Hey all. I recently took a few photos on a nearby beach. Sunset was brilliant...just the tail end of a storm. When I got home, the whole picture seems muted, dull. I tried to adjust and process in Lightroom, but nothing I do seems to make the picture pop. Landscape photographers out there, any advice on what I can do next time I try this shot? Landscape photography is the bane of my photography existence, and I desperately what to become better.
@elaine55 Yes it was Elaine. I know raw files tend to be bland originally, but even trying to adjust it, it still seems dull. I'm guessing exposure bracketing and combining to HDR would have helped.
I often do bracketing with landscape shots but if I have a single image I tonemap in Photomatix to bring out the details. I sometimes play around with the sliders but not always. This image from yesterday was a single photo tone mapped and then into PS Elements for cleaning up. http://365project.org/elaine55/year-2-365/2014-07-13
you can make the image pop by using layers in an editing suite (not sure if you can use layers in lightroom because I don't use it, but something like gimp or photoshop. you duplicate the layer and overlay it using the multiply blend mode, erase the bottom of the overlaid image (as it will make the grass dark and merge the 2 images together, give the image an unsharp mask and then play around with curves and jobs a good one. If you want even more colour create a new layer and with a paint brush select a colour similar to the colour you want to enhance and paint over the image on the bits of the same colour, Blur this layer with a gaussian blur until you no longer see any brush definition and set the blend mode to overlay then decrease the opacity until it looks natural :D
@losthorizon My advice for this would be get yourself a ND Grad filter It will balance out exposure of the sky and land this will allow you more scope in processing.
@elaine55 Wow Elaine. Stunning image. Thanks so much for the advice. Gonna look up Photomatix. Never realized there was a difference between HDR and stonewalling.
I had a very quick play with a low res version of your image (hope you don't mind) in Lightroom4
All I did was a apply a graduated filter from the top to the bottom of the image and decreased the exposure slightly, upped the contrast, v slight increase in saturation and increased in clarity.
I then applied another graduated filter from the bottom of the picture just up to the top of the grass and increased exposure, sharpness, contrast and clarity.
All done a bit unsubtly, but I think it gives a bit more punch.
Sometimes I push some of the colors and pull back on others. For example, I might push the blue in the sky slightly to the aqua side. Saturday any reds, pinks, magentas etc. Push the sky vibrancy up in general.
De-sat the greens a bit or push their vibrancy down. Possible just on the grass area.
Brighten the tree.
I would play till the photo had more "pop" value for me.
Also, this is a little too far away for me. Too much grass. Makes the tree look smallish. And no tree wants to feel small.
Okay, going to grab a copy and have a go at the editing.
Here is another try. I did a slight crop, a neutral density filter, a skylight filter ( I was trying to keep some of the glow from the sun on the grasses) a slight upside down curves adjustment and noise reduction on the sky only.
I'd stay away from the HDR effects, but then I don't admire the huge edge glows, stark wide edges and garish color that some find effective.
The technique I used here can't be done in Lightroom, you need good layer, masking and selection support to effect just the sky, I used Photoshop CC, to mask out everything but the sky on an upper layer. A neat way to do that is to do a selection on the main layer based upon color ranges to start, dragging over the greens first and then add the tree trunk colors. Then you might have to select (just) the sea as well, Quick Selection Tool works well. Next use "smart edges" in the Selection | Modify panel of Photoshop out to 20-30 pixels, that should get the complex foliage OK. Then invert the selection to get just the sky, and then form a Layer Mask on the sky (masking out the grass, tree and ocean) from that selection. Then apply to your hearts content a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer with that Layer Mask copied over from the main layer, pulling color towards the magenta, or whatever you might find dramatic. That might "postertize" the sky a little, especially on a small jpeg, so then you want to apply another pixel layer with just the sky, you can use the same selection, and then "blur" that to your taste. Gaussian Blur works best for me, here only 2-3 pixels wide. Finally you might want to adjust the "mixing" of the layers via "blend if..." from the blending options panel on the several layers and perhaps opacity adjustments down from 100%. All "to taste." The beauty of doing it all in adjustment layers (and the sharpening I mention below) is that you can make the final adjustments as precise as you like, even going back and reworking earlier steps without compromising the pixels further.
On your small "view large" jpeg (the raw would be much finer) it gets a bit rough, and I was not subtle at all about magenta, you might prefer to keep more blue, but I hope you see what I'm getting at. It sounds complicated, but it really goes quickly when you get the order right and have good selection and masking support.
If you really want to be "advanced" and make the sea reflect a little of the induced extra color and look super realistic, you might try to mask out just the sea in yet another layer and paint over with some of the sky colors. You'd probably want to blur in the colors yet again, and then you might want to use another filter to "wave" it a little if that has flattened out the sea too much. The Filter | Distort | Ripple... on just this sea layer would be one option.
So much you can do...
Also, I can't help but sharpen the foreground significantly and adjust the colors and brightness. Oh, and straighten the horizon and remove the lens distortion, which has bowed the horizon from *straight." But that's nothing to do with your basic question of course...
@swguevin The reason for doing it in Layers so that you can make "local" adjustments to your heart's content based on selections and masks. But still what you have is certainly effective.
@losthorizon seriously all the above was great advice however in this case simple is best get you graduated filter stuck on the front of your camera set it to the horizon to balance exposure then the most you have to do is tweak in Lightroom. This had a bit of warming and a tweak of saturation.
@chippy1402 Unfortunately, the tree in the original here would get handled very strangely, stuck up into the sky as it is here, relying on a filter placed horizontally over the horizon.
