This Month’s Critique – You Make The Changes
For this month’s DPS Writer’s Critique, I thought I’d turn things around. It has been suggested before that there should be the opportunity for blog readers to not only voice their critique of the monthly photos, but that they should also show the rest of us what they were thinking. And that’s what we’re going to try this month!
With that concept in mind, here is one of my photos I am releasing under a Creative Commons license. You are free to take it, play with it, adjust it and, generally speaking, improve it. I’d highly suggest downloading the original CRW (RAW) file here for best results.
Take a stab at editing this photo and post your results in the comments section below. My ego can take it. Please also take a moment to explain what you did so others may learn from your critique.
213 Responses to “This Month’s Critique – You Make The Changes” - Add Yours
November 16th, 2009 at 12:52 am
It is a nice image, but I think the trees at the bottom get in the way a bit, I would have prefered to see something a little more interesting in the foreground.
Apart from that I think its great :)
November 16th, 2009 at 12:57 am
I added a slight saturation boost and increased the contrast of the sky. I also added an infrared filter and set it to overlay to add extra pop to the sky.
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November 16th, 2009 at 1:15 am
Here is my edit on it .. reduced the size of image to make noise less visible.
November 16th, 2009 at 1:17 am
My try:
* some tonemapping in HDRtist
* cropping (this and the rest done with Pixelmator)
* sky blur
* level adjustment
* slight sepia effect
If you like the result, why now have a look at my homepage? :)
November 16th, 2009 at 1:20 am
Of course that should be “not”, not “now”. Hem hem.
November 16th, 2009 at 1:26 am
I used contrast masking to brighten things up a bit, then an auto-levels adjustment to get the colours right, then I increased the black levels slightly.
November 16th, 2009 at 1:30 am
I used contrast masking to brighten things up a bit, then an auto-levels adjustment to get the colours right, then I increased the black levels slightly.
November 16th, 2009 at 1:30 am
Sorry, post doesn’t seem t accept graphics. Here’s mine:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2763/4105366825_0a29fba0ec_o.jpg
November 16th, 2009 at 1:32 am
Here is my edit on it .. reduced the size of image to make noise less visible.
Note : please delete/ignore my prev post .. flickr error didnt allow image to open fully.
November 16th, 2009 at 1:36 am
I’m not an expert but here is my crack at it with a little cropping to keep it interesting and some bumping up of the blue / white & greens to try and make things pop a little more.
November 16th, 2009 at 1:44 am
Greetings,
I am self taught, and not very good at it. But practice make me better. At least I am trying.
I did use Topaz filters. I separated the sky and treated each separate.
Still playing.
W. Kirk Crawford
Tularosa, New Mexico
November 16th, 2009 at 1:50 am
Steps taken: adjusted white balance, exposure and luminosity. Then applied a polarizer and tonal contrast increase to the trees and mountains.
November 16th, 2009 at 2:11 am
What did I do and why?
The target of my editing was to give it a more dramatical look. For me, mountains are sharp, mean, and they look threatening. That’s what I want to show.
1. Added contrast and detail to the picture, because I wanted the clouds to come out more and add to the dramatical look. Also, more detail helps to make the rocks look threatening.
2. Used a levels mask for the trees – I need contrast, and to make the trees black helps the composition (ca. 1/3 of picture black, 2/3 white). Also adds to the drama look.
3. Make it black and white. I shot several mountain pictures and found, that b/w just fits this environment perfectly.
That’s it! Thanks, Albi
November 16th, 2009 at 2:17 am
Here’s another version. I did a lot, adjusted the white balance, warmed it up a bit, cropped on the left a little, increased the contrast, darkened some areas, softened the clouds, sharpened the trees and mountains, etc.
November 16th, 2009 at 2:21 am
Ran a new free action that I found at The Album Cafe called “Oh the Drama”
I applied a Texture, Multiply at 78% Opacity,
Adjusted the Levels
Its my first time here, and first time working with Textures. Hope you like the effects!
November 16th, 2009 at 2:29 am
I went for a ’50’s Postcard look.
Imported into Lightroom and had at it. Check the EXIF for settings.
November 16th, 2009 at 2:29 am
November 16th, 2009 at 2:32 am
My attempt in making things the way I would have liked them to be.
November 16th, 2009 at 2:35 am
I cropped it (to keep the area of the pic I liked), sharpened the image (to make the mountains a little less flat) and dulled the color (to give the trees and and mountains the same range of colors).
November 16th, 2009 at 2:42 am
What I’ve done:
- Crop
- Black and white
- Play with level
November 16th, 2009 at 2:56 am
Hey, Great idea… reverse critique. Adjusted curves, vibrance, blacks and contrast. Added cooling filter to the sky. Adjusted levels, unsharp mask.
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November 16th, 2009 at 3:06 am
I too am self taught. My approach is to work the image until it looks its best (to me). For this image I increased exposure, increased clarity, saturation, sharpness and applied auto levels.
Hope you like!
Apophis
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November 16th, 2009 at 3:28 am
Here is a B&W version. I didn’t want to crop too much because you loose an interesting sense of perspective if the clouds below the tree line are removed.
November 16th, 2009 at 3:33 am
After i posted my last comment, I thought… what if we highlighted the cloud below tree level? How could you create a greater sense of perspective? What about this crop?!
November 16th, 2009 at 3:40 am
November 16th, 2009 at 3:52 am
I adjusted levels, upped the saturation, and added some contrast.
November 16th, 2009 at 4:16 am
I’m not very polished yet when it comes to photo editing. It’s fun, though, and just playing around with this one.
- Cropped
- Adjusted levels and contrast
- Adjusted exposure
- Adjusted vibrance
- Selected trees and applied lens blur
Click here to view it just a bit larger.
November 16th, 2009 at 4:31 am
I converted to Mono using a blue filter. Then I burnt the trees and some of the sky, dodging some highlights to add contrast. I too feel that the foreground is a distraction, but thought it better to make a feature of them in some way – I chose to try to contrast the darkness with the snow/sky.
November 16th, 2009 at 4:31 am
The main thing that I wanted to accomplish with this photo was to draw the attentions to the Mountains and away from the very distracting tree line, to try and do this I used Alien Skin’s Bokeh plug-in to soften the trees and allow the Tetons to draw the eye. Some of the other adjustments I made were to adjusted the WB for a warmer tone, crushed the blacks a bit, increased the saturation in the sky slightly, and finally the Tetons were still a little colder than I wanted so I painted a warm orange with a very low flow over them on a new layer and dropped the transparency to about 5%
And here is a link to a larger image http://www.flickr.com/photos/40367982@N03/4106605922/sizes/l/
November 16th, 2009 at 4:52 am
I thought the image was a little underexposed. I wanted to see more of what I thought would be the natural colors of this image. I made some exposure changes in Camera Raw, and took it into Photoshop. There I made some tonal contrast changes with Nik software and then some Hue Saturation adjustments to bring out the subdued colors. I increased the textures of the Tetons to give a more realistic look.
November 16th, 2009 at 5:37 am
Sorry. I hope the image works this time.
I converted to Mono using a blue filter. Then I burnt the trees and some of the sky, dodging some highlights to add contrast. I too feel that the foreground is a distraction, but thought it better to make a feature of them in some way – I chose to try to contrast the darkness with the snow/sky.
