Any, although I particularly curious as to what people’s thoughts are regarding the rendering of the color of the early morning light on the peak.
What artistic feedback would you like if any?
Any
Pertinent technical details or techniques:
(If this is a composite, etc. please be honest with your techniques to help others learn)
34.5 mm, f/11, 0.5 seconds, ISO 64
I have to say, I had a tough time with this photo in trying to properly render the color on the peak. I played around with the HSL sliders in Lightroom until I was able to get the top part of the peak to be this orangish-redish rust color that to my memory properly reflected how the color looked that morning.
I then finished my edits in Lightroom, brought the file in Photoshop, made further adjustments in Photoshop, and then finally used the TK sharpening action to create a new file that was an sRGB file rendered at the proper size for posting to the web. During this entire process, the colors on the peak stayed as is and looked correct to me.
But once I finished with my edits on the sharpened file, I went to export the file in Photoshop and used “Save for Web (Legacy)” to create a jpeg file, and when I opened up the newly created jpeg, the colors shifted a bunch. The orangish-red rust color on the peak turned to this neon blood red color that looked nothing like my Photoshop file (either the master file or the TK action sharpened file). I can’t remember ever seeing such a drastic shift in color when exporting out to a jpeg using the Save for Web function in Photoshop. Has this happened to anyone?
I was able to fix the problem with the color, but it was a pretty big pain. I had to go back into the Web Sharpened Photoshop file and create a new smart object layer with a Camera Raw filter, and then play around with the red and orange colors in the HSL panel until I was able to export a jpeg file that looked right to me. I had to go back and forth between the Camera Raw filter and rendering out a jpeg about 8-10 times before I got it right. I am wonder if others have experienced this issue with mountain scenes, and if anyone has a better solution to resolve the issue.
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@luizarroyophoto
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Hi Luiz - This photo makes me want to strap on a backpack and explore this magical alpine environment! This is a beautiful scene and I think the composition works well overall. With regard to your specific question, I have not had this issue with reds but definitely have with blues (where a nice sky blue comes out looking quite cyan in the “save for web” process). I don’t have any suggestions about that process but will say that the color on the peak looks very natural to me in your presentation.
A few other small comments… If this were my photo, I think I would clone out the cloud. My own personal cloud mantra is no clouds or good clouds - nothing in between. In this case, the clouds feel so ephemeral that I wouldn’t personally have an issue removing them since they probably would have been gone a minute later. You could also consider cloning out or darkening the small rock in the lower right corner. Finally, my main reaction in first viewing the photo is that the darks feel too dark to me. I would like to see what is in some of those shadows, especially around the tarn’s edge and maybe even at the bases of the trees. Otherwise, this is a beautiful mountain scene and I really enjoyed spending some time with it.
A classic High Sierra scene, the kind that @Dave_Dillemuth excels at (and the editors love). The color on those peaks is better than in your previous image which was on the yellow side. Sarah gives good suggestions with regards to the cloud and the shadows. I would also suggest taking the cyan out of the sky and go with deep blue, maybe even darkening it a bit. I would try to make that peak jump out from the sky in tone and color.
What a gorgeous High Sierra alpine landscape, reflectionscape… This is just beautiful. I think your colors and processing ended up looking quite natural - if even maybe a little understated? But given what you had to go through… just doesn’t seem right. You should never have to correct an image after it’s been converted, to “make up” for some color shifts. I apologize if for the basic question, but where were your settings in the Save-As dialogue? (which would be the same as if you had clicked on TK’s “Save for Web” action in the panel; it calls the same Legacy “Save As” dialogue. Anyway, embed color profile right? convert to sRGB? What is your working space? I’m not a master at processing so I’d be hard pressed to know why there was such a color shift - all I know is there shouldn’t be.
Back to the image. I’m kinda with Sarah on the one patch of cloud on the left. It’s not really distracting per se or an eye magnet, but fit’s in the thought process: “If it’s not adding to the scene, then it’s detracting from it.” Not a deal breaker at all and may be a stretch to think about removing it anyway.
Hi Luiz, I think the warm color on both the mountain and it’s reflection looks great, and very natural, your HSL efforts paid off. I really like the relative luminosity of the mountain vs. it’s reflection, you have done a good job of balancing the two. I also like how you left a little space below the bottom of both shorelines, rather than cutting them off. This alpine environment looks just gorgeous, and your image does the place justice.
I’m also in the same place as @Sarah_Marino on the clouds in the ULC. They are just big enough to slightly unbalance the composition, and I would consider removing them.
Beautiful light here, nicely captured by the photographer.
Luiz, everything works together so wonderfully here. I think the color is spot on. I am also on the same page with everybody else about the cloud, not that it bothers me that much.
I have never encountered that issue when saving for web, but I always export via LR. I would be curious to see what you find out.
Beautiful and a very natural looking processing job. Great scene. I am also in for @Sarah_Marino 's suggestion on the upper left cloud. It was the first thing I thought of when I opened the image.
My first thought was of the beautiful rendering of the color and light on the peak and reflection. The next thing that made an impression was the symmetry of the scene, and it works well here!
I will also echo the other’s comments on the cloud in the ULC, but this is minor. This is such a nice crisp scene that makes me want to visit the High Sierra!