@jantan Thanks so much Jan. I tried the same technique but it seemed that when I got something good on one end, I lost something in the other. Great processing. :)
@frankhymus Thank you Frank. Really appreciate the advice and you instruction. Does seem complicated, but like you said, it probably just takes some getting used to. I'm gonna start looking into other programs to see what I can come up with. I just read an article by Jimmy McIntyre and his process in tone mapping and HDR. Its amazing how many different programs he'll use to get the results.
@losthorizon had a very quick go at it in Photoshop. To give it some life it just needs some exposure adjustments and a lot of the blue taken out. Could get it a lot better with a bit of time, but it looks lke this now
@frankhymus a simple bit of dodging on the tree? Don't get me wrong I'm all for Photoshopping. The OP asked for landscape advice and IMHO for the majority of scenes a graduated ND filter helps to get the balance between big bright sky and dull ground.
@losthorizon it's the usual suspects for filters Cokin P series or Lee, you. Could get yourself a cheap set of amazon and give them a go that way you at least get a whole load of stepping rings for not a great deal of money! To be honest if I'm taking any landscape it's on with the ND filters it really makes a difference with balancing exposure.
@chippy1402 Thanks so much Peter. That's what I've been looking at. I realized the adapter set with the slides are expensive....probably too much for my taste, but like you said...I'll try for the basics first and work my way up. Another thing I want to work on is getting a better landscape lens. The widest lens I have is the kit lens and an old analog 50mm lens that I bought an adapter for. I guess I'm more of a still life photographer, since most of my shots are things that I first see in the room I walk into and try to make look interesting. But that doesn't translate at all to landscape. Seems to be a totally different beast. In still life, I control the light, I control the setting. Landscape, I have to learn to deal with nature's whims. LOL
@losthorizon landscapes are about patience and more patience. Getting up early and going to bed late for the best light. Stake out a location check sun rise sun set times and directions, check weather forecasts the set up and wait! Then going home after taking no photos because the light just never came!,
I shoot most of my landscapes with a 10-20 mm lens it opens up a whole world of fun expensive yes but worth it in the long run.
@chippy1402 Sure. But in this particular image, I like the foreground and wouldn't want it lost in the dark. I like the light textures in the grass. :)
Write a Reply
Sign up for a free account or Sign in to post a comment.
Tweets ahoy!
Join the Group
Pin With Me
Hope that helps a bit as I am still learning too.
It looks like this :)
I had a very quick play with a low res version of your image (hope you don't mind) in Lightroom4
All I did was a apply a graduated filter from the top to the bottom of the image and decreased the exposure slightly, upped the contrast, v slight increase in saturation and increased in clarity.
I then applied another graduated filter from the bottom of the picture just up to the top of the grass and increased exposure, sharpness, contrast and clarity.
All done a bit unsubtly, but I think it gives a bit more punch.
De-sat the greens a bit or push their vibrancy down. Possible just on the grass area.
Brighten the tree.
I would play till the photo had more "pop" value for me.
Also, this is a little too far away for me. Too much grass. Makes the tree look smallish. And no tree wants to feel small.
Okay, going to grab a copy and have a go at the editing.
Back later.
S.
Here's a link on Dropbox for another approach, and it's not at all subtle. :)
I'd stay away from the HDR effects, but then I don't admire the huge edge glows, stark wide edges and garish color that some find effective.
The technique I used here can't be done in Lightroom, you need good layer, masking and selection support to effect just the sky, I used Photoshop CC, to mask out everything but the sky on an upper layer. A neat way to do that is to do a selection on the main layer based upon color ranges to start, dragging over the greens first and then add the tree trunk colors. Then you might have to select (just) the sea as well, Quick Selection Tool works well. Next use "smart edges" in the Selection | Modify panel of Photoshop out to 20-30 pixels, that should get the complex foliage OK. Then invert the selection to get just the sky, and then form a Layer Mask on the sky (masking out the grass, tree and ocean) from that selection. Then apply to your hearts content a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer with that Layer Mask copied over from the main layer, pulling color towards the magenta, or whatever you might find dramatic. That might "postertize" the sky a little, especially on a small jpeg, so then you want to apply another pixel layer with just the sky, you can use the same selection, and then "blur" that to your taste. Gaussian Blur works best for me, here only 2-3 pixels wide. Finally you might want to adjust the "mixing" of the layers via "blend if..." from the blending options panel on the several layers and perhaps opacity adjustments down from 100%. All "to taste." The beauty of doing it all in adjustment layers (and the sharpening I mention below) is that you can make the final adjustments as precise as you like, even going back and reworking earlier steps without compromising the pixels further.
On your small "view large" jpeg (the raw would be much finer) it gets a bit rough, and I was not subtle at all about magenta, you might prefer to keep more blue, but I hope you see what I'm getting at. It sounds complicated, but it really goes quickly when you get the order right and have good selection and masking support.
If you really want to be "advanced" and make the sea reflect a little of the induced extra color and look super realistic, you might try to mask out just the sea in yet another layer and paint over with some of the sky colors. You'd probably want to blur in the colors yet again, and then you might want to use another filter to "wave" it a little if that has flattened out the sea too much. The Filter | Distort | Ripple... on just this sea layer would be one option.
So much you can do...
Also, I can't help but sharpen the foreground significantly and adjust the colors and brightness. Oh, and straighten the horizon and remove the lens distortion, which has bowed the horizon from *straight." But that's nothing to do with your basic question of course...
Save time.
Skip all future advice from me!
Article here: http://www.lightstalking.com/5-important-tone-mapping-tips
I shoot most of my landscapes with a 10-20 mm lens it opens up a whole world of fun expensive yes but worth it in the long run.