Foggy day with blue sky and sun peeping between cracks in the clouds. Beautiful scenery complete with the spread of brightly colored golf green grass. Dark green forestry in the distance. One person wears a white shirt, the other wearing pale pink pants.
How does one manage these contradictions and still capture a photo that is balanced between colors and contrast?
I took the photo using Av, f/2.9, ISO400. The distant scenery where the river flows is usually brilliantly colored but due to the fog, colors were dampened. Took the photos thinking I could just fix or adjust during post processing. I don't really know how to edit well except to adjust some of the exposure, contrast, and some general color. The result is almost fluorescent grass, white that glows against the fog, and a distant background that is pretty foggy, creamy.
The couple in this photo are getting married right at this site. She'll be all in white and weather will be somewhat similar, I think.
I think google is your friend and have a look at wedding tips -esp about the white dress and EC (exposure compensation). Your photo here is over-exposed, you've blown highlights on the clothes and face, which when you've tried to fix it, is probably why your grass is more vivid green. I recommend learning about exposure, rather than worrying about the background first, esp as you said you get the odd bit of sunshine popping out.
Fog is just fog, there will be little you can do about it am afraid, esp as you are concentrating on the people.
And just one more thing, this photo would've been better if you'd included the feet. Perhaps a landscape, not a portrait crop?
FunnyFace @blightygal is correct about the exposure. Expose for the highlights - detail in the shadows can be recovered/improved in edit, whereas blown highlights are gone forever. Learn to use the histogram to get your exposure correct (I'm still learning this, but it's made a difference to my photos already).
What white balance did you use? Adjusting that might help with the bright green. The background actually works slightly muted IMO as it doesn't detract from the couple. WB will also have a huge impact on the colour of the wedding dress - very easy to end up with a yellow or green colour cast to white clothing.
Shoot in RAW if you've got the time to learn about and post-process all your images.
Digital does not do a very good job of seeing white. So the details get lost. It is best to under expose it little when you are trying to get shots featuring the dress. I would use the cloudy setting on my white balance in this shot.
Also I would have them sit on a black or brown blanket and tuck it so not that much of it is showing
I've run into this and the only solution I've found is High Dynamic Range, which sounds frightening but it's really not. Basically for a single picture like this you create different layers in PSE, adjust them individually, then merge them back together.
probably should run a search on HDR and follow a tutorial
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Fog is just fog, there will be little you can do about it am afraid, esp as you are concentrating on the people.
And just one more thing, this photo would've been better if you'd included the feet. Perhaps a landscape, not a portrait crop?
What white balance did you use? Adjusting that might help with the bright green. The background actually works slightly muted IMO as it doesn't detract from the couple. WB will also have a huge impact on the colour of the wedding dress - very easy to end up with a yellow or green colour cast to white clothing.
Shoot in RAW if you've got the time to learn about and post-process all your images.
Also I would have them sit on a black or brown blanket and tuck it so not that much of it is showing
probably should run a search on HDR and follow a tutorial