The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
Description
I found a place where I could photograph these mountains at dawn. I kept taking bracketed exposures until the dawn light was gone. This was the best of the lot.
Specific Feedback
I’d like to know what others do when processing low-contrast shots of this sort. I usually just follow my taste buds. There’s nothing wrong with that but I was wondering if others have a more consistent approach.
It’s taste buds, all the way!! And this flavor suits me fine! I love the color of the mountains, the tiny trees that are well-defined on the ridges, and the subtle sky. But I’m betting if you posted a different flavor tomorrow that I’d love it, too. It’s just a very nice scene that can stand a range of interpretations.
Interesting thing here, though, that I have seen recently – and only recently. The JPEG is very compressed and shows posteriztion, and particularly in a concentric circle pattern. I’ve seen a similar pattern only recently when I have “stretched” some Milky Way images – pulling out tonal detail. In this case it could be exacerbated by going to the JPEG, but I’m wondering if there is a hint of it in the master file?
I’m trying to figure out what has changed lately. Can you provide camera and raw adjustment info??
Posterization will be minimized when tonal adjustments are made in the raw file, and it is easier to rear its head in PS, even in a 16-bit file (which isn’t really 16 bit – it’s whatever the camera captured fit into a 16-bit container). But however many bits it is, there are more to work with in a raw converter.
Other than basic adjustments to brightness and such, I only made two significant changes. First, I boosted the red saturation in Lightroom, working with the RAW version . I made sure that the result wasn’t out of gamut. Second, I straightened the cloud in the upper left in Photoshop. It was too much of an eye magnet in the original version. If there’s a problem, that’s probably where it arose.
The camera is a Canon 90D. Thanks very much for the feedback. As I said, I don’t know what I’m doing with this kind of shot.
I think I would have done much the same – you did a lovely and very correct adjustment to bring a low-contrast raw file to life. And that was a very nice touch with the cloud!
I don’t think a problem arose with the image in any usual sense, but rather that something here uncovered what looks to me like a new situation in LR/ACR, or possibly with new sensors. The posterization likely came from the JPEG compression. If you used a low “quality” setting that would make it worse. But I’ve never seen this circular pattern until very recently. I need to do some experimenting with other raw processors, just out of curiosity.
I noticed that your image(s) are 6960x4640 pixels but the file size is only 259KB and 216KB respectively, an image that large exported from Lr or Ps at 60% or so is probably higher that 3MB.
3MB is the limit for uploads to NPN, any file larger than 3MB will be highly compressed by NPN’s server.
Have a look at the file size of the image saved on your computer or in the cloud (before you uploaded) to make sure it’s under the 3MB mark, 2.9MB or lower would be the safest bet IMHO. If it’s over 3MB, try exporting it again but at something smaller like 2500 pixels at the longest side, just try to limit the export file size to 2.9MB or smaller to insure that NPN’s server doesn’t compress the image file size.
IMHO, the above is just a way to eliminate the most obvious and simplest cause of the low file size and subsequent posterization/banding issue before trying to find something deeper in the processing workflow.
Give it try, please, I’d love to comment on the image but I’d like to wait till the quality issue has been resolved. -)
Yes, that definitely took care of the posterizing/banding issue for sure. It’s still just a little on the low quality side because the image is so large but much better than before, no doubt.
I really like the silhouetted mountain shapes with good detail in the trees outlines, and the sky colors are nicely subdued, yet show through well enough to emit mild drama and a peaceful emotion.
It might have be an artistic direction but to me there is a fair amount of digital noise or small grain which has nothing to do with compression, personally I would consider doing a mild noise reduction in Lr or ACR (if not in Topaz labs) but that’s just my preference for a smoother image, again, that may have been left there or put there for added texture in the scene which if great if it was intended ).
As for consistency on sunrise exposures, I usually do as you described, just keep shooting with various exposure values until I get something I can work with on the computer
I’d say that doing enough sunrises would over time help develop consistency if you’re using the same camera/lens combination.
That fixed it! I export from LR, either for a file that has only had LR adjustments, or with a file that has been worked up in PS. With my workflow, a PS file goes back in the same filmstrip as the raw file. I made an export preset named NPN. It is parked in a folder on my desktop and then deleted after I’m through uploading it (and bragging to friends by email about it).
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