November 16th, 2009 at 5:40 am
I’m not very polished yet when it comes to photo editing. It’s fun, though, and just playing around with this one.
- Cropped
- Adjusted levels and contrast
- Adjusted exposure
- Adjusted vibrance
- Selected trees and applied lens blur
November 16th, 2009 at 5:49 am
The original really feels gloomy and claustrophobic to me, so I wanted to brighten it up a bit and really bring out the trees.
Converted to HDR, did a little tonemapping with Lucidity to bring out the trees, upped the saturation a bit. I like that it feels like the sun’s shining on the trees with the mountains in the distance.
November 16th, 2009 at 5:49 am
Sorry about the double post. I know comments are moderated and it takes a while before they come up, but I wasn’t sure if my comment went through because there was no confirmation that the comment was successfully submitted. (A li’l usability bug? Sorry, a little software tester geekiness coming through. Hahaha. First time to comment here. Will know better next time.ü)
November 16th, 2009 at 6:30 am
Image edited with PSP
Clarify
exposure correction Topaz
Photo pop Tapaz default
noise reduction
Warming filter PSP
Unsharp mask PSP
November 16th, 2009 at 6:30 am
I made 7 different files with different exposure values, from -2.0 to +2.0
Then I merged then to make an HDR image and with leves adjustemnts layer and with layers masks
This way, i could adjust the exposure for every area of the photo and make everything look great.
Hope you can come by to my flickr account and leave a comment :D
November 16th, 2009 at 6:35 am
Hi all,
here is my interpretation of the photo. Used LR2: WB,crop, vibrance, contrast, vignette, added some yellow to the sky and mountains as well as some shadow to the trees. Hope you like it.
November 16th, 2009 at 6:38 am
The original image is slightly underexposed for the viewer (at least on my cheap monitor), and the detail in the glaciers doesn’t contribute to the awesomeness of the peaks. So I wanted to bump the exposure up to wash some of the detail out of the snow as well as brighten it up overall. It also wants some more contrast to define the craggies all over the rock. Basically it needs to pop a little more, plus more saturation would help separate the foreground foliage from the subject – what I think is important in this photo is the play of light and shadow on the rockface. I adjusted the levels to pull out the blue haze and tweaked image a lot with some graduated neutral density filters and a few other plugins:
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As for the composition and trees in the foregroud, I couldn’t decide if I wanted them to be main part of frame or not. I also do not like the pixelization happening in the needles/cones of the pines. The composition I thought was good otherwise, but I did try a panoramic crop and used another graduated ND filter to darken the bottom of frame (ie tips of tree tops):
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But this image was was still just feeling a little too saturated and the main tone to me should be the color of the rock face so decided to be artistic and try running the duplex plug-in from NIK color efex pro and liked the result:
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November 16th, 2009 at 6:45 am
sorry, links didn’t work:
First one, adjust exposure/contrast some noise reduction sharpen subtle graduated ND filters:
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Second one, cropped, graduated ND to darken bottom of frame:
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Artistic one, using duplex filter in NIK Color Efex pro plug-in:
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November 16th, 2009 at 7:19 am
I just use Picnik.com. I first clicked auto fix, then sharpness 1%, contrast 11%, and boost 11 %.
November 16th, 2009 at 7:43 am
November 16th, 2009 at 7:44 am
View On Black
I would have liked the trees in front of the mountains for the entire frame.
Here is what I did:
WB = Cloudy
Exp = +1.6
Clarity = +65
Vibrance = +18
Profile = Landscape
Nik Color Efex Pro:
- Tonal Contrast
- Pro Contrast
Gimp:
FX-Foundry–>Photo–>Enhancement–> Vivid Saturation
FX-Foundry–>Photo–>Sharpen–>Luminosity Sharpen
I also thought the photo would look great with a black frame.
November 16th, 2009 at 7:45 am
I went for a slight desaturated look. I want the mountains to appear big, cold and foreboding.
1. import into lightroom
2. Clean and sharpen with Topaz Denoise
3. In lightroom: increase fill light, blacks, brightness, clarity, contrast and saturation
4. in lightroom: decrease, Vibrance
5. HSL saturation and luminance increase of Blues and Greens.
6. Some sharpening and slight post crop vignette
7. Crop 16×9
There have been some nice edits done. Good job all. Nice work.
T
November 16th, 2009 at 7:54 am
After ‘playing’ with shadows and highlights, adjusting curves, saturating the colors a bit in LAB-mode and using Noise Ninja to get rid of most of the noise in the sky, I came to this result (original size here: http://www.photoambiance.nl/grandteton-1-optim1.jpg)...
November 16th, 2009 at 8:08 am
November 16th, 2009 at 8:39 am
That’s my version of your picture. I just did a quick one. But even too much to write everything down ;-)
November 16th, 2009 at 8:42 am
In general :
* Opened in ACR 5.5 – Boosted Exposure about 1-stop; raised Black Point just a bit; boosted Clarity by 100%!; boosted Blue by about 25, and Cyan by about 5…
* Used Viveza 2 and added over a dozen Control Points to bring out highlights/contrast in foreground trees; contrast in clouds, more…
* Did a little selective dodging and burning of highlights/shadows with tool set to between 50-70% Exposure…
* Resized to 620-pixels wide (no sharpening applied)…
* Got back to what I should have been doing…
Just did this one quickly – but basically I’d be lost these days without the “Control Points” that I first got used to in Nikon’s Capture NX2 software – but Viveza brings the same trick into Photoshop as a plug-in.
November 16th, 2009 at 8:57 am
-adjusted levels
-unsharp mask
-increased contrast
-black & white, then sepia
-lowered saturation on the sepia
-added a slight vignette
November 16th, 2009 at 9:48 am
add exposure and a bit brightness,
enhance saturation and vibrance.
enhance the shadow.
(I found it hard to process the gray clouds)
crop…the white cloud in the right makes the pic unbalanced and trees occupy too much space, so a standard 3:2 crop is applied. however, the cloud is not bad, especially comparing to the gray ones above, the 2:3 crop is an alternative.
November 16th, 2009 at 9:51 am
add exposure and a bit brightness,
enhance saturation and vibrance.
enhance the shadow.
(I found it hard to process the gray clouds)
crop…the white cloud in the right makes the pic unbalanced and trees occupy too much space, so a standard 3:2 crop is applied. however, the cloud is not bad, especially comparing to the gray ones above, so the 2:3 crop is an alternative.
November 16th, 2009 at 9:53 am
If ever there was something to be Pano’d its the Grand Tetons!
Needs more of the range though,
Anyhew, I cropped, and did a levels adjustment, and some noise reduction to the sky. Plus I did some adjusting in ACR.
Fun little project.
November 16th, 2009 at 9:55 am
OOPS forgot to add the image :D
"
November 16th, 2009 at 10:37 am
Here’s my color version. Edited in ACR 4.6. Increased contrast, adjusted blacks and brightness, add a touch of vibrance. Heavily modified colors/saturation/luminance to bring out greens and oranges while toning back blues.
November 16th, 2009 at 10:39 am
Here’s my black and white version. Edited in ACR 4.6. Started from my color version and then dropped yellows and increased blues. Had to bring up brightness significantly. Cropped the sky a bit in this version as it lost a lot of its dimension.
November 16th, 2009 at 10:57 am
I think the trees are in the way of the image. The mountains are beautiful.
