I would really appreciate your help on this one. This image is a couple of years old and this is a rework trying to use some new techniques I liked in one of Alex Noriega’s tutorials. I really struggled a lot with this, going through several failed iterations before I finally came up with this variant. It’s still not what I want but it’s the closest I’ve come thus far.
MY VISION for this image was for the water tumbling over the rocks to be the centerpoint of the image along with a small bit of the terrain surrounding the water, then having the remainder of the image slowly growing darker, but not in such a consistent way of this image does. I want to present a “darkened, fairy tale” type of forest scene for the outer image that you might see in a Disney movie, and which this version does not have. I’ve included the original RAW image for comparison as well. Any assistance, suggestions, ideas, reworks, etc. would be greatly appreciated.
What technical feedback would you like if any?
See above.
What artistic feedback would you like if any?
Any and all
Pertinent technical details or techniques:
Nikon D810 w/ Tamron 24-70 @ 65mm. 1/10 @ f/8, 200 ISO, Tripod
Conditions - Smoky Mountains, late afternoon on a rainy/overcast day.
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Bill,
I don’t think I’m going to be any help to you on this image because it is absolutely beautiful as presented. I don’t know if I would change a thing on it. Maybe add a little bit of Orton effect in the background making it a little more mysterious by softening up the bright greens and oranges in the top portion of the image. Also, the right side is brighter than the rest of the image so maybe darken that down a little bit but really, I love the section of fall colored leaves over the rapids a lot. This is a stretch but maybe darken the stream at the bottom of the image where there are lots of highlights in the water.
What I really think is to leave this alone and frame it big and put it on a wall. I told you I wasn’t gonna be any help! LOL
Hi @Bill_Chambers,
I gave this a few minutes of work in Lightroom to see if I could paint in the desired effects you were looking for. This has too many adjustments to mention all of them but most were simply the brush tool and the radial tool painting away using the range mask in luminosity mode or color range mode. This is pretty drastic but I wanted to try and create a darker, foreboding scene the deeper your eyes went upstream and into the forest. Reduced clarity and texture in the upper left corner while also reducing saturation. Also drastically reduced the highlights and exposure in the stream before the waterfall. Not sure if this was what you were looking for or not. I had fun playing with it nonetheless.
Looking at your edited vs. raw version, it strikes me that your raw version has more of the ambience that you’re looking for (if I read your intent correctly). The edited version is quite saturated and almost cheerful.
I brought the raw version into ACR and added 3 radial filters. The first was to accentuate the little waterfall; I warmed that area up just a teeny bit, increased clarity and texture. The second two were to make the surrounding forest more moody. I put the effects for those two filters on the outside. My idea was to make two concentric “rings” of adjustments, with the stronger effect being on the outside. For those two filters, I cooled them just a bit, and decreased the clarity, texture, and dehaze. Because the latter makes things brighter, I then decreased the exposure. I did try to brush off the latter two effects from the yellow leaves and some of the brighter green leaves in the forest. This might be too dark (I have a tendency to overdo things - ha), and the darkening might not be gradual enough along the right side.
Lovely scene, and I do like your idea to make it moody.
Bonnie, I think you’re really on to something with your version. As for the saturation, I intended to boost saturation, but I wasn’t looking for cheerful. I’m most impressed by the outer ring; that’s almost exactly what I was thinking about, but I wanted a bit brighter second ring/filter. I seldom use ACR so I am not familiar with radial filters. Do you know if they are available on pre-CC versions of ACR? I still use CS6 because I haven’t yet given in to paying Adobe’s monthly extortion plan, and my version of ACR is the same age. I’ll have to google a tutorial on how to apply them. Thanks for your rework of it.
@Bill_Chambers, pre-CC versions of ACR do have radial filters. IIRC, pre-CC versions have most of what is available in the CC versions as far as the basic tools, although, I don’t believe the pre-CC version has the dehaze slider (which I used here). I just turned it off, though, and it didn’t make much difference in what I did, so I wouldn’t worry about that.
Here are screen shots of the three adjustments. You could do the same thing with the brush tool, also. There’s always more than one way to skin an adjustment. I don’t know if you use LR, but you would do the same thing there. I’ve grown fond of doing these adjustments in ACR vs PS because you can do more than one adjustment with just one filter, rather than having multiple layers.
Foreground water - I reduced the exposure and increased the lights, to give this area more pop.
