Another from Lake Martin, taken around 8AM October 2011. The fall colors had come in a bit early that year. I liked the scene overall, and was glad to have relatively calm conditions with an abundance of moss festooning the scene like tinsel. Granted it was taken early morning, but my mind still tends to interpret it as too warm. To me, in a perfect world, I think the overall balance might be accurate but would prefer that the moss were a bit cooler.
That said, considering that I lack advanced PS skills in terms of isolating colors, I would really like for you guys to assess this scene for yourselves, and offer up your own examples to illustrate what you might change, and by all means to tell me how you did it. Thanks so much for your input.
Olympus E-3, Zuiko 50 F2 Macro on tripod, full frame
ISO 100 1/125 f/5.6 -1/3EV
You may only download this image to demonstrate post-processing techniques.
I like the subject and the composition, but the golden light just feels a bit off for this subject. It sort of feels more like earth than plant to me in this light.
@Tony_Kuyper that is similar to my own feelings, which is why I had asked for you and any others to offer examples. Thanks to you and @Dennis_Plank for looking.
Bill, I like the subject and composition very much too. I have to say your images are giving me a hankering to make a visit to Louisiana, I love mossy trees, and these are quite beautiful ones.
I think the WB/color is off a bit, everything feels too warm, and colors seem to be blending together rather than separating. I tried just cooling the color temperature globally in Lightroom, and it just doesn’t work well.
You said you lack advanced PS skills, so this may not help, but I think you need some localized color balance adjustments, not the global change Lightroom uses. For adjustments like this I swear by @Tony_Kuyper wonderful TK actions panel, the power they have is amazing. Tony, thank you so much for the extremely valuable resource you have created, and for how much you share this knowledge with others.
IMO the issue here is that both shadows and highlights are warm, and shadows need to be cooler and more contrasty, to create some contrast against the warm highlight areas. I took your image, and ran Tony’s Neutralize Colors 1. This cooled everything down, and looked yucky. I then made a Darks 3 selection and masked the cooling into only the Darks areas. I then increased contrast in the Darks 3 areas, the amount of contrast I added is subjective and may not be to everyone’s taste, but I’m trying to point you in a direction, rather than saying this is better. This of course is only possible to do in PS, not LR.
@Ed_McGuirk, yes indeed. And I appreciate the explanation. Your version looks much better using @Tony_Kuyper masks. The cool tones look much more reasonable. Tony, I’ve seen so many members referencing and using your masks, just never gotten around to trying it. Guess there’s no time like the present, and I look forward to it. Many thanks all.
Bill, the TK Actions Panel will open up a lot more possibilities for your processing. Lightroom is great for global adjustments, and even some local adjustments, but PS and TK give you tremendous ability to make local adjustments like the ones here. However TK requires a significant investment of time and effort to learn, just be aware of that up front. I also highly recommend the Sean Bagshaw videos that he makes in cooperation with Tony.
Ed, I was on their website earlier and saw Sean Bagshaw as well. I’ll download the TK panels. I’m only just starting, so it’ll be fun to trip and fall a few times to learn
The first thing I gotta say is that these cypress swamps sure seem like a gold mine of material and opportunity!
Tony’s comment about “earth vs. plant” in terms of light is a unique way of expressing what I couldn’t. Something about the light, contrast does seem a little off, but it’s hard to pinpoint.
Of course my opinions are just that opinions and I have preferences too, just like everyone. and my preferences usually include limiting those eye-catch patches of bg sky. I’m pretty sure I’ve commented on this before (which you may tire of…) In these cypress tree images, it’s not just about the bg light, but also the information in the upper section is really just repeating patterns, color and details that are present throughout. So cropping from the top should detract or take away any information. It does alter the perspective of course and if you like the towering aspect of these trees, then for sure a crop isn’t the right choice.
Anyway, here’s my challenge offer. A square crop that brings more prominence to the reflection. I worked on this and then re-read your comments and thinking your original was too warm? and wanting it a bit cooler. Oops, I went warmer and had to back that off before posting. I mostly wanted to address the flat light/contrast and color. Here’s what I ended up with:
cropped to square, taking in mind some edge considerations and eliminating small bits of sky
This may be more advanced, some might think gimmicky… but I often use a duplicated image, convert to LAB color and then copy that back to the original image using a lower opacity blending mode like Soft light. To extensive to describe here, but you can google LAB mode for landscapes
Added a TK Lights-4 Levels adj layer. I set the black point with this and also dropped the white values a few points as well as the mid tones
Next I added a Burn adj layer and basically painted the reflection with soft brush at 5% opacity. Really wanted to increase the contrast and pop of the reflection. Also burned the ULC corner a tad
Added Contrast/Brightness to tweak -9 brightness and +6 on contrast
Then read the cool/warm comments and discovered mine was too warm. So at the “Save for Web” step in TK’s v4 panel, I added a “Selective Color” layer, dropped the yellows in neutrals and whites as well as increase the cyan a smidge to reduce the warmth.
@Lon_Overacker, ditto what Dennis said. I just need to learn the ropes with Tony’s masks. I’ve just got to get into the learning curve so it may take some time.