November 16th, 2009 at 11:52 am
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2570/4107175327_72d5f7bc5a_b.jpg
November 16th, 2009 at 12:04 pm
I first warmed up the photo a bit in Camera Raw and pushed over the vividness slider a bit before importing it into PhotoShop. In Photoshop I started by doing some color correction, as to my eye there was a nasty blue haze on the mountains. Then applied a Curves adjustment layer to increase contrast, particularly in the clouds and mountains (effects were partially masked on the trees). After that I’d lost shadow detail in the mountains and on the trees, so I applied shadow highlights twice (first using the shadows sliders on everything but the sky) and then highlights to strengthen contrast in the clouds and to restore detail in the snow banks. Final step was to convert to LAB and apply image to warm up the picture and strengthen the overall saturation.
November 16th, 2009 at 12:08 pm
I love the Grand Tetons…. incredibly beautiful! I decided to give the picture a little more drama – although it looks less so online.
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I removed much of the blue from the trees and hills and added a tiny bit of red, contrasted the clouds a bit, added some red to the mountains, and made the shadows on the mountains darker.
Cropped some of the trees out as they were drawing my attention away from the mountains.
November 16th, 2009 at 2:25 pm
First I uploaded this image into Lightroom. Adjusted the white balance and then I decided to leave the trees in color and greyscaled everything else. Gave those greens some extra pop and then sharpened the image.
November 16th, 2009 at 3:32 pm
Just color corrected, then boosted selected colors, and sharpened.
November 16th, 2009 at 3:41 pm
First off, I enjoy the shot of the Tetons from the west side. Don’t often get to see that.
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First opened it in ACR and noticed that there was a bit of room in the histogram in the highlights, so bumped the exposure up a half a stop. The granite of the Tetons is generally pink to brown, not gray, so I shifted the temperature about 300 degrees to the warm side. (Also the mid to late afternoon sun should have given the mountains a bit of warmth anyway) I kicked up the Clarity 15 points to give the sky a bit more drama. Then sent it to Photoshop. No extra saturation or Vibrance, since this shot isn’t about color.
The exposure on the photo didn’t emphasize any feature so I decided that the mountains were to subject. Personal preference for this old backpacker.
First to give the cliffs more punch and deemphasize the trees in the foreground, I duplicated the layer, ran the gaussian blur filter at 30, then set the blending mode to Soft Light. I masked out the clouds to keep them from going over the top. That lightened the cliffs and darkened the trees nicely. However, it made the cones in the Douglas Firs too bright, so I added a Color Balance adjustment layer and adjusted the yellow/blue to more blue. I reversed the mask to black then painted in the adjustment over the Firs. That was almost enough. To tweak it, I used the Sponge tool with a flow of 15 to desaturate the cones a bit.
I flattened the image and sharpened it, (Smart Sharpen Amount:90 – Radius: 0.8) which left the sky a bit noisy. I duplicated the layer again, ran a noise filter on it. Then masked out the cliffs to retain the detail. Resized and sharpened again.
November 16th, 2009 at 4:30 pm
November 16th, 2009 at 6:56 pm
PP used in LR3 Beta. I felt the trees to be way too distracting of the beautiful mountains. So I cropped major and took out a treetop (bottom left). Darkened the remainder of the trees and boosted contrast. I clearly warmed up the image. Not sure why, it just felt good. :) Added a little saturation and blacks as well as used a little fill light. Oh yeah, I added vibrance to 29. I sharpened and used LR’s noise reduction. Finally added a smidge of Lens Vignetting. I think this is a great idea and a lot of fun to do and to see other peoples brains at work! Have fun. -EJ-
November 16th, 2009 at 6:58 pm
November 16th, 2009 at 8:16 pm
I’d just like to add that I really enjoyed seeing what everyone did with this photo, and I’d like to see this “You Make the Changes” type of post become a regular feature here!
I’d be glad to donate a RAW file or two released under CC license to be used here if you’d like, and I’m sure many others would, too.
How’bout it, DPS? I think it’s fun and very constructive!
November 16th, 2009 at 9:31 pm
My first impression of the RAW file was: Too dark. Therefore, the first thing I did was boosting the exposure by 1.5 stops and then added a slight gradient to the sky region to darken it just a tad. I then lowered the color temperature and added some contrast. The next step was to bring it into Photoshop where I added a filter using Color Efex Pro. Inside Color Efex Pro, I converted it to black and white using a green filter and added a bit contrast and structure to the lower part (excluding the sky). Back in Photoshop I changed the blending mode of the b/w version to overlay and lowered the opacity to around 75%.
I was using Adobe Lightroom 3 BETA, Photoshop CS4 and NikSoftware’s Color Efex Pro Photoshop Plug-in.
November 16th, 2009 at 9:51 pm
What a wonderfull place to be with a camera!
I would have prefered to see the image taken from a different view point.
The trees are a distraction, cutting the scene virtually in two.
A different view point with say an interesting rock formation in the foreground would give depth and bring the middle distance mist into the scene.
Maybe another choice would be to alter the view point and go for the strong cloud formation??
November 16th, 2009 at 10:41 pm
B&W – Ansel Adams style – I hope.
and bigger one here
November 16th, 2009 at 10:44 pm
Some very interesting variations on the same image here.
Something that does disturb me a little is the amount of plug-in work done.
IMHO simply installing a plug-in and expecting it to work its magic on your images somewhat detracts from the process of creating a shooting an image – at least it does for me.
I’d rather people used ’straight’ photoshop before leaping to the plug-in box when learning their craft. After all, a plug-in won’t tell you HOW it achieved the look it did, and I think that’s crucial to becoming a better user of photoshop/gimp/what have you.
November 16th, 2009 at 11:12 pm
Processed multiple exposures of RAW file, layered then layer masked them to get exposures were I wanted them, then added multiple adjustment layers to enhance contrast/saturation/color where I wanted. I went for a natural look with the focus more on the mountains then the trees in the foreground, tried to keep the trees a little darker to draw your eye into the shot.
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November 16th, 2009 at 11:46 pm
i am pretty much with meckimac – at last the outcome is similar.
the picture was to dark for me so in ps raw contrast and exposure and the black point had to go up.
Also i did warm the picture a bit so it has a more “soon the sun goes down” feeling.
did not want to crop the image so i duplicated the layer and did apply Topaz Adjust – Clarity – after that i did erase the tree from the top layer to get the original tree back. this way i have a look like it is 17 pm and some bad weather is coming in.
November 17th, 2009 at 12:44 am
Hi,
I posted before, but 24 hours, nothing came up, i guess the link doesnt work. Trying again
What i did,
1)Cropping
2)3 layers of black n white, in different blending modes-
a)red filter in soft light 100%
b)green filter in multiply 50%
c)blue filter in screen 100%
This is more of a trial and error method to get the final image
3)erasing at certain strategic site at individual layers with an eraser opacity of 25%
November 17th, 2009 at 12:49 am
I used rawstudio under Linux Ubuntu to develop the Raw file with a 2.2 coeff. exposure.
Then I used GIMP with clone tool to remove trees – there are too much trees on the photo IMHO – and then some curves manipulation on light/shadow and red curve.
November 17th, 2009 at 12:57 am
A most interesting idea and I like what some of the others have done. Not much needed doing to my eyes. I lightened it slightly, increased the black level and applied a small crop:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/44738111@N06/4108719527/sizes/l/
Cheers, Tom.
