Carved in Stone

[snapdragon]

It was a little late in the day when i got the chance to take this shot , does anyone have any post editing tips that would help , I have not fooled with it yet .

[jiminyClickit]

snapdragon,

What feature would you want to stand out? What attracted you to the site and caused you to take the photo?

[xxpinballxx]

I would bring the right side down some and try catching some more detail in the rock.
Then maybe play around a bit with the water to make it more prominent.
Is it a place you can go back to?

[snapdragon]

Originally Posted by jiminyClickit

snapdragon,

What feature would you want to stand out? What attracted you to the site and caused you to take the photo?

jiminyClickit , you do know the questions to ask , this photo was one I put no planing into , I was out after fall color when I came upon this , the light was not good but it looked interesting so i took a few ,and now wish i had planed out the shot , but you knew that , it is about an hr. away but i am thinking i will now have to go back cause I don't know what to do with what i got & I know there is a good photo to be had here . this shot was in the shade , more light would have brought out more detail in the rock that was carved out to make way for this water way , a branch from a dam . the water was moving swiftly so i f I go back I will try a ND filter for a few . What do you think ? any sugestions for a new shoot . as is this is what I was dealing with .

[snapdragon]

Originally Posted by xxpinballxx

I would bring the right side down some and try catching some more detail in the rock.
Then maybe play around a bit with the water to make it more prominent.
Is it a place you can go back to?

Thanks , yes i can go back but it is an hr. away , but it may be worth it ,LOL , it was just one of those things i snaped a few of and put no real planning into as i was after leaves ,now I wish i had paid more att . I will try your suggestions .

[thekevinmonster]

I'm not really very good at actually executing a lot of post processing stuff, but......

Part of the problem is that a lot of the shot is in the shade, while some is in direct sunlight.

You may want to try bringing up the shadow levels a little, to bring the two in line without blowing out the highlights as if you just increased the exposure.

If you do that, you would probably also want to increase the contrast a bit, at least for the shadow areas, so you still have some depth to the actual dark bits.

Unfortunately, I'm not so good at actually doing this... I know iPhoto (for mac users) has a 'shadow level' slider in the latest version, although it is often the "makes your photo look weird" slider instead. You would most likely want to fiddle around with the tone curves in something like Photoshop/GIMP/Bibble/Lightroom/PSP.

I could also be wrong.

Edit: one more comment that isn't about PP. The river is blurred in spots, but not extremely blurred. My eyes expect either the water to be frozen in time, or to be really blurred in that "wonderful landscape long exposure smear" way. Perhaps a faster shutter speed would be something to try in the future? Or a much slower one?

[jiminyClickit]

snapdragon,

This edit is just enough to bring a little better color to the foliage, and create focus on whitewater, greenery and shadows, to keep you in center of interest. A layer of higher contrast makes it easier to adjust. A slight vignette, with center moved to upper left some, de-emphasizes right side sameness, as does the slight crop of bottom and right.

In your original, the greenery on left was nearly a third, and brought life overall, same with bright yellow at top. It all seemed to help brighten the scene.

[snapdragon]

Thank you Jimini ,you sure did a great job , I know i can not do what you did to fix this photo , thanks so much . I had better start paying more att when i am shooting these things , I have a tendency to want to get too close for land scape photos like this . I love what you did with it , i know there are alot of great photos at that spot but the leaves are nearly over here so i will have to remember it for next year . I use the screen on my camera , for this type of shot is that a wise idea ? I think I may be useing it too much & would be better off useing the eye view for these kind of photos . What do you think ?

[jiminyClickit]

snapdragon, Thank you kindly

Probably not a question I should answer: my eye stays fixed onto the viewfinder cushion. The screen is fine for auto, but the focus for Macro is so exacting, I no longer can depend on it. So if you're getting results using your screen, why not use it? You'll learn on either one how much of the scene actually gets into a file, and to allow a little extra around the frame.

I have to ask, though, now that I think about the Kodak: do you have the small-opening viewfinder without the guideline brackets for focussing?

[snapdragon]

Originally Posted by jiminyClickit

snapdragon, Thank you kindly

Probably not a question I should answer: my eye stays fixed onto the viewfinder cushion. The screen is fine for auto, but the focus for Macro is so exacting, I no longer can depend on it. So if you're getting results using your screen, why not use it? You'll learn on either one how much of the scene actually gets into a file, and to allow a little extra around the frame.

I have to ask, though, now that I think about the Kodak: do you have the small-opening viewfinder without the guideline brackets for focussing?

Thanks for your reply Jimini , I have had this camera for nearly a yr now & the LCD was something my 35mm did not have ,so i liked it & started useing it , I think too much . with useing the screen for landscape I have been noting that I am looking at the landscape as a whole and not paying closeenough att to what is showind in the screen cause with the tripod & all you are looking at both at the same time , I think I am going to turn the darn thing off and start pressing my eye to the EVF . The Kodak Z650 has brackets for focussing , in both view finder windows EVF or LCD .but it is only brackets , it is pretty basic