All Saints Church, Bisham in Spring Sunshine

[ChrisH]

This wonderful old church sits on the banks of the River Thames just up stream from Marlow Bridge. I have done very little editing and just wonder what I could do to improve this image - suggestions gratefully received.


Aperture: f/9.0 Exposure: 1/100 ISO: 100

[jiro]

Very nice, Chris. Take out the bush on the front part at the right side and this image is a winner!

[Donald]

That is just a very lovely scene, very well captured. I note what Willie is saying, but, for me, the greater irritation are the two spars of the safety rail on the left hand side of the path just creeping in at the edge of the frame.

I think you've got just the right amount of tree branch coming in at the upper left, just the right amount of tree over on the far side at the right and the whole thing is beautifully exposed

[ChrisH]

Thanks Donald - I saw them too after posting and have removed the offending rails. Willie, I felt that the brush underpinned the right hand foreground interest (not that it's particularly inspiring), however I will have a go and see if it works. Thanks both you guys for your comments.

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Chris,

I agree with the rails going.

As it stands, the foreground bush 'blocks the river' (to the eye), so perhaps there's a deal to be struck where it is trimmed back (significantly) so that the top doesn't reach more than two thirds across the river.

In addition, for me, I'd take a tiny slither off the right hand side, just in line with the first texture change on the wall on far bank.

Regards,

[ChrisH]

Thanks Dave - I have taken on board your suggestions and posted the result below. Cloning is always difficult on wind sept water to try and create something that looks natural and free of "cloning evidence". I am snot sure I have totally succeeded here, the bush also looks unnatural as if an enraged photographer had taken a pair of sheers to it. I will probably have another crack when I have some spare time. Thanks for all your help - its been fun.

[jiro]

Looking good, Chris! Good job.

[ANSORB]

This is a charming photograph which couldn't be anywhere but England. I agree with the comments and it is better without the extra fencing but what struck me first was that the sky had a well marked magenta cast. If a magenta sky is what you want then you are quite entitled to have one and nobody can say otherwise. If it isn't what you intended, however, it may be better to remove it.

So, not knowing if your sky is meant to be a bit purple and the clouds a bit red I have taken the liberty removing it from both and posting the result. It is not a particularly good result and I hope it would be better from an original RAW file. In particular there are problems with the water and in any case the result may not look as good on your monitor as it does on mine. But seen alongside the original the cast is more obvious and that's the point, really. Not all casts are bad news, but if you don't spot them you may miss out on a correction which really does make a worthwhile improvement.



I won't post the method I used because I don't know what editor Christopher has and it doesn't seem fair to show how it can be done in CS5 if he doesn't have it or one of the other rercent versions of Photoshop. It can be done in other programs, I know, and then it would be better explained by those who have them.

[ChrisH]

Thanks for your comments John.

I use Photoshop CS4 as my principal editor, so I would love to see your version and to know how you arrived at it.

Coming from Cambridge (I am assuming Cambridge, England) you will know that Marlow is located 30 miles west of London and about 10 miles from the western end of the runways at London (Heathrow) Airport. As a result of this we have a substantial amount of air pollution, which is particularly visible in the eastern sky on sunny clear days, which also has a nasty habit being picked up by the camera and becomes more obvious if saturation is used. I wonder if this is what has happened here. I can see a very mild tint here, but nothing untoward, although I cannot confirm that my screen is calibrated properly. I normally use a ticked neutralize box in Match Colour, which helps resolves colour casts and did so with this edit.

Let's see you version so I can compare it with mine. Thanks for having a go and for your comments.

[ANSORB]

I can't understand why my version did not appear with posting. I thought I had followed the proper procedure and Tinypic said the upload was successful. I thought Tinypics was up to its tricks again and not displaying images again but maybe not. I can post you the before/after off list if you let me know where to send it, meantime I'll try and post it here

[Dave Humphries]

I can't understand why my version did not appear with posting. I thought I had followed the proper procedure and Tinypic said the upload was successful. I thought Tinypics was up to its tricks again and not displaying images again but maybe not. I can post you the before/after off list if you let me know where to send it, meantime I'll try and post it here

Hi John,

It is quite misleading that you haven't finished when it says "Success", you still need to copy the BB link from the TinyPic window and paste it into the post itself (and be careful where the cursor is when you paste). See step 4 here.

Cheers,

[Dave Humphries]

Thanks Dave - I have taken on board your suggestions and posted the result below. Cloning is always difficult on wind sept water to try and create something that looks natural and free of "cloning evidence". I am snot sure I have totally succeeded here, the bush also looks unnatural as if an enraged photographer had taken a pair of sheers to it. I will probably have another crack when I have some spare time. Thanks for all your help - its been fun.

Hi Chris,

In hindsight, some secatuer pruning of individual stems was probably better than hacking it with a hedgetrimmer

Now seriously; it is better and has opened up the river as a path for the eye to follow.

The cloning of the water looks ok to me, but it might be worth trying some darker tones mixed in to represent the shadow side of the church and roof - although the latter isn't really distinguishable in the original either.

Now John has mentioned it, I can see what he means about the magenta hue to the sky, but I hadn't noticed it before - but then I live with the same smog, probably worse, as my house directly beneath the landing glide path if only they would glide

Anyway, that looks a nice spot, I must bring my D5000 that way someday,

[ANSORB]

Thank you Dave, The correct procedure is now burned in to my brain.

I have manged to edit my previous post and add the missing images, as you can see. The cast in Chris' is more obviious when seen alongside my "corrected" version though my version still leaves room for improvement. My point is that casts can be deceptive and need to be looked for for for several reasons. 1. They may not be obvious (the info palette is a very useful guide) 2. if you process the image uncorrected the cast may become worse, 3. Just removing even mild casts can improve impact. There are probably some others but it is too early in the morning.

Anyway, I won't go on, it is a bit of a hobby horse. It has been an interesting topic and I have learnt how to post with Tinypic. Definite progress.

[ChrisH]

John - Here is my attempt at removing the magenta cast. I achieved this selecting the sky and adjusting the blue channel in the Channel Mixer. Is this how you went about yours?

[ANSORB]

No, but of course there are lots of different ways of doing things in photoshop. You still have purple clounds clouds but the sky is much better and better than mine. It makes a difference, doesn't it? If I get time I'll post what I did - I hope I can remember the details.

[ANSORB]

John - Here is my attempt at removing the magenta cast. I achieved this selecting the sky and adjusting the blue channel in the Channel Mixer. Is this how you went about yours?

I have been too busy to follow this up before but that has given me a chance to think about it some more. My first attempt was over complicated and got me in to trouble. There are some simple methods for doing this and the only comment I would make about your method is that you shouldn't make selections. The reason is that the river picks up colour from the sky and it is better just to correct the blues in general which will adjust the sky and water simultaneously and keep them in sync, so to speak. Your channel mixer method should work fine.

I used Selective Colour as an adjustment layer, selected blue from the drop down menu and reduced the magenta until I got a sky I liked. The river changed in tandem and the changes in both were seamless.

There is a potential snag (with any method which doesn't use a selection) and that is that other colours may change as well. Not much in this image, perhaps, but significantly in others. To avoid that you need a mask for the adjustment layer and one of the channels makes a good starting point. I used the blue channel here. Channel based masks, good though they are, often need some tweaking with levels, curves, or painting, etc. to be really effective. Oh, and they usually have to blurred quite significantly (20-30+ pixels) to bring sharpness back in the image. Hardly intuitive, but true.

Hope that helps. I imagine you are familiar with using channels masks but if not I can go into it some more. I think that might be better in Post Processing. however