November 17th, 2009 at 1:32 am
the shot is fine lots to see and chose from this crop is my pick shows whats in the rocks edited in picasa
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November 17th, 2009 at 1:53 am
Used Aperture 2, Auto Raw tuning, Crop 16×9, Auto levels, White balance on shady part of old glacier, Reduced exposure -0.20, Brightness -.05, Saturate +.20, Vibrancy +.5, Sharpen and Edge sharpen. Thanks’.
November 17th, 2009 at 1:58 am
Here is the picture I hope.Used Aperture 2, Auto Raw tuning, Crop 16×9, Auto levels, White balance on shady part of old glacier, Reduced exposure -0.20, Brightness -.05, Saturate +.20, Vibrancy +.5, Sharpen and Edge sharpen. Thanks’.
November 17th, 2009 at 2:23 am
I would have liked the trees in front of the mountains for the entire frame.
Here is what I did:
WB = Cloudy
Exp = +1.6
Clarity = +65
Vibrance = +18
Profile = Landscape
Nik Color Efex Pro:
- Tonal Contrast
- Pro Contrast
Gimp:
FX-Foundry–>Photo–>Enhancement–> Vivid Saturation
FX-Foundry–>Photo–>Sharpen–>Luminosity Sharpen
I also thought the photo would look great with a black frame.
November 17th, 2009 at 3:36 am
Here’s my version. I did a little bit of HDR processing with Photomatix, little bit of B&W conversion, panorama crop and I tried to get rid of the trees. The last part would need a bit more work, I know it’s not perfect. But looks pretty good, imo.
November 17th, 2009 at 3:37 am
Here’s my version. I did a little bit of HDR processing with Photomatix, little bit of B&W conversion, panorama crop and I tried to get rid of the trees. The last part would need a bit more work, I know it’s not perfect. But looks pretty good, imo.
November 17th, 2009 at 4:16 am
I went down a different track and decided to create a “polar coordiante planet” Here are the steps.
I did some minor raw adjustments in LR 2 during the raw conversion. (lightened greens and darkend blues)
Cropped image to have the highest point of the mountain at the edge (to create a seam later)
Imported to CS3
Duplicated layer.
Lot’s of sharpening (unsharp mask) in lightness channel of LAB colour mode to give an almost 3 d effect of trees infront of mountains.
Increased canvas size to double the original with (left height same for now)
Using hte transform tool I flipped on of the layers to create a mirrow image, and moved to fill the extended blank canvas.
At this stage I converted to 8bit and dropped resolution to 100dpi (just to speed things up)
Added a gradient to go from transparent at bottom through blue to black
(you need a solid colour at the top of an image to make a convincing polar planet.
Stretched image to have same height as width.
Flip image 180 degress.
Then convert to polar coordinates.
Increased canvas size again and filled new layer with black and painted in stars with single pixel brush (adjusted brush dynamics (jitter) to give random effect.
November 17th, 2009 at 4:23 am
http://www.pbase.com/carlcrumley/image/119446915
Someone else tried this method but seemed to blow out the highlights. I processed the RAW file six times resulting in exposures of -2, -1, 0EV, +1, +2 and +3. I merged those images to HDR using Dynamic Photo HDR at default settings. I then took the result into Photoshop where I adjusted levels and color, and boosted the contrast and saturation. Then I ran it through Neat Image to reduce the noise, and took that result back to Photoshop where I resized it for this posting and applied some light sharpening using unsharp mask.
November 17th, 2009 at 4:38 am
This is my first attempt at editing a photo. I used Canon’s Digital Photo Professional software which is very limited and just did some tweaking on the sharpness, hue and contrast.
The only critique I can offer is I would have liked to see less trees in the center of the foreground.
Thanks for the experience
November 17th, 2009 at 4:59 am
I felt there was a lot of interesting structure in the rocks that was lost in the full size image.
So, I cropped in more closely around one area, adjusted brightness, contrast, and color, then applied noise reduction and sharpening.
November 17th, 2009 at 5:19 am
Adjusted in CS4 Raw editor –exposure, contrast, blacks, curves, green/blue saturation and luminosity, added slight vignetting. Opened in CS4 and did levels adjustment and shadows/highlights adjustment. Resized.
November 17th, 2009 at 5:31 am
I tried to enhance the photo with vibrance, saturation, level adjustments and, for the mountains, contrast adjustments. My goal was to keep the photo as realistic as possible, only removing haze and a slight blueish cast across the middle section of the photo. I used Photoshop CS4.
November 17th, 2009 at 5:34 am
I made minor adjustments to the raw file including exposure and saturation. Once in photoshop I duplicated the image and inversed the copy horizontally. I merged the two together and used a layer mask to bring through the clouds and tree line on the left hand side. I then used the cloning tool to fix any problem areas and fill in the trees. I also burned down the lower section of the trees and the clouds. It’s a little quick and dirty but it conveys my vision.
The original seemed off balance to me but I didn’t want to crop out the low lying clouds. I’m usually more of a purist but since it wasn’t my image – I don’t fee too guilty :)
November 17th, 2009 at 6:31 am
Crop
Levels
Sharpen
Cloned out the trees
November 17th, 2009 at 6:34 am
Here’s my try :
November 17th, 2009 at 6:55 am
Mhh, here another one…
November 17th, 2009 at 7:18 am
To add to the beautiful re-imaginings already posted, here is my take on the shot:
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1. I first developed the shot in Lightroom using my Pseudo HDR presets to set the black and white points, to create a linear curve, and white balance. I then produced 9 different exposure levels and exported them as TIF files.
2. I imported the 9 TIF files into Dynamic Photo HDR and processed them using the Smooth Compressor algorithmn.
3. Finally, I set the final curves (lighting and contrast) in Paint.Net. The final product was then saved as a 96 dpi jpg for reposting.
November 17th, 2009 at 7:44 am
The HDR I posted came out so well, I couldn’t resist seeing what would happen if I ran it through Dynamic Auto Painter:
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November 17th, 2009 at 7:49 am
I tried to enhance the photo with vibrance, saturation, level adjustments and, for the mountains, contrast adjustments. My goal was to keep the photo as realistic as possible, only removing haze and a slight blueish cast across the middle section of the photo. I used Photoshop CS4.
November 17th, 2009 at 8:05 am
I made a few small moves in LR. (Exposure, Black, Clarity & Tone Curves)
Next I used the Brush tool in an attempt to add depth to the image and drama to the sky.
I certainly wish no criticism as this is a beautiful image, but I had a little trouble establishing the subject of the image. Was it the clouds? Mountain Range? Trees? If this were my shot, I would have cropped some how to take out the weight of the large lower cloud.
Great idea on letting us do this. It is an excellent training tool for those of us wishing to improve their images.
http://www.me.com/gallery/#100021
November 17th, 2009 at 8:26 am
I really like what everyone has done with the colors, but I think such a dramatic subject needs more dramatic composition. I had two goals with the submission. I wanted to change the composition and i wanted to do all the post-processing edits in GIMP. I am trying to learn GIMP and this seems like a good place to start.
I used GIMP’s shear tool to change the perspective. I did adjust the hue saturation a little to add a little impact to the color, but that was it.
