This image was taken in full sunlight, and I was trying to frame the bird against a dark green tree - useful for making the bird stand out, but I overexposed for the white on the back & blew out the detail in that area, darn it!
nicely done... it is a lovely image :) my eye kind of wants to know where the light is coming from, though...
i've always admired your ability to handle subtle gradients of colour... @rachelolivia and @aprilmilani do this too... but i've never been able to figure out how to replicate that feel in black and white, especially high contrast black and white... i think these sorts of images tend to take their contrast from the colour wheel, rather than colour intensity, which may have something to do with it?
but really, i wouldn't know - i struggle tremendously with colour and with low contrast!
@northy my stupid PS is still stripping exif - but this was taken at 12:30 pm - light straight overhead ( and straight down on the white back). Yes it was much harder than in colour for me to get the range of tones. I shot this for contrast in colour ,intending to mask out the bird, rather than this type of edit, but dont think any really good tonal range is possible in direct sunlight like this actually anyway. The fineart edits I do have a dodge burn layer ( aka Ansel Adams approach). a new layer filled with mid grey ( 256 / 2 for mid way = 128 ) and set to overlay or soft light. then paint the light in low opacity ( soft round brush, 10-30% opacity & I use 60% flow -- hard light I use 40% opacity with a paint brush called "oil pastel large" for hard edges. I then look at where the lights & shadows are - either accentuate or de-emphasise those areas with black or white paint. https://fstoppers.com/post-production/ultimate-guide-dodge-burn-technique-part-3-curves-setup-more-9281
strangely enough - the more I study light for dodge & burn, the more I learn about light 'flow' and when shooting I am more aware of how to capture it.
I keep bringing it back to the same principles as applying stage makeup - we apply blush to make the lower cheeks to make them fade (recede) and gloss/ bronzer to make adjacent areas more prominent. ( ie 'clarity' in LR is actually applying a type of global 'local contrast' - making adjacent pixels darker if they are dark, and lighter if they are light. painting with black or white on an overlay layer filled with neutral (mid) grey is putting 'stage makeup' on an image.
that composition video this week was all about composition controlling where the viewer looks - & dodge & burn is controlling ( assisting) lighting to influence where the viewer looks.
ahhh, sorry that is a long winded answer..... ask if you need more / better explanation ;-D
@northy oh PS - I did do a 'directive' dodge & burn layer for this, but in the end I did not use it & opted for a simple edit - I use Nik Viveza for lighting control a lot - it would be easy to apply after SE Pro if you have the whole Nik set. I needed to see some youtubes on how it worked to understand how it's auto mask feature works though.
i've always admired your ability to handle subtle gradients of colour... @rachelolivia and @aprilmilani do this too... but i've never been able to figure out how to replicate that feel in black and white, especially high contrast black and white... i think these sorts of images tend to take their contrast from the colour wheel, rather than colour intensity, which may have something to do with it?
but really, i wouldn't know - i struggle tremendously with colour and with low contrast!
https://fstoppers.com/post-production/ultimate-guide-dodge-burn-technique-part-3-curves-setup-more-9281
here is an action for it - http://www.manateevoyager.com/non-destructive-dodge--burn-photoshop-action.html I usually do both highlights & darks on a single layer rather than two with this - but you can get the idea. ( I might try this!). A lot of steps to set it up - but once you have saved the action it is only 10 seconds to apply! ( I rarely use the actual dodge & burn tools - prefer to work non-destructively)
https://fstoppers.com/post-production/ultimate-guide-dodge-burn-technique-part-3-curves-setup-more-9281
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ai0a3nZWJWo on how to record your own actions - more steps than I use - but a good alternative if you dont want to paint the light.
strangely enough - the more I study light for dodge & burn, the more I learn about light 'flow' and when shooting I am more aware of how to capture it.
I keep bringing it back to the same principles as applying stage makeup - we apply blush to make the lower cheeks to make them fade (recede) and gloss/ bronzer to make adjacent areas more prominent. ( ie 'clarity' in LR is actually applying a type of global 'local contrast' - making adjacent pixels darker if they are dark, and lighter if they are light. painting with black or white on an overlay layer filled with neutral (mid) grey is putting 'stage makeup' on an image.
that composition video this week was all about composition controlling where the viewer looks - & dodge & burn is controlling ( assisting) lighting to influence where the viewer looks.
ahhh, sorry that is a long winded answer..... ask if you need more / better explanation ;-D