Wooden Boats on Ullswater Lake

[jsklinger@yahoo.com]

Morning All,
I would greatly appreciate your comments/suggestions/recommendations etc. I shot this, obviously :-), on a very cloudy gray day in the UK Lake District. The contrast was very difficult to deal with.

I burned, a little, the hills in the far background as they were a tad light for my taste.

Please take a look and let me know of any suggestions.

EXIF:
f/2.8
1/5000th of a sec
ISO 800
no flash
32mm

[RecurrentNerve]

Well composed but a little flat because of the overcast sky. A polariser might have helped with the haze on the mountains.

I would mask it into separate areas (sky, mountains, water, boats/posts), make it black and white, and use Levels adjustments to punch the contrast right up, varying the different areas for maximum impact. While the sky is grey, it at least has some nice clouds and varying light which will work well in B&W.

Oh, and it's just Ullswater, no Lake

[z0mbina80]

Those boats are wonderful nice rich colors but yeah, that grey sky does kinda kill them a bit lol. Sometimes nature just doesn't want to cooperate hehe. Nice angle on the shot though, I like it

[Michael_2010]

Originally Posted by RecurrentNerve

Well composed but a little flat because of the overcast sky. A polariser might have helped with the haze on the mountains.

I would mask it into separate areas (sky, mountains, water, boats/posts), make it black and white, and use Levels adjustments to punch the contrast right up, varying the different areas for maximum impact. While the sky is grey, it at least has some nice clouds and varying light which will work well in B&W.

Oh, and it's just Ullswater, no Lake

How does one mask the separate elements of the photograph? Do you painstakingly lasso them and then promote to a mask layer? Or is there a trick to doing what you describe?

[Michael_2010]

I love those boats! Beautiful scenery and well composed. If you want, the old soft light layer will add a little humph to the photo. I gave it a try out of curiosity and it gave the clouds a little more definition plus intensified the coloring in the boats. I backed off the opacity until it worked for my eyes. That is one of those 2 second deals that can add a lot in some situations.

[jsklinger@yahoo.com]

Nerve,
Thanks for the ideas. I do not know how to do what you suggest but will do some research.

And thanks for the 'Lake' comment, right you are!
Jim

[RecurrentNerve]

How does one mask the separate elements of the photograph? Do you painstakingly lasso them and then promote to a mask layer? Or is there a trick to doing what you describe?

'Fraid so. No pain no gain. Having said that, as skies quite often have a limited range of colours so the Magic Wand lasso will often do a good job of selecting that. Once you have one selection you can invert it and then you only have to remove a bit.

For example, with the OP's shot here I would select the sky, with the magic wand if possible, polygonal lasso if not (shouldn't be too bad with the mountains being fairly simple). Feather it 0.5 pixels to prevent an artificially sharp edge. Then I'd make a Levels adjustment layer, which automatically uses the current selection to make a mask.

Then I'd invert the selection, hold down ALT, and use the poly lasso to deselect the water and boats. Once that's done I'd make another adjustment layer, so now I've masked the mountains and the trees. Repeat the process to separate out the boats and water, add a Hue/Saturation layer at the top of the stack to desaturate, and then adjust away with the Levels layers. In reality I would probably use various selection methods - lassos, pen tool, quick masking etc. The beauty of masking is of course that you can refine the selection with the brush tool after the event.

This gives you maximum control over all the separate elements. You could arguably just separate out the sky from the rest of the image and adjust those two halves. Depends how far you want to go with it.

I do not know how to do what you suggest but will do some research.

Check out my tutorial on it here. I'd be happy to show you how it would work with this photo if you like.

[Michael_2010]

Thanks for the very descriptive explanation. Ain't nuttin simple is there. lol

[RecurrentNerve]

Nothing worth doing is easy!