November 17th, 2009 at 9:39 am
I don’t have the jpeg to upload, will do later, but i hit the “I’m feeling lucky” button in Picasa and it looks significantly better that way without any drastic editing
November 17th, 2009 at 10:33 am
The main concept is to brighten the scene and focus more on the mountain line and then the tree line.
1. Set the camera profile to Canon Landscape.
2. Bring up the exposure to +1.5
3. Tone down the white balance a bit – it’s cold up there :)
4. Tune the tone curve to a S-curve to pop the colors
5. Use the graduated filter and the local adjustment brush to decrease exposure of clouds and trees
6. Clarity +50, vibrance +25, saturation +10
7. Crop the bottom to bring the viewers attention to the horizontal lines
The finished product is a little bit noisy, maybe I should process the sky with Noise Ninja.
November 17th, 2009 at 12:22 pm
November 17th, 2009 at 1:35 pm
Cropped, heavily processed, thought I’d give it a try.
November 17th, 2009 at 1:36 pm
I edited this in iPhoto (haven’t quite saved up enough for a better editor yet!).
The main thing I did was adjust the levels to make the photo brighter. I clipped off most of the right side of the levels because it was seeming really flat and dull otherwise.
I also saturated the photo slightly, to bring out the colors of the sky and trees, and gave it a bit more contrast, to make the trees pop out more.
November 17th, 2009 at 1:40 pm
Oh, and I also cropped off the right side and part of the bottom of the photo. The cloud on the right side was bugging me – it just seemed to come out of nowhere. I kept the same dimension ratio as the original photo, just cropped to through the mountains onto the upper “thirds” line and get rid of the random cloud on the side. I think this helps throw the eyes to the mountains instead of getting stuck on the cloud and wondering why it was there.
November 17th, 2009 at 1:40 pm
Oh, and I also cropped off the right side and part of the bottom of the photo. The cloud on the right side was bugging me – it just seemed to come out of nowhere. I kept the same dimension ratio as the original photo, just cropped to put the mountains onto the upper “thirds” line and get rid of the random cloud on the side. I think this helps throw the eyes to the mountains instead of getting stuck on the cloud and wondering why it was there.
November 17th, 2009 at 2:08 pm
I applied an action by the Pioneer Woman and then back into it and tweaked it (levels, saturation, hue) and added a warming filter. Then added a new layer> mode>multiply. Then used a brush at various opacities to erase some of the starkness in the center. Resized and sharpened at 290/.2/2
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November 17th, 2009 at 6:56 pm
Adjusted black, recovery and light in RAW before working in PhotoShop.
In PS I created 4 identical layers.
Masked the one where the levels are brought in for the mountains.
Tweaked green RGB levels in one layer.
Added defused glow (white) and reduced the opacity of another layer.
Added a little vignetting.
November 18th, 2009 at 12:02 am
one more try…
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November 18th, 2009 at 12:09 am
Used Lightroom 3 BETA
Sharpenned the image
Exposure +1,50
Global and local adjustments
added grains
Loved the exercise, first time editing photos… getting addicted!
November 18th, 2009 at 2:35 pm
Actually I forgotten exactly the steps. Just some HDR, blending, sharpening, etc.
November 18th, 2009 at 2:38 pm
November 18th, 2009 at 6:09 pm
My attempt. Some sharpening and my custom copper split tone color balance. Also, made it taller (and comped in more sky) because I felt the mountains needed more breathing room.
November 18th, 2009 at 8:26 pm
I may be to late for this but here is my edit of this. First of all I flipped the picture. Then I changed the the exposure ,contrast, satturation and temperature
November 18th, 2009 at 8:27 pm
Sorry meant to post this picure not the above one
November 18th, 2009 at 8:29 pm
[http://www.flickr.com/photos/35082447@N07/4114723286/]
November 18th, 2009 at 10:32 pm
I didn’t do too much to the shot – tweaked a few things in ACR (fill, blacks, brightness, vibrance & Clarity) and then dropped into Elements where i cropped and adjusted levels. I then boosted the saturation of some of the individual colours and applied a bit of dodge & burn.
November 19th, 2009 at 6:35 am
I did a lot of changes to the colors, the contrast and details. Also added this cinema-like black bars and the ray of light.
Hope you like it. I had a lot of fun editing this photo. :)
November 19th, 2009 at 2:34 pm
Here’s my take at it.
November 19th, 2009 at 2:35 pm
Here it is again. (The previous one didn’t show up.)
November 20th, 2009 at 3:06 am
here are my edits. i adjusted the levels in camera raw until i got a result i liked. then i opened the file in photoshop. i duplicated the layer and applied the “gladrag” optik verve filter and set the opacity to 70%. (after playing with different opacity levels until i found the one i liked best.)
i wasn’t too much a fan of the composition of the shot so i cropped it to get a better framing of the subject. it wasn’t possible to get rid of the trees altogether, but i didn’t really like them they way they are in the frame.
then i added a black border around the whole. i’m pretty satisfied with the results.
November 20th, 2009 at 3:24 am
To me, the most striking element of this scene is its HEIGHT. But that is lost in the original landscape view, which makes the mountains look small. So I cropped the photo, with a goal of making a viewer’s eye flow up, and UP–past the crowns of the trees, to the mountains, to the sky. Then I brightened it a bit, and enhanced the contrast a little, to draw a distinction between the trees in the foreground and the mountains and sky in the background. Finally I resized it to so its width would be less than 620 pixels.
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November 20th, 2009 at 3:28 am
Sorry I would love to be able to have a go atr editing but my expertise in that area is minimal. All I would say is that if I were to take the phto I wouldn’t have taken it from that position in the first place. As far as editing goes I guess some of the trees in the foreground need to be edited out to make more of the mist in the valley.
November 20th, 2009 at 3:44 am
Here’s my take –
November 20th, 2009 at 4:02 am
Here it is again. (Prev picture did not show up.) Here’s what I did, and why: To me, the most striking element of this scene is its HEIGHT. But that is lost in the original landscape view, which makes the mountains look small. So I cropped the photo, with a goal of making a viewer’s eye flow up, and UP–past the crowns of the trees, to the mountains, to the sky. Then I brightened it a bit, and enhanced the contrast a little, to draw a distinction between the trees in the foreground and the mountains and sky in the background. Finally I resized it to so its width would be less than 620 pixels.
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November 20th, 2009 at 4:14 am
I have seen some really good edits here, Nice work peeps.
November 20th, 2009 at 4:17 am
A little saturation and some highlights and burning with a brush. I use a Wacom
November 20th, 2009 at 4:25 am
Whew!
Tough one. Bit of exposure brightening and normal fine tuning tweaks in Aperture. Straightened trees and cropped a bit. Only hope is to give it a bit of fun. Put it through Topaz Simplify.
Hope the image is properly transmitted.
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November 20th, 2009 at 4:28 am
I thought the image lacked a decent focal point, so this is how I saw it.
November 20th, 2009 at 4:31 am
I thought the image lacked a decent focal point, so this is how I saw it. :-)
November 20th, 2009 at 4:38 am
I did not like the trees in the middle so I took them out.
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November 20th, 2009 at 4:42 am
Picasa 3.5
November 20th, 2009 at 4:44 am
Picasa 3.5
1. I changed the dimension to 5 x 8 and thus cutting a slice from below to improve picture balance.
2. Added shadows and highlights to sharpen colors and contrast.
3. Did a little sharpening.
November 20th, 2009 at 4:50 am
I made my adjustments using Corel and PS3. I used many filters along with cloning, dodging, burning and so on. I did not like the trees in the direct front so I took them out.
