Crooked Tree

[Alberta_Trailblazer]

When I took this picture it was dark outside and didn't want to fill the picture with too much with flash so I shot it with a fast enough shutter speed to prevent shake, but in the meantime created a dark exposure. I thought it was a lost cause until I played with it for a while, and here is what I came up with.

Original:



Process:

1. I cropped the picture to tighten up the composition, bringing more focus to the tree.
2. I turned my background layer into a smart layer I used Shadow/Highlights to bring some of the tone back.
3. Using a masked Levels layer I added some contrast back to the foreground grass and tree.
4. Added a masked Hue/Saturation layer to the background to bring out the color of the grass, knowing later this would improve the grass tone once I converted the image to B&W.
5. Added a masked layer to bring out the colour in the sky, masking to prevent messing with the grass and tree tone.
6. Added a Curves layer to add contrast to the clouds in the sky.
7. Converted to B&W, messing with each colour to get the right tone.
8. Copied and merged to a single layer.
9. Duplicated this layer and used the Unsharpen Mask to add some texture to the sky and grass.
10. Duplicated once more and used the Soft Light blend to add more contrast to the picture, lowering the opacity of the layer till it appeared correct.
11. Copy merged to create a new layer to remove the power pole, power lines, and pedestrian tunnel enterance.
12. Added border.

Edited:



In the end I was happy with the results, I think... may come back to it later

[crazzy88ss]

Good rescue! Removing power lines is always such a pain in the butt.

[southernbelle]

nice "after" result! I love the mood you created with the de-saturation! Cloning those power-lines out must have been a pain!!

[incitenz]

Great result. I've usually strayed away from clonging out powerlines, too tricky, must have taken you a while

[scottws]

I'll agree with everyone, nice work on the power lines etc. Can you explain how you did it?

[IcyMirage]

I have a picture that is a bit ruined because of powerlines, I didn't know you could take those away and still keeping a realistic picture... I'll have to try that too. Like scottws said, could you explain how you did it?

[dlaf]

Just a thought--without the telephone pole between the two trees in the background for a vertical reference, it looks like the photograph is crooked and not the trees. Have you considered renaming the photo and straightening the photo to straightening the trees?

[qasimj]

Interesting. I never knew you could take out those power lines hehe.

[dabolick]

I agree with everyone that this is ag great shot, and I really like the B&W conversion.

Keep up the good work!

[cas2000]

Awesome...!!