling and when I got back to Melbourne I had left the window open and got quiet a lot of water in from the recent storm, so sorry for the delay in posting this.

Yes Donald I do agree it is another skill but I am intrigued in why you use manual settings and I would like to learn how and why you go about it.

The reason I suggested moving off manual was when I looked at the EXIF data I saw some pretty unusual settings and this was reinforced when John (sorry to use you for this discussion John but I am looking to learn something from Donald so please excuse me expanding this discussion) was not sure where the light meter was on his camera and another post suggested using eh histogram as a light meter. I opened up my reply saying I had to rush but answered the question in relation to the WB adjustment and where to find EXIF data.

If I remember you use a Nikon, like myself, and if you use spot metering then the light meter reads just the light reflecting off whatever you point to highlighted selector at. You then need to adjust either the aperture or shutter until the meter light lights up to indicate that the scene is correctly exposed (according to the light meter).

I assume you normally concentrate on DOF so the Aperture is your predominant control so you would set your aperture and adjust the shutter in manual mode to come up with your reading. Using this to meter different light sources in your scene you would then point the highlighted selector at the point and adjust the shutter again.

Why not just use aperture priority, in spot meter mode and when you move to a different part of the scene the correct shutter is shown for that part and you can quickly work out how many stops of light difference there are.

Everyone shoots their own way and in a way they have become comfortable with but it is important to have a grasp on why you are altering either aperture, shutter, EV or ISO with just fiddling to get a correct histogram.

So my initial response was meant to be helpful in getting John back to basics an understanding why we adjust each element.

As regards WB settings, while shooting in RAW does not set the WB it does set the peg mark so when you open up in a RAW converter you start from whatever mark you chose for the shot.

I hope you don’t mind indulging me in this Donald but I always like to learn how people approach their photography

[Donald]

Peter

All that you write makes perfect sense I have no issue with it at all. The only statement I did not agree with was, "the one (meter) in your camera does not help you in manual", because I think it can and does help. It's just a matter of learning the 'other way' to use it.

You mentioned about thinking I was a Nikon user. Sorry, I'm from the other camp! But no matter, it's not relevant here.

As to why I shoot manual. I have to confess that it's now nothing more technical or scientific than habit and repute!

When I first joined this site, I had just recently bought my Canon 40D and was at a very, very basic point on the learning curve. I was devouring the user manual and reading all this stuff about 'auto modes'; 'semi-auto modes', 'manual', etc and trying to understand what they meant. Then I read a post on here from our friend and colleague a couple of thousand miles south-east of you, down Nelson way, which said something like 'Learn to shoot in manual'. So, it's all his fault (everything is!).

I turned the switch to manual .... and it's been there ever since. In the beginning there were a lot of howlers. I was making huge mistakes and went through one of those phases (there were many) of 'I'll never learn this nonsense. I can't be a photographer. I'll sell the camera'.

But, luckily, I persevered. And gradually it began to make sense. And why did I do it?

I think it was the challenge. And that remains the case today. It's maybe a bit masochistic. I know it's stupid and even childish when you say it aloud, but when I look at the finished article I know that I was in total charge of the whole process from beginning to end. Good, bad or indifferent, I made all the decisions. Now, as I say, I know that applies if you use Av and EC. But to my simple mind, it 'feels' different. (I can be just as irrational as the next person in my thought processes!)

The procedure I apply is just as you described it. As you know, my 'thing' is B & W. I feel reasonably confident in asserting that I can see an image in B & W. So when I'm taking my spot readings with the in-camera meter, I am 'thinking'/'seeing' tones of grey (or at least I convince myself that I am). The exercise of comparing light from these tones with the use of the in-camera meter could, as you suggest, just as well be done in AV and spot meter. But, as said above, it's just that I've now got in to a workflow that sort-of works for me. If I was to switch to Av now, I'd have to go back to school and learn how to do it.

Now that might point to my limitations in not being creative enough in terms of switching between modes depending on the circumstances. For example, whenever I read comments from people saying, 'I used matrix metering for this, spot for that and centre weighted for this' I always feel my knowledge and skills are deficient because I don't know why you want/need to switch between them.

I am probably one of the most technically ignorant/naive people on here. Some of the discussions about technical matters go way over my head. I operate very much on a 'what works for me' principle. So, I'm afraid the 'whats' and 'whys' boil down to nothing more complicated than - 'It works'.

I hope this goes some way to explaining where I was coming from when I wrote what I did above.

[Peter Ryan]

Thanks Donald,

I wasn’t upset with anything you wrote – you were right and I was a bit short with my original response due to time but I didn’t know if I was missing anything particular about manual shooting.

I know you see in B & W and I am envious. I do not see the same contrasts when I look at a scene but I am practising.

Thanks for taking the time to explain.