My Muse

[Doctor Atomo]

Nikon D90, Nikon 18-55vr @36mm, f/6.3, 1/250th, ISO-200, exposure bias -0.3 step, minimally processed in NX2


This tree is one of the main reasons I bought my D90, and one of my favorite subjects. I still haven't gotten the perfect capture. I have taken hundreds of photos of this tree. I am waiting for the perfect time, some misty morning! Unfortunately I am a night owl, lol!

Hopefully you can give me some pointers on composition exposure and color!
I have several shots of this tree composed differently if any one shows interest I will post some more. Thanks!

[Sterling]

Lots of photo opportunities there for sure! The colors here look somewhat unnatural to me. Is there too much yellow?

[fstopMike]

A night owl?? Take a shot under a full moon!

[Doctor Atomo]

Sterling;
Yeah, I am just learning the software. One thing I notice is what looks good in a larger size looks a little washed out in a smaller size. maybe I overcompensated?
I tried to take out some yellow, can you tell the difference? It looks worse, I suck at color balancing!



fstopMike; That's a great idea!

Thanks for the input!

[LeeR]

I had a similar situation some years ago. I had a tree in my back yard that was just begging to be photographed. However, nothing I tried worked. By itself it was simply to plain to be of any interest. I knew I was going to have just the right situation to make my shot work. One morning a fog had rolled in as the sun came up. The tree was surrounded in an orange fog and I had my shot. It was a family favorite for years after that.
I don't know what conditions will work best for you, but I suspect the day will come when all of the planets will align (so to speak) and your shot will be there waiting for you.

[offwhitedog]

I agree that the colours don't look right (btw I think the first of the 2 above looks better). To me it just looks like the levels are wrong, which is easily fixed - have you checked the histogram? (especially at the black end)

I assume you're using photoshop, in which case somewhere there will be a "Levels" dialogue and in there there should be an "Auto" button, which is a good place to start. This will move the light and dark points on the histogram to what the software thinks are the right points... sometimes it comes out well, sometimes not so well and you may need to intervene, but as I say it's a good place to start.

(Personally I'm a gimp user - if you are too, the Levels dialogue is in the Colours menu; don't know where it is in photoshop. In gimp the Auto function works separately on the R G & B channels and ignores the Luminosity channel, so that's where you need to look to see what it's done. I assume photoshop is the same but can't say from personal experience.)

[Edit] oh, and yes I agree, it's a nice tree

[Sterling]

I like the first one better too. I guess I was wrong about the yellow if all you did was remove some.

[Doctor Atomo]

Thanks, guys! Actually I am using a my trial version of Nikon NX2. I had Photoshop CS3 on my desktop, but it crashed & I have yet to reinstall. I like this NX2 software, but I need a lot of practice. I think I will go and read up on histograms!

Meanwhile, while I have your attention, do you like the composition better in the first image or in this one?



My Muse Vertical


Nikon D90, Nikon 18-55vr @42mm, f/6.3, 1/250th, ISO-200, exposure bias -0.3 step, minimal post processing in Nikon NX2

or this one?



My Muse Wide

Nikon D90, Nikon 18-55vr @18mm, f/11, 1/100th, ISO-200, exposure bias -0.3 step, minimal post processing in Nikon NX2

Thanks for the help!

[Doctor Atomo]

Looking now, it looks like I Boosted the Color a little to much, what do you think? I always want to make it look like it looked to me at the time.

[offwhitedog]

I like the original composition, and also the vertical variant. I think the one with the water in the foreground does not emphasise The Tree enough.

Hope you don't mind, I did a quick auto-levels-adjust on the original shot you posted, and it came up as per attachment. I think it came out ok, actually. It has stretched the colour range from the original so that the darkest parts become black and the lightest parts become white (which is basically all that the auto levels adjust function does).

If anything the colours are a bit over-saturated now, but as you say this might just be because you boosted them already.

Auto levels adjust is a really simple and quick adjustment you can do that tends to work well when you have a good range of colours in the shot, but can sometimes get it horribly wrong if the shot is dominated by unusual colour conditions, e.g. snow or night. And when I say it is quick, I mean *really* quick - all I did here was: open the image in gimp, pull up the Levels dialogue, hit the Auto button, click OK and save. No skill required