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November 20th, 2009 at 5:00 am
magical realism from Belgium …
BTW great idea !
Greetz
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November 20th, 2009 at 5:02 am
2nd try …
November 20th, 2009 at 5:06 am
not alot of people have adjusted the composition,.. it looks like its still split 50/50 horizontally,… I personally like martin wolfs the best so far
November 20th, 2009 at 5:15 am
Crop to decrease amount of trees shown.
Shadow/highlight applied.
Adjustment layersL
Lvels, Curves (50_45 200_220)
Hue/Sat
Smart Sharpen 50 .5
November 20th, 2009 at 5:17 am
Photoshop and Topaz Adjust filter, HDR mild
November 20th, 2009 at 5:25 am
Decided to crop the photo. Applied levels and sharpening. Not sure it’s any better…
November 20th, 2009 at 5:26 am
November 20th, 2009 at 5:35 am
Photoshop Stepladder!
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First I altered the exposure in camera raw (5.3) about 1 stop to better reveal mountains.
Then I increased Fill Light to remove blocking amongst trees. I see many people have either done something similar to reveal trees or alternatively tried to subdue trees. But I think the trees are not in the right place in the image! Some of them need lowering, so:
I then opened the image into Photoshop and converted it to more useable 8-bit.
Used Levels to trim exposure to use all the range of white.
Selected as much of trees as possible using magic wand and pasted selection onto a new layer (1).
Picked up this layer and moved it downwards until some treetops have cleared the middle ground.
Turned off this layer so it does not get involved in subsequent cloning.
Opened another layer (2) above background and cloned the mountains onto it to hide old treetops. (Just some of them – you can choose to remove more if you wish. I just wanted to reveal some more of the intermediate mountaintop.)
Added a Brightness & Contrast layer grouped to layer 1 (trees) and adjusted the trees to suit a foreground subject. (Brightness + and contrast +)
Added a Hue & Adjustment layer grouped to the background layer and selected just blues and increased saturation and decreased brightness to make the sky bluer. (More suited to mountain scene.)
November 20th, 2009 at 5:37 am
My edits are:
1 – Increased the exposure +1 in the raw file.
2 – Individually selected the background clouds, the cloud in the valley, the mountain, and midlandscape greenry and individually applied curves to add contrast.
3 – Duplicate layer, then applied Color Burn blend at 21%
November 20th, 2009 at 5:48 am
I first made three jpgs from the RAW file at 0, +2 and -2 EVs. Then I fed the 3 images in Photomatix and processed them at “natural” , but with a strength of 75. I then a) adjusted the color levels, b) layered in varying brightness/contrast and color value levels for different areas of the picture, c) reduced the noise in the sky and d) sharpened the trees and certain areas of the mountains.
November 20th, 2009 at 6:07 am
My second version
1 – Changed to portrait
2 – Selected and copied part of the mountain you use later.
3 – After orienting the photo to portrait, duplicated the layer, then put a blank layer in between
4 – Then pasted the part of the mountain I copied.
5 – Erased part of the top layer to reveal the more mountain
6 – Lower the contrast on the mountain insert to give appearance of distance
7 – Increase contrast and saturation on forefront mountain.
November 20th, 2009 at 6:08 am
I Love Yuri Persion’ versions. Too bad he did not share his technique.
November 20th, 2009 at 6:11 am
This is a great post! So many different way to work with this picture.
And so many great ones.
Much better than one “Before and After” shot!!!
Thanky DP!!!
November 20th, 2009 at 6:15 am
To begin with, I cropped it down in a panoramic style in lightroom to remove most of the trees, like others have done.
I then took it into photoshop and used Topaz adjust to bring the detail out, this added a degree of noise which I liked as it looked like film grain.
Back to lightroom, I converted to a high contrast B/W and added the vignette. That was followed by a few layers with different tones, one blue green over the whole image to cool and make it look dramatic, a sepia-ish brush layer over that to add age, and finally a faded blue on the sky area, sloppily applied to mimic a hand-tinted antique postcard plate.
November 20th, 2009 at 6:37 am
Levels seemed to missing Highlight information. Set Highlights to about 151. Set Midtones to about 0.7.
Created an S-Curve in Curves . Darkened Highlights in Highlights and Shadows. Set Midtone in Color Balance to about -17, +12, -1.
November 20th, 2009 at 6:38 am
With the talent here, I don’t feel fit to post mine. You all are great! I really like Ted’s…nice. I just made some adjustments via curves, brightness/contrast. I played with the clouds a little with a brush, added a border and that it. I need to not play it so safe..LOL.
November 20th, 2009 at 7:21 am
Hi
this is my processing of this photo
before
November 20th, 2009 at 7:23 am
by photoshop ——> level tool i make 3 different
1- normal
2- hight exposure
3-low exposure
now go to the photomatix(HDR) and generate the three photos
and after that go to the tone mapping:
with this sitting :
strength = 100
color saturation = 75
luminosity=2
white point = 2.910%
black point = 2.782
and that’s it
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2560/4117617373_67b61a0d81.jpg
regards…ALI
November 20th, 2009 at 7:48 am
I don’t consider myself an expert at photo editing but I am always looking to learn. I thought this picture could benefit from some cropping as to me the original seems a little unbalanced. The rest is just some fiddling about with colour, levels and some sharpening. Plus the border of course.
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November 20th, 2009 at 8:02 am
Note to modeator.
I am uploading a similar second image. I adjusted the border since the white background ‘disappeared’ on the previous image once it was uploaded. Kindly post this one instead the other if you please.
Cheers.
Astrid
November 20th, 2009 at 8:04 am
oooops…sorry…here goes….
November 20th, 2009 at 8:17 am
Another first timer. Basically, using Lightroom, I cropped, sharpened, changed fill light, vibrance and clarity and added a graduated filter to the sky, adjusting contrast, hue and saturation.
Great fun!!
November 20th, 2009 at 8:30 am
I’m no expert, still learning like most people.
Basically, using Photoshop CS4’s Raw editing ability, I increased the temperature in order to put a little more attention on the trees. Took the clarity a little bit higher. Did minor adjustments to the contrast.
I selected the green areas within the picture and made them a little bit lighter.
Finally, I increased the intensity on the mountain area by painting white over it, reducing the opacity and setting the blend mode to overlay. Then cropped it a little bit.
Nothing special. Just a little in-between classes break. Enjoy!
November 20th, 2009 at 8:39 am
Great looking scene. I tweeked the contrast and vibrance a bit in Elements which added a 3D effect to the foreground trees. Brightened the colour a few steps. I think these changes improved the shot.
Maureen.
November 20th, 2009 at 8:46 am
Hi Peter and thanks for doing this. I have to admit that every time I offer a critique I go through this process: download / play with it in GIMP / tell the poster what I would have done.
So:
The problem with your Grand Teton shot is that it isn’t a Grand Teton shot. It’s a shot of the tops of a few trees with a nice backgrounnd. If it isn’t good enough you’re not close enough – sounds familiar? ;)
So get in closer (I realise that we are in a Grandmother / egg-sucking situation here but bear with me) use the tops of the trees to frame the bottom third, the skt for the top third and put thos great mountains right in the middle third!
