I have been out today to take some shots of a derelict church in my area. My problem is getting definition in the clouds. A lot of my shots seem to get a whited out sky and I'd like some advice on how to rectify this. Here is one shot
The exif info is exposure 1/320, aperture f/8, ISO 400 and focal length 18mm.
This is another shot I took after I'd 'fiddled' with the settings
The exif info is exposure 1/320, aperture f/14, ISO 400 and focal length 18mm.
I took lots of other shots using different settings but these were my 2 best shots. Any advice would be most appreciated.
@shanne I used HDRish in picnik to bring out the texture of the bricks a little but faded it almost til it was unnoticeable. I wouldn't know how to do actual HDR :oS xx
@carrapeta00 Sounds more up my street Lara. I'll check that out. Thanks xx
@psychographer basically HDR is using three (or more) photographs at different exposures and layering them up. You may have an AEB (automatic exposure bracketing) option that will take the three shots for you. Then it's using layers in Photoshop or GIMP or a programme like photomatix to build the final picture
1. open the middle exposure photograph using GIMP
2. I would then set the colours (on the colour menu) to GEGL
adjust curves to get the picture where I want it and
increase the saturation on one of the colours - green or red/magenta at the moment
basically process it to get the photograph how you want it - all of those are on the colours menu
3. open the darkest exposure using GIMP and similarly process it, I've been increasing the saturation of blue or cyan in this layer as this is what will give you the sky. Increasing the saturation is on the Colours Menu under Hue-Saturation You want this darker and you can up the contrast too - it depends what it looks like (I tend not to add more than 25 on the option bars for anything) Contrast is under the Colour menu, Brightness-Contrast.
4. copy that layer - under the Edit menu
5. go back to your middle layer and paste the darker layer as a new layer - Edit menu
6. on the toolbox bar or the layer dialogue (ctrl L) you can see the two layers, under the layers tab, the bit under the tools (the icon looks like a pile of towels), Change the saturation of the top layer to 40-50% on that bar
7. at 400% (in View or little box at the bottom) using the move tool (on toolbox or Tools > Transform Tools) and rotate if you're unlucky, line both photographs up to 1 pixel. If you need to rotate, you'll need to change the transparency of the layer on the rotation tab bit of the toolbox bar - there's another bar to let you do that
8. Once you've lined that up, right click on the dark layer on the Tool Box bar, choose Add Layer Mask (or use Layer menu > Mask > add layer mask) - then choose Grey Scale copy - change the saturation up to 100%
9. open the lighter exposure picture in GIMP. Process that to be paler - so maybe add brightness, currently I'm increasing the saturation of the yellow in this layer
10. copy that layer and paste as a new layer to the two layers. Line it up as above.
11. When you've lined that one up, add a layer mask, which you Grey Scale Copy and invert, which is a tick box, and then see if you need 100% saturation here - that one I put up tonight I only used 75% and 60% of the paler layers.
12. Under Filters > Blur > Gaussian Blur blur each layer by the minimum amount necessary - I've been using 1, but you might need more.
13. Merge the layers using Layer - Merge Down - starting at the top
14. Crop to get rid of ragged edges and anything else you'd normally do - I resize (Image > Scale Image) and save as whatever I want to call it (under File)
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@carrapeta00 Sounds more up my street Lara. I'll check that out. Thanks xx
1. open the middle exposure photograph using GIMP
2. I would then set the colours (on the colour menu) to GEGL
adjust curves to get the picture where I want it and
increase the saturation on one of the colours - green or red/magenta at the moment
basically process it to get the photograph how you want it - all of those are on the colours menu
3. open the darkest exposure using GIMP and similarly process it, I've been increasing the saturation of blue or cyan in this layer as this is what will give you the sky. Increasing the saturation is on the Colours Menu under Hue-Saturation You want this darker and you can up the contrast too - it depends what it looks like (I tend not to add more than 25 on the option bars for anything) Contrast is under the Colour menu, Brightness-Contrast.
4. copy that layer - under the Edit menu
5. go back to your middle layer and paste the darker layer as a new layer - Edit menu
6. on the toolbox bar or the layer dialogue (ctrl L) you can see the two layers, under the layers tab, the bit under the tools (the icon looks like a pile of towels), Change the saturation of the top layer to 40-50% on that bar
7. at 400% (in View or little box at the bottom) using the move tool (on toolbox or Tools > Transform Tools) and rotate if you're unlucky, line both photographs up to 1 pixel. If you need to rotate, you'll need to change the transparency of the layer on the rotation tab bit of the toolbox bar - there's another bar to let you do that
8. Once you've lined that up, right click on the dark layer on the Tool Box bar, choose Add Layer Mask (or use Layer menu > Mask > add layer mask) - then choose Grey Scale copy - change the saturation up to 100%
9. open the lighter exposure picture in GIMP. Process that to be paler - so maybe add brightness, currently I'm increasing the saturation of the yellow in this layer
10. copy that layer and paste as a new layer to the two layers. Line it up as above.
11. When you've lined that one up, add a layer mask, which you Grey Scale Copy and invert, which is a tick box, and then see if you need 100% saturation here - that one I put up tonight I only used 75% and 60% of the paler layers.
12. Under Filters > Blur > Gaussian Blur blur each layer by the minimum amount necessary - I've been using 1, but you might need more.
13. Merge the layers using Layer - Merge Down - starting at the top
14. Crop to get rid of ragged edges and anything else you'd normally do - I resize (Image > Scale Image) and save as whatever I want to call it (under File)