@Sarah_Marino@Igor_Doncov@Lon_Overacker@Ed_McGuirk@Adhika_Lie@Harley_Goldman@Alan_Kreyger Thank you all for the notes! In procesing the image, I had debated removing the cloud in the upper left from the image. In light of all your feedback, I will remove it. I agree that it creates an unnecessary imbalance to the image. I also liked Sarah’s mantra of good clouds or no clouds. I will definitely keep that in mind in the future. I also think I will take Sarah’s suggestion and clone out that small rock in the bottom right corner.
@Igor_Doncov thanks for the suggestion regarding the sky. I will definitely go back into the file and see if I can bring out more blue in it.
@Lon_Overacker Thank you for your help. I just opened up the file, and when I click on “Save for Web,” it shows my settings as
JPEG
Maximum
Quality 100
“Optimized” is checked
(I didn’t have “Embed Color Profile” checked, but I just tried exporting with that boxed checked, and it did not appear to fix the color shift issue.)
“Convert to sRGB” is checked
My working space for the web sharpened file is sRGB (The master file’s working space is ProPhoto, but I converted the file to sRGB as part of the web sharpening process, and the conversion to sRGB did not cause a color shift).
I am going to play around more with the settings in “Save for Web”
thanks for the additional info. Sounds like a good mystery to me. A few more questions:
Just occurring on this image? or with other images?
Just so I understand, but at least with TK’s Web Shaprening action in v4, the action does create a new file (unsaved re-sized copy,) but I’m pretty sure the copy still remains in the original color space. In my case Adobe 1998. It’s ONLY converted to sRGB through the export/Save for web process/dialogue. I think this is what you meant, but just want to clarify.
When you say you “opened the newly created jpeg,” what are you opening with? Are you saying you save for web in Photoshop - and then re-open in Photoshop and the colors have shifted? OR, are you opening in web browser? Big difference especially when not embedding color profiles (although apparently it’s less of an issue these days?)
Anyway, if this is a persistent thing maybe you can start a discussion using the hashtag “post processing” and see if anyone more knowledgeable can chime in.
This is beautiful, Luiz. The composition works well and your processing looks spot-on to me. I do agree with the others on cloning out that cloud at the frame edge.
For what it’s worth, as a fellow High Sierra shooter, I also frequently find getting the colors, luminosity, saturation levels correct in alpenglow a challenge… I’m not sure why this is. In any event this rendering looks natural to my eye.
I plan to be shooting this very area in a couple of weeks. Thanks for the motivation!
Nicely done! This looks great to me. I would not mess with the sky. A dark blue sky opposite the sun would not look right, at least to me.
I have used TK’s Web Sharpening and legacy Save for Web for a long time, and have not had color shift issues. I offer my Photo Shop workflow below. Try it, and see if the issues persist.
After doing all editing, save your Master File.
Duplicate your Master File
Flatten the duplicated image
Convert the Mode to 8 bit
Convert the Profile to sRGB
Use TK’s Web Sharpening action to create the un-saved sharpened and sized file.
In Save for Web be sure Optimized and Embed Color Profile are both checked. (Note: You do not have to check Convert to sRGB)
I’d like to know this too. I’ve definitely seen different programs rendering differently and it’s really unclear what is going on and how other people might be viewing the image.
The colors are looking good to me, though! To me it’s hard to get the color right on last minute light on mountains and I think you did great.
Thanks! Yeah, I have always struggled with getting the light on the mountains out there to look right, so I have really tried to put in the work this summer at the post-processing stage to try to render the colors properly.
I shoot with a Nikon, and for some reason, the raw files do a really poor job of rendering the colors straight out of a camera. The reds, especially, are really lacking in the files, and do not match what I remember seeing with my eyes or what even my iPhone was able to capture. For this image, I actually ended up using a video that I shot on my iPhone around the same time that morning as a reference shot to help me render out the colors properly. It was pretty helpful, so I think I will try to employ that technique in the future.
Thanks for the help guys. Sorry for the delayed response, I was traveling last weekend and was without my laptop, so I couldn’t view the file.
Well, I think I sort of figured out what the issue was. I followed Preston’s instructions step-by-step, and I noticed that the colors did shift when I converted the color space from Pro Photo RGB to sRGB.
I am running version 6 of the TK panel on Photoshop (I actually have version 7 downloaded to my computer, but have been too lazy to install it! ) With version 6, there is a “sRGB” box that you can check in the Web Sharpening window that is supposed to convert the new web sharpened file into sRGB, but it must not have been working (maybe due to some of my other photoshop settings). Anyways, I think the solution moving forward is that I will just manually convert the file to sRGB when doing the web sharpening, and then make any necessary color adjustments to correct any shifts that occur from the conversion.
@Brent_Clark@Lon_Overacker As for the question about what I was using to view the file, it was several things. I opened the jpeg in Photoshop, the Windows Photos app, Google Chrome, and Instagram, and I viewed it on both my monitor, and my iPhone and the color shift happened on all of them. It was most pronounced on my phone. The reds looked totally nuked when I looked at it through either IG or Google Chrome on my phone.
For reference, this is what the jpeg file looked like prior to me making HSL adjustments to correct for the shift in colors.
) With version 6, there is a “sRGB” box that you can check in the Web Sharpening window that is supposed to convert the new web sharpened file into sRGB, but it must not have been working (maybe due to some of my other photoshop settings). Anyways, I think the solution moving forward is that I will just manually convert the file to sRGB when doing the web sharpening, and then make any necessary color adjustments to correct any shifts that occur from the conversion.