New User and First Critique

[Hermann_Philips]

What technical feedback would you like if any?

Any and everything. I’m interested in how you would approach post processing this image.

What artistic feedback would you like if any?

Any and everything.

Any pertinent technical details:

Nikon D850, Nikkor 50mm 1.4, ISO 64, 50mm, f16, 1.0 sec

Hello Folks,

I found out about this forum from the Fstop collaborate podcast. I was unaware that a forum of such world class photographers was in existence! I’ve been browsing mainly the image critique sections and I enjoy seeing everyone’s input on people’s images.

Before the stones and tomatoes start flying my way, I know this is an extremely iconic view point, and it can be difficult to get anything new or moving from the location. My main struggle with photography is the post processing realm, and I think this is a good candidate for getting input on my post processing. I edited this using only local adjustments via the adjustment brush in Lightroom. mainly dodging and burning, some minor vibrance and hue correction, and sharpening.

I have the TK action panel and have had difficulty working it into my workflow. Does anything from the panel stand out as a tool to process this image?

Thank you and I look forward to using this forum more in the future. Cheers!

You may only download this image to demonstrate post-processing techniques.

[Marylynne_Diggs]

I think you have done a great job with this iconic viewpoint. It’s from Glacier Point, or somewhere up that road? The snow and fog make this image a keeper in my mind. I really like the mood it lends to the whole scene. I can’t help much with post-processing, and I don’t use TK myself, just LR as you do.

If I wwere to suggest anything, it wold be to crop off a tish of the sky. Maybe choose one of the diagonal gray wispy clouds to crop out, or crop down to eliminate both of the longer wispy clouds in the upper left? To me, the sky has too much space, considering the interest in the mid and foreground.

My only nit, and this is really a nit against nature, so I hesitate to mention it, but I always wish Half Dome would face into this scene, not out of it. Of course, who am I to critique nature’s composition of Yosemite. Still, I can wish, right?

[RayLaurence]

Welcome to NPN, Hermann,

It is great to have you as part of the community. I agree with you that Critiques are a great way for us to share our knowledge with each other, I really like the overall capture with the fog and the snow. It has a lot of interest and plenty of good detail. It is a very high contrast scene, with the sky almost overpowering the rest of the beautiful scene. While it is colorful, the eye is drawn immediately out of the important parts of the scene. I agree with the previous critique and would recommend some reduction in the sky to provide more balance to the scenic portion of the photograph. I would also suggest that you look at reducing the highlights and opening the shadows. Did you set your white and black point? If you did not, assuming this photo was captured in RAW, not JPEG, search the internet for instructions on how to set these points in Lightroom. If you can do so, you may then want to set a gradient filter from the top to about 1/3 down the photo and then reduce the exposure of the sky by about 1 stop.

Your image has a great foreground, mid-ground and background. It is well worth some additional work to get more visual balance over the entire photograph. Good luck and may you have continued success.

[Preston_Birdwell]

Welcome, Hermann! Very nice first post of a place I know well.

The processing looks good to my eye, and you did well with the adjustments you have made in LR.

I do agree with Marylynne’s suggestion to crop the sky a bit. I also would like to see a crop from the bottom to remove that snow covered brush. It really grabs my eye, and to me it doesn’t offer much to the scene.

Regarding the TK Actions: There is a learning curve, but Tony’s tutorials are invaluable. Also, NPN member Sean Bagshaw has a series of excellent videos on how to use TK’s actions.

Looking forward to seeing more of your work.
–P

[Nathan_Klein]

Welcome Hermann,

I love the diaganol nature of the fog. I’d reduce the luminous values of the sky. I’d also be tempted to try a black and white version of this one.

[Dan_Kearl]

I would tone down the sky a tad and bring up the waterfall cliff a tad…
Minor tweets to a very nice look. The fog adds a lot.

[Hermann_Philips]

Thank you all for the feedback. I agree with the crop recommendations and the shadows. I was trying to recreate the cold chilly morning. The sun hadn’t quite come up yet so the scenery was dark under the sky, but i agree with everyone. Cropping the sky and bringing up the shadows should help. I will experiment more. Thank you!

[Igor_Doncov]

I think this is a very good composition from Tunnel View that’s significantly different from the standard (that AA made famous). The layered approach gives it good structure and the snow and fog provide a good atmosphere. I also like the amount of sky that you have given this. What’s a bit peculiar is that this is a b&w image with only the sky having color. It seems unnatural somehow. I tried cooling the WB to add more color and give a sense of coldness. In the end the b&w seemed to be best.

[Harley_Goldman]

Welcome, Hermann. This is a most enjoyable view. I would agree with Preston on the bottom crop suggestion to eliminate the bush, but it is not an image killer. I like the sky as is, but you could crop a bit as an alternative. Real nice first post.