Is this more like the mood you are looking for? If not, no worries. It’s hard to guess through just words, of course. But if it is I’m happy to explain what I did.
Thanks @David_Kingham, @Bonnie_Lampley, and @David_Haynes for your help! Bonnie, thank you for showing your screens. I use Capture One Pro 20, and they offer the radial masks you describe. Your terminology of radial “filters” threw me- same thing, just different names, at least I suppose that’s the case.
None of the images offered are exactly what I’m looking for, but they give me some great ideas and I appreciate that so much. @David_Kingham, if I’m still struggling after I’ve played with the info I’ve received thus far, I’ll contact you for workflow.
Bill, I’m a big believer in reading peoples posts, and trying to respond to requests for specific input. In that spirit, I’ll give it a shot based on your vision of a “darkened fairy tale”, the nature of the original post, and your favorable response to seeing the effect of radial filters from folks like Bonnie.
I think adding a significant vignette via radial filters, etc. gets me partway there in terms of your stated vision of emphasizing the falls. But in the original post, I also like the warm, yellow color of the leaves in the trees. And a vision of “fairy tale” seems to suggest the soft, gauzy look that an Orton Effect provides.
So I added a strong vignette to start, but not as strong as the others shown here. I then added to the vignette by burning the darker greens, but not burning the brighter yellow tones of the leaves. essentially the vignette is biased to the darker tones. And then I added a TK Smart Orton effect selectively applied to the lighter tones via a luminosity mask. Here is a rework with those changes. Hopefully this take is consistent with your vision, or at least makes you consider it further.
Excellent @Ed_McGuirk. This is the closest yet to what I envisioned. It’s almost there. I won’t have a chance to further work on it until tomorrow (working on my taxes today), but this really helps me out a bunch. Thanks, Ed, your assistance is greatly appreciated.
Bill, I forgot to mention that I used TK Actions luminosity masks to selectively burn the darker green tones, I don’t know if you use TK, but it is how I was able to do the burning in darker tones only. Glad to be of help.
Ed, yes, I do use TK’s Masks so I do understand that, but I’ve never played with using his Orton effect but I’ll google that on Youtube. I’m convinced you can pretty much find ANYTHING on Youtube.
For me the key is to either apply TK Smart Orton to the entire image, and then reduce the layer opacity to a low value (10% to 15%), or to apply the Smart Orton to only the Lights (L1 or L2) via a luminosity mask on the controlling layer.
First, I think this is a lovely image. I interpreted your words and took a shot at what they mean to me. So here’s yet another take on this. See what you think of going this direction. Lot’s of stuff from luminosity masks, dodging, Luminar tools, Darks TP from TK, etc. Happy to share all if desired.
You have a great image to start out with so it’s not surprising that so many good reworks are coming forth. Your original post, although too optimistic, is excellent and may still be the best image on this page. For your desired mood, I think it’s a tie between the two Davids, @David_Haynes and @David_Kingham .
Thank you @Igor_Doncov, @David_Kingham, @Keith_Bauer, @David_Haynes, @AndySimpson, @Eva_McDermott, @Ed_McGuirk, @Bonnie_Lampley for all the suggestions and for taking the time to rework and share your efforts with me! It’s a lot of information to sort through through but I’ll try to rework the image perhaps this weekend or Monday. I’m in the midst of doing my taxes at the moment and that will probably take the rest of the day. Every year, I say I’m going to get more organized with keeping up with expenses and such, and here I am once again, searching the internet for order histories, checking account, credit card statement, and receipts. So much fun!!!
Thank you all once again. If anyone wants to know if NPN is worth the money to join, they just need to look at this post and see all the effort everyone put in to helping a fellow shooter, and they would happily pay the membership fee! Thank you David & Jennifer for allowing us to share in this wonderful site!
I recognize this spot! This is a nice composition and you have just the right amount of water flow. You also have a nice mix of color. While it may not quite be what you are going for, I like what you have done with the original post. Of the re-works that have been posted my preference would be for either Ed McGuirk’s edit or Keith Bauer’s edit.
I was at this spot a few years ago. The park roads had been closed due to snow and the threat of falling trees, but you could walk into the park. I was hanging out shooting this scene from very close to this same perspective and I saw something moving out of the corner of my eye. I looked over and saw two otters come down the hill and into the river. Your image takes me back to that day.
Beautiful scene by the way.