Well it has been a while, i miss NPN and the discussions here. Looks like i missed the critiques that happened here by some of my favorite photogs.
While i catch up to what i have missed i leave you with this photo:
After a quick but intense thunderstorm the clouds started to move out east while the sun continued to go down.
I drove down a random country road in the prairie lands of Alberta and I came across this tree as the clouds were reflecting that last light. I flew my mini drone to capture this scene.
Welcome back, Aref. Wonderful image to come back with too. And a drone shot too. Wonderful. I love the sky, it’s really astonishing. I think you could crop just a bit of the foreground grass though. It would help to ground the tree in the scene, I think.
Hi Aref! This is such a wonderful scene with the light striking the clouds. I really like your composition and the emphasis on negative space. My suggestion has to do with the bright yellow highlights in the clouds. Digital has a tendency to go a bit wild with bright highlights and they go yellow in a way that isn’t representative of the actual scene. The good news is that it can be easily tamed in photoshop. I brought your image into photoshop, then opened the color/saturation adjustment. I selected “yellows” from the drop down, then did the following: Hue -7, Saturation -27, Lightness +28. This essentially lowers the saturation of the yellows and changes the hue to be a bit more reddish. The Lightness setting helps blend the tones a bit. This adjustment is best applied only to the sky area so a mask with a gradient will help maintain the proper color in the foreground.
It also looks like you did some localized dodging around the tree that has lightened the sky around it. And if you didn’t do any dodging, it could be from global shadow recovery. In any case, darkening that area around the tree so it blends more with the surrounding sky will help maintain a natural appearance. You have a wonderful photo here, and with just a few tweaks it will shine even brighter.
Beautiful and dramatic sky! I think you have a somewhat unique composition - and one that is working very well for me. To start, the grassy field has almost the same weight/space as the sky although it’s not quite 50/50. And what’s working here is having that lone tree tie the two “halves” together. Not sure if it’s the perspective the drone, or just the amount of space included of the grass (which I’m liking - again, somewhat unique approach.)
Curious, I’m not a drone guy, but appreciate the seemingly endless possibilities and opportunities. I’m wondering because it appears the camera is NOT very far off the ground. So, you either didn’t have your regular camera/tripod OR this perspective could not be reached or composed with that camera, so the drone came in quite handy. But it doesn’t matter - I really like the viewpoiont.
In fact, to the earlier comment about almost a 50/50 split between the grass field and the dramatic sky… I think that could even be emphasized by cropping some of the heavy blue up top to even more of a 50/50 split (and again the tree being the bridge between the two).
I think Ben made a construction suggestion on the saturated highlights in the clouds, but I must say that I think we all have seen skies that literally blow our minds with such intense colors… that this is not straying too far from what could have been… But Ben’s suggestion might just be the ticket.
Wonderful and somewhat unique landscape image.
Lon
ps. Yes, glad to have you back! Will look forward to more postings and participation!
Thanks a lot for your feedback @Ben_Horne
You are one of the photographers i look up to.
Take a look at the reworked image.
I did do what you suggested with the HSL. I tried to keep it light though and applied a black mask on the layer then painted the effect slowly with a 20% opacity brush on the brightest highlights.
Not sure if that made a difference. I kept the lightness at 0 though when i increased to over 20 it kind of muted the photo almost made it look dull compared to how it was and i assure you it was not dull that evening.
Btw i had already reduced the saturation if the yellows a bit in lightroom when i first started working on the image.
Now to the halo, man you have to have an amazing eye to see this
You are right i did dodge the tree. I used a luminosity selection to keep it precise and not have it spell to the sky and the mask is pretty good (from what i see)
Nonetheless you saw it. But for the love of god i went back trying to see what you saw to correct it i can’t see it
I zoomed in 200% and i still can’t see it
Thanks @Lon_Overacker for the feedback
I tried your crop but to me the natural vignette by the dark blue sky was adding to the photo and it felt contrived when i made it 50/50.
Why the drone,
i could not have extended my tripod to be this hight.
I actually tried with my camera it did not look as nice as i was standing on same highest as the tree.
That being said, i was initially flying trying to get something else (which did not work) while flying my drone back i saw the tree and the sun had gone down casting this amazing reflection so i lowered the drone to where it looked like a higher vantage point for a tripod, composed the scene and took the shot.
The place was also quite far from where i stood and i could not walk there so when i tried to frame it with my camera i had to use telephoto and that was not as pleasing.
Interesting perspective! If you hadn’t said it was a drone, I wouldn’t have guessed. Did you fly above and beyond the tree to get a shot that was 90% that wonderful sky?
A complete aside, and thoughts that possibly some film shooters like @Ben_Horne, @David_Bostock or @Lon_Overacker could comment about: In the early days of digital it was very common to see sunset skies that featured saturated yellows. I’ve never managed to look into the reality, but I’ve always suspected that real sunsets just don’t have saturated yellows. It was common back then to hear, “But it was really like that!” And I always wanted to say, was it “really like that” when you first saw the raw file (or even more biased, a JPEG) in your photo editing software, with an artificial color profile and white balance designed to knock your socks off? There is no color accuracy in that equation. And it’s just not possible to trust our perception or memories.
You have a point it is hard to remember how it was
The DJI jpeg preview is here for reference i just went to it and it is see it much more muted
Myabe my mind is just exaggerating the experience
Good to see you back, Aref. I agree with @David_Bostock about possibly cropping off a bit of the foreground and making it more about the sky than the negative space of the grass which is ok but certainly not magical. It’s the sky and the tree that are the star of this show. I prefer the muted colors of the sky in the rework. The POV looks like it would if this were shot from the ground with a regular camera. Is the drone the only camera you had on you at the time? Just curious as to why you chose the drone for this shot. I’m intrigued. I have a drone and am simply curious. The image might need a slight counterclockwise rotation but it may also just be an optical illusion. Nice image.