This was a 5 minute edit.If the shot was mine I would spend a lot of time bringing up the contrast in the middle ground.
November 20th, 2009 at 9:00 am
This is my first posting in DPS forums.
It’s a good picture to start with so my intentions was to give it a little more “pop”.
I was using ACR for raw converting and most of the adjustments was doen by pulling the sliders there.
Fine tuning was done in PS CS4, including some sensor spot removal, curves, levels and high pass sharpening.
I added some vignetteing to retract the attention from the christmas trees.
November 20th, 2009 at 9:02 am
my entry…
The foreground is too distracting for my taste, and the colour balance between them are not harmonious.
Therefore I make into sepia style with emphasis of textures of the rocks, also darkening other parts and give it a border.
Can’t play much as I don’t have access to the raw file here and only edit with PS 6…
November 20th, 2009 at 9:13 am
Here,s my go
First created 3 exposures then merged
Removed noise
Tone mapped in lucis
Cropped at bottom
Simples
November 20th, 2009 at 9:17 am
Ooops, seems the image failed to show up even though I posted it correctly. Oh well, trying again here.
November 20th, 2009 at 9:25 am
sorry, cant upload my pic
November 20th, 2009 at 9:26 am
This is not photography it is computer & IT work. If you do not like the photo you took maybe you should work at it a bit harder & with more thought. Do not send a little child out with a cheap camera and then work on it in the computer. You could not do this with film and it should not apply in digital.
November 20th, 2009 at 10:19 am
I opened the file in Camera Raw and warmed up the temp a bit, and increased the exposure by .25, then switched to Photoshop.
The focus was off — trees in very sharp focus, mountains a little off. So I applied Gaussian blur to the trees and Smart Sharpen to the mountains; also increased saturation on the mountains. Still too much emphasis on the trees, so I cropped it to a panorama with just the tops of the trees showing. Finally, I lightened the sky.
November 20th, 2009 at 10:51 am
I ran 2 actions of my own to lighten it up and add some more color, then cropped it a bit.
November 20th, 2009 at 11:17 am
Ron, you make an interesting point I think is worthy of debate/discussion. I personally see both sides of the issue, there are the purist’s such as yourself and there are those who turn photography into an art form creating amazing images far beyond what that little processor in our cameras can do.
For example, Carmen Moreno who I discovered on Flickr, is one of many who have mastered both sides of the camera and gift us with her creations.
I personally think pure photography and photoart are apples and oranges and I appreciate both disciplines from different perspectives.
November 20th, 2009 at 11:32 am
I was inspired by Rich Tanton’s work here.
I only wish to stay true with the original photo, so I simply did some work on the mountain, which is supposed to be the main subject, by sharpen -> some colour balance adjustments. And afterwards added a soft light layer to the sky to make it more “alive”.
Comments appreciated. Thanks.
November 20th, 2009 at 11:33 am
Hi. I used PS CS4. Adjusted The RGB(Levels), Saturation and sharpness(Smart sharpen), Brightness.
I also ased ACDSee software for the shadows and highlights.
November 20th, 2009 at 12:02 pm
I just thought it needed some snapping up. Used Photoshop. Paint bucket/brush combo learned from DPS.
November 20th, 2009 at 1:11 pm
I tried not to alter the original image too much. I focused more on dodging and burning to try and balance the photo more. Everything I did was in Lightroom 2. Here is the bulk of it:
1) Let Lightroom auto adjust WB to a warmer color (6500).
2) Increased Contrast from the default of +25 to +55.
3) Increased Clarity from 0 to +71.
4) Increase Vibrance from 0 to +21
5) Increase Brightness from +50 to +79 (since my screen seems to be brighter than most)
November 20th, 2009 at 1:20 pm
FIrst submission. Here the picture after my adjustments. I am new at this but think I may be on the right track. I increased the contrast and decreased the saturation. Then I brought out the blacks and whites. I used Capture nx2.
November 20th, 2009 at 1:32 pm
Edited in Lightroom2 changed exposures in some areas, added green to the foreground, and changed colors on the moutains, used Topaz to smooth the photo
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November 20th, 2009 at 2:21 pm
Great image of a wonderful place. Here’s my stab at it.
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November 20th, 2009 at 3:10 pm
I’m sorry, but I think the original is far better than 95% of the edits I’m seeing here. It’s a pretty good straight-out-of-camera photo of a naturally gorgeous place. Most of the edits are just fun plays with photoshop and are not actually enhancing and bringing out the true beauty. Was that the intention here? Is this how all of you use photoshop on your own photos?
November 20th, 2009 at 4:11 pm
Soft Focus
Sun through the clouds effect
November 20th, 2009 at 4:44 pm
Great image to Start with Peter :)
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No expert just did the best I could.
Raw image edited in Adobe camera raw, brightness/exposure/clarity/noise reduction/white balance
Then into cs3
Image mode to Lab color > lightness channel
Quick masked sky and mountains/ reduced noise in sky/ inverted then sharpened trees and mountains
amount 51
radius 2.4
threshold 0
A + b channel… applied Gaussian blur @ radius 2.4
Covert back to RGB … brightened using curves.
Not happy!! so applied photo filter (Warming filter 85) at 10%
Then Applied slight Vignette by..Filter/distort/lens correction/vignette @ -12 left midpoint @ +50
saved and posted :)
This has been fun :)
November 20th, 2009 at 6:22 pm
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7257293@N08/?saved=1imgundefined/img
November 20th, 2009 at 6:22 pm
Just a little LR2 Magic.
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November 20th, 2009 at 6:24 pm
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7257293@N08/?saved=1
November 20th, 2009 at 7:32 pm
The shot is already good I just wanted to a) highlight various elements and “de-haze” it.
1) Overlayed a rough high pass filter on the original and masked it to only the center horizontal region to sharpen the detail and contrast in the tree tops and low range of hills.
2) Overlayed a fine high pass filter on the original to sharpen the detail and contrast, but not quite a much as the central horizontal zone. This brought the trees in foreground and the crags into sharper focus Steps 1) & 2) also lightened the foliage in the forground.
3) Increased the overall brightness by 30% and contrast by 40% to brigthen the overall picture and to make the mountains craggier and more evidently lit by the sun behind me.
4) Took a copy of the green luminosoty of the image at step 3 and overlayed it to raise the contrast of the dark areas yet another notch and to intenisfy the green zone (though I masked the effect off the lower part, the trees closest to me).
5) Took a copy of the general luminoisty of the image at step 3, blurred it and overlayed it, this raised the contrast of the dark areas slightly, but importantly it raised and blurred the contrast of the light areas making the snow cover more even and “more extensive”
6) Took a inverted copy of the general luminoisty of the image at step 3, blurred it and overlayed it, this raised the contrast of the dark areas slightly, but importantly it raised and blurred the contrast of the sky and foreground trees making both slighly brighter.
7) Knocked up the vibrancy and masked its application so that only the dark areas got the full impact.
8) Knocked up the saturation of the greens (but not in the sky) to give the trees and fields a richer feel.
9) Knocked up the saturation of the yellow to intesify the richness of trees in the forground and provide a sunsetty sun sheen on the mountains.
