The lakes in the Haliburton area of Ontario were dammed and logged many decades ago and still the water levels fluctuate massively to keep the water up in the Trent-Severen canal system. These stumps are a relic of that changed nature.
Specific Feedback Requested
I’ve been reading Michael Freeman’s book on digital black and white and learning a lot, and so tried my hand at converting this old file. I was surprise to see in Freeman’s book that one of the key processing tips is to massage the colour hues before conversion, and then apply a filter. All with the goal of achieving the desired look. In this case I didn’t play with the hues at all, but applied a red filter to darken the trees. I pumped up the whites a little too. Would welcome any thoughts on B&W conversion or anything else! Thank you!
Technical Details
Is this a composite: No
ISO 1600; focal length 113mm; f5.6; 1/125 sec; aps-c
Well, Charles, it looks like you and I have the same fascination - sunken treasures. I think you have something very nice here and monochrome is a good way to go with it. Definitely, when converting to B&W, playing with the colour sliders can make a huge difference. For example, you can get a lot of tonal variation in the background forest leaves by playing with the yellow slider (what appears to be green to our eyes can often be affected more by working with the blue and yellow sliders than the green). That being said, I might work with this image in post a little differently. Just so you know, I use Tony Kuyper’s Tk luminosity panel in Photoshop for most of the heavy lifting after using the Basic panel in Lr. What I would typically do with an image like this one would be to create a mask of just the tree trunk and its reflection so I could work on them independently of the rest of the image. Without making things look fake or over processed, I would want to get as much texture and detail out of the tree trunk as could so that it really pops - not so much in terms of contrast as texture. After all, this is what this picture is about. I would probably add texture and do a fair bit of careful dodging and burning being careful not to overdo the reflection. Then I would reverse the mask and work on the background. I might consider brightening it a bit and increase the contrast. But then I would add a blur either by pushing the clarity slider to the left in Camera Raw or adding Gaussian Blur through Ps. Finally, I would crop from the top and the bottom as much as I could without cramping top or bottom because I would want to pull the trunk forward in the frame and going from the 2:3 or 5:7 you have here to something more like 8.5:11 or even 4:5 (which might mean adding a bit on the left and right). For me, I think I’d like this image with an aspect ratio closer to square. Obviously this is what I would do and it’s not my picture so it costs me nothing to have an opinion. That being said, I think you’ve really got something here that would be worth some additional work in post. The sculptural shape of the trunk and its shadow is beautiful and very well seen.
Kerry thanks so much for the detailed feedback and inspiration to try some new ideas. As it happens I have been looking this morning for a Photoshop book/video/online courses to help me learn more advanced post processing - do you have a favourite that would be a good starting point? I definitely want to invest more time in this image and some others in my library so thanks again for the pointers.
Depends what you want to learn. If it is just Photoshop, Matt Kloskowski is a good teacher and he has a very comprehensive course available. But another way to go would be to do a basic course on Photoshop, enough to then learn how to work with luminosity masks and Tony Kuyper’s Tk8 panel, which makes Photoshop so much easier to navigate. Check out Sean Bagshaw’s courses both introduction to Photoshop and luminosity masking and learning to use Tony’s Tk panel.
I agree with the assessment of bringing out more texture and contrast. So many ways you could do this, but since I also use the TK8 panel in Photoshop, I’d probably use the tools there. In terms of composition, I’d shift it off center if you want to leave it at this distance, but if you want to crop closer then I think a centered composition will be stronger.
Kerry mentioned two Ps resources I have purchased and they taught me a lot. Matt’s course doesn’t include the TK panel, but it was very useful to ground me in understanding the basics. When I bought the TK8 panel I also got the user guide that Sean put together. Super helpful. After about a year I bought his Luminosity Masking Master class and often refer to that when I can’t remember something. Most recently I bought a complete workflow video from Sean as well. It had some new techniques and processes and I really liked it.
So if you do dive into the TK panel, another resource is Dave Kelly’s You Tube Channel The Joy of Editing with Dave Kelly. He covers many different applications, but the best are TK Fridays! They are all free and a lot of fun. I usually learn something new.
This is stunning and well worth playing with further! I’d do noise reduction first thing in PS – a clean file is always easier to work with. As to the crop, I’d hate to lost the graceful lines in the BG above the snag, but I could see a little off the bottom. I might play with a subtle burn in the UL. There is a small diagonal bright area int he water toward the LR that I’d remove or darken.
Hope we get to see a progression of ideas on this!
I’m really enjoying this as presented. Great thoughts by Kerry on processing. My only disagreement with Kerry would be the format/ratio. Yes, square would be great format for this scene - however, you’re short on the sides and could only achieve square by adding canvas right/left. That’s a bit beyond what I consider acceptable manipulation - but that’s neither here nor there, since that isn’t what you’ve done…
I like the long format as presented, especially given the vertical nature of the extending branches, and their reflection. I think the space is needed top and bottom.
Processing looks pretty darn good to me. If anything, I would agree with Kerry about a slight brightening of the tree itself, but not by too much. Pretty dang good as presented.
Great subject, well seen and photographed.
Oh, sources. I’ll second/third the TK panel, luminosity masking AND any of the videos by Sean Bagshaw that really cover the panel, but also some good processing videos as well. If you haven’t explored TK’s masks and Panel - be forewarned it can be quite overwhelming if never seen or used before. I’ve been following for years and so I’ve grown with the progression of techniques and panels, so it’s less overwhelming for those who are familiar. Tons of resources out there! I’ve learned - just one thing at a time. Learn a simple, new technique and then start using it, if it fits your work flow.
Thanks again @Kerry_Gordon for the learning resources tips and also to @Kris_Smith , @Lon_Overacker@Diane_Miller for all the positive feedback and advice. This is all ver encouraging - time to get cracking on some photoshop learning!
Hi all. Thanks again for the tips and encouragement. I watched Sean Bagshaw’s course and found it very good. Here is my next attempt. I found photoshop definitely better at removing objects in the frame and to work on subject separation. I did noise and sharpening /texture in Lightroom using the subject mask (nice feature that!), as well as darkening in to right of the image and the cropping (I prefer the long rather than adding canvass…which I don’t know how to do yet anyway :)). I lightened/created contrast using a curves layer, I converted using a B&W conversion and lowering the greens and increasing the yellows. I didn’t feel I needed to use masking because there is such colour separation between the stumps and the background that I could just use the colour slides in the B&W conversion layer. I did a slight global contrast using the brightness/contrast and some targeted burning. I also added yellow to the trunks to warm them up using a Selective Colour layer for the midtones. I did you use a Camera Raw filter at the end to give a final slight sharpening. When it comes to texture, noise reduction and sharpening, I feel like I pushed it as far as I could without getting too crunchy. The image is a bit soft in some spots which may be f5.6 dof or taking from a kayak at ISO 1600. Overall, I think I like it better, but it may be a little too contrasty? It has been a great intro to photoshop…lots more to explore. Welcome any thoughts and thanks again.
