REPOST OF EDITED PHOTO:
I don’t know how to use the TK masks that @David_Thompson suggested, so I did the best I could to revise this photo giving it different lighting to try and attain the depth he mentioned.
I’d love to know your thoughts. Thanks!
This was early morning in Spitzkoppe, Namibia at 7:15am - 15 minutes before sunrise (which was not spectacular). It was cold but beautiful. Spitzkoppe is a mountain rising out of the desert - an “inselberg” 700 meters high, often called the Matterhorn of Namibia.
Specific Feedback Requested - see above
Any feedback welcome.
Original request was: I am wondering if I should brighten the shadows on the right hand rock more - it was in the shadows, so I brightened a bit and left it. Should I crop out the bottom portion leading to the foreground rocks. I feel like this needs something - more light on the mountain? or more light on the middle ground?
Technical Details
Fujifilm XT2, 10-24mm lens at 17mm crop sensor, ISO 200, 8 seconds at f/10. The original photo looked very similar, I just used sharpen, denoise, Tonal Contrast, and added a vignette.
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Roberta
Let’s get right into this! I like how you composed this scene. The soft side light works perfectly with this landscape. I think the issue with this image is that all your tones are blending together. You don’t have much separation. Foreground, mid ground and background all look the same. We have to figure out a way to separate those areas. I think the first thing I would do is address the shadows…not by brightening, but making them cooler. If you use TK luminosity masks, I’d select one of the dark masks, and use a color balance adjustment layer on that luminosity mask/selection, and add blue + cyan in small amounts so you can separate those shadows from the lighter areas. I think the mid ground can use some separation from the foreground and background as well. In cases like this i’ll change the tonal values for all 3 areas( FG, mid, BG) and paint those adjustments in selectively.
Hope this helps!
DT
Thanks so much David for your insightful suggestions! I do have TK masks, but havent figured out how to use them, unfortunately. I will definitely spend some time learning them and applying your suggestions!
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