[Lon_Overacker]

Welcome to NPN Hermann! A wonderful first post. Personally, I make no apologies for visiting or capturing photos from this and other iconic locations. Most especially from here where conditions can literally change minute to minute. And you’ve captured a beauty. And remember, this is a moment in time - and will never be repeated.

I think your processing is quite excellent actually. And any suggestions to tweak are more towards personal preference rather than any faulty corrections especially when it comes to color/hue/sat, etc.

I would agree with the other comments about some cropping. Again, this is really tweaking, IMHO. Rather than crop the entire bush at the bottom, what I’m drawn to is the dark area at the bottom. I would crop just enough off the bottom to eliminate that. (I actually didn’t crop it all the way, but then did a Content Aware clone of the remaining dark patch. Guess I’ll post my attempt below. I also cropped a slice off the right to eliminate 2 dark areas, but in the upper and lower halves. Also just a tad off the top. If anything, I simply treat this as “border patrol” where I try to clean up the edges - not necessarily done to improve the composition per se.

@Hermann_Philips

Does anything from the panel stand out as a tool to process this image?

Honestly, there’s really not much that TK’s panel could help with (which is saying your processing doesn’t need much, if any, work!) But one thing I did use was a Luminosity mask to reduce the brightest areas of the sky. A Lights-4 mask dropping the highest values a few points. Very minor though. Also used Dodge/burn tools, but again you don’t need TK’s panel to use those tools, although for me it’s quite useful to have access to all those things in the panel.

Other tweaks. Added Select Color layer to neutralize the fog in the valley and I thought the neutral values were ever so slightly red. Which, because of the time of day and sky influencing the scene - is perfectly fine. This is just a different choice, probably not even an improvement. I also selectively dropped the contrast on the wall and lower half of the image, leaving sky and snow-covered rocks untouched in terms of contrast. Lastly, I dodged the rock face area of the Leaning Tower (right side) and then burned down the URC a tad.

And now that I think about this, not sure why I went through this exercise. What you posted is quite excellent. Looks to me like you’re well along the way. Anything learned now is probably just tips and tricks and learning other processing techniques.

Welcome!

Lon

[Hermann_Philips]

Hi Lon,

Thank you for taking the time to write a detailed explanation of implementing the TK panel. I’m going to experiment with some different crops and see what I like the best. Good point about the snow, it seems things like that are very easy to adjust with luminosity masks.

Also, I’m going to just start working photos completely in PS with the TK panel. I find Lightroom starts to slow down a bit on big files that have a ton of different adjustment brushes.

[Tony_Kuyper]

At first the lack of color throughout is a bit unsettling, but the more I look at this, the more I like it. The splash of orange is a great contrast to the monochromes in the rest of the image. I’m in agreement with the others that a simple crop off the top would do a lot to create better proportions of the elements here. Regarding the TK panel here, I’m not sure what you’d like to use it for. Everything looks relatively balanced to me (except for the composition). What else do you want to do? The real key to using the panel is to first determine what you’re trying to correct and then generating a mask to select that portion of the image whether it be tones (lights/darks/midtones), color, or saturation. The image looks finished enough to me I really don’t see a reason for additional processing.

[Alex_Noriega]

Welcome, Hermann!

I might be crazy for this suggestion, but how about losing ALL of the sky? The sky is my biggest issue with the image, in that it’s by far the brightest and also the least interesting part of the scene. Since it’s so much brighter, my eye is drawn up there immediately and I find it difficult to explore the rest of the image. I also find the color in the sky to be somewhat distracting, considering the lack of color throughout the rest of the scene. Take this with a grain of salt, because I’m often one to exclude the sky in my own images, but I find that a greater sense of mystery comes with not knowing exactly how the scene is laid out beyond the edges of the frame - and you’ve got a killer midground here.

So perhaps a horizontal 5:4 crop down below that excludes the sky? This makes the image about the trees, fog, valley, and waterfall rather than about “the whole view” including the sky and peaks, but in my estimation that is focusing on what’s interesting about this particular moment in the first place. And yes, it’s a large crop, but why not take advantage of that D850 resolution? It still leaves you with 24MP.

If you did try this crop, I would recommend also trying a slightly cooler white balance to help convey the wintry vibe, moving those brownish whites more toward bluish whites. I’d also darken the snow at the bottom edge of the frame in this crop (I did not do so in this example).

All that said, the original image is laid out nicely and pretty well balanced - maybe slightly right-heavy but not overly so. I just feel that this composition would work better at a different time of day, if the sky was darker (say, fully clouded over) and there was light poking through into the valley. As it is now, the primary elements that the photo is “about” (the valley, fog, trees, falls, and even the mountains) are mostly in shadow, and you’re wrestling with balancing that against a sky that is many times brighter in person. It’s tough to bring that together in post, and you did a commendable job with it.

If you stick with the original composition, I would work on darkening the sky back at the raw stage, and maybe trying a cooler white balance to see if you can work the open sky toward blue rather than white. I would also dodge up the waterfall, as it kind of gets lost among the snow and fog right now.