10) Cropped it to fill the horizon with mountain
And that made me happy…
The full version can be found at http://www.paulsphotoworks.com/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=8413
November 20th, 2009 at 7:37 pm
The shot is already good I just wanted to a) highlight various elements and “de-haze” it.
1) Overlayed a rough high pass filter on the original and masked it to only the center horizontal region to sharpen the detail and contrast in the tree tops and low range of hills.
2) Overlayed a fine high pass filter on the original to sharpen the detail and contrast, but not quite a much as the central horizontal zone. This brought the trees in foreground and the crags into sharper focus Steps 1) & 2) also lightened the foliage in the forground.
3) Increased the overall brightness by 30% and contrast by 40% to brigthen the overall picture and to make the mountains craggier and more evidently lit by the sun behind me.
4) Took a copy of the green luminosoty of the image at step 3 and overlayed it to raise the contrast of the dark areas yet another notch and to intenisfy the green zone (though I masked the effect off the lower part, the trees closest to me).
5) Took a copy of the general luminoisty of the image at step 3, blurred it and overlayed it, this raised the contrast of the dark areas slightly, but importantly it raised and blurred the contrast of the light areas making the snow cover more even and “more extensive”
6) Took a inverted copy of the general luminoisty of the image at step 3, blurred it and overlayed it, this raised the contrast of the dark areas slightly, but importantly it raised and blurred the contrast of the sky and foreground trees making both slighly brighter.
7) Knocked up the vibrancy and masked its application so that only the dark areas got the full impact.
8) Knocked up the saturation of the greens (but not in the sky) to give the trees and fields a richer feel.
9) Knocked up the saturation of the yellow to intesify the richness of trees in the forground and provide a sunsetty sun sheen on the mountains.
10) Cropped it to fill the horizon with mountain
And that made me happy…
The full version can be found at http://www.paulsphotoworks.com/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=8413imghttp://www.paulsphotoworks.com/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=8417&g2_serialNumber=3/img
November 20th, 2009 at 8:49 pm
I prefer landscape shots to be simple & realistic. I upped the exposure, adjusted the levels & saturation a little then did a high pass over the mountains. I also cropped slightly.
November 20th, 2009 at 9:28 pm
Took original photo and used auto levels, and then enhanced using Topaz Adjust 3 to give HDR effect. Finally applied some brightness & contrast to produce finished picture.
November 20th, 2009 at 9:34 pm
I’m a newbie at photo editing but really like to fiddle.
Done in Pixelmator:
1. Cropped image
2. adjusted levels
3. copied bg, blending = overlay
4. slected trees in front, and blurred slightly for DOF effect.
5. selected a vignette, then copied vignette selection and applied Multiply blending.
6. voila?
November 21st, 2009 at 1:18 am
This shot is so typical of so many wide landscape shots. Somehow, most of the time, the initial view from the
camera lacks the punch that we remember in the scene. Here is my stab at it:
For a full size view, see:
Full Size View
Processed in Adobe Lightroom 3 Beta
1. White Balance: As Shot: That looked best
TONE
2. Exposure: +1.06 There was plenty of room in the histogram to brighten the image
3. Recovery: 32 To suppress snow blowouts
4. Fill Light: 23 To recover from Contrast increase below
5. Blacks: 5 To recover from Fill Light Above
6. Brightness: +50 I wanted a bright punch
7. Contrast: +84 Original seemed to lack enough contrast
PRESENCE
8. Clarity: +82 To improve apearance of rocks and trees
9. Vibrance: No Change, 0
10. Saturation: No Change, 0
TONE CURVE NO CHANGES
SPLIT TONING NO CHANGES
SHARPENING
11. Sharpening: 38 To recover tree needles and rock texture
12. Radius: 2.3 To reduce artifacting from Sharpening
13. Detail: 46 See 11
14. Masking: No Change, 0
NOISE REDUCTION
Luminance: NA
Color: 100 There seemed to be a good bit of noise. I took it till the clouds were not granulated
Edge Detail 76 Just for punch.
Additionally applied two gradient adjustments to brighten mountain and sky and to equalize left to right mountain brightness by an angled gradient. Also cloned out small blue area at edge of top crop. Also
reduce exposure dodged the large snow field.
AND: That’s enough time spent on that!
Gary
November 21st, 2009 at 1:19 am
Submitted this 10 hours ago, but still don’t see it posted. Resubmitting…
I tried not to alter the original image too much. I focused more on dodging and burning to try and balance the photo more. Everything I did was in Lightroom 2. Here is the bulk of it:
1) Let Lightroom auto adjust WB to a warmer color (6500).
2) Increased Contrast from the default of +25 to +55.
3) Increased Clarity from 0 to +71.
4) Increase Vibrance from 0 to +21
5) Increase Brightness from +50 to +79 (since my screen seems to be brighter than most)
November 21st, 2009 at 1:41 am
OOPS! I meant to include a link to the XMP file for the changes:
Link to XMP file
That way, you can see all my changes if you have lightroom, or care to read the file.
Gary
November 21st, 2009 at 3:01 am
I go for the tight crop, black and white idea here. Hope you like it.
November 21st, 2009 at 3:25 am
Decided to run it through PhotoMatix as a single image/exposure. Applied a touch of levels in Photoshop as well as some sharpening & cropping.
November 21st, 2009 at 7:33 am
Ran it through PhotoMatix as a single image and tone-mapped. Followed with photoshop and applied a levels layer, cropped and sharpened slightly.
November 21st, 2009 at 7:36 am
Oops! Sorry for the double entry. Thought the first one had disappeared.
November 21st, 2009 at 9:50 am
I cropped the photo to bring the right side peak to a focal point, rule of thirds. Changed the white balance to cloudy. It seemed, to me, to make the peaks stand against the trees instead of the other way around.
November 21st, 2009 at 1:31 pm
Brought up to proper exposure
White balance too cool, warmed it up
Reduced noise introduced from raising exposure and/or the ISO is was shot at
Cropped to tips of trees and to a more symmetrical composition
Increased contrast
Increased color of mountains
November 21st, 2009 at 2:18 pm
My second attempt and like this version much better. Being a novice I just played with the curves and levels until it just looked right. I used nx2
November 22nd, 2009 at 12:22 am
I thought the trees looked like guardians so I wanted them more centered. Used the rotating mirror effect in PSP to make the whole image fill the frame more. A lot of burning on the clouds to make them more prominent. Lowered the saturation by playing with the channel adjustment layer. Next I did a infrared layer to bring out the whites and give it an almost glowing look. Gave it some lightening for pizzaz and there ya have it.
November 22nd, 2009 at 12:23 am
November 22nd, 2009 at 12:44 am
I am new so this is my second try …..sorry
November 22nd, 2009 at 1:28 am
Great idea! This is how I adjusted this image:
1. Adjusted exposure in camera raw
2. Cloned some dust spots
3. Used filter Topaz Adjust (dramatic)
4. Used Nik Graduated Neutral density filter to reduce brightness on mountains
4. Used Nik Indian Summer filter to change season
November 22nd, 2009 at 3:03 am
Just sharpened it up a little.
But this is what happens with global warming….. :-)
November 22nd, 2009 at 6:36 am
I wanted a dreamy effect, and used TRA’s:
Clarify 100%
Lux (soft) 100%
Punch Out 100%
Grunge Rock 100%
November 22nd, 2009 at 7:14 am
I looked at the original image and looked at the comment pictures. My first comment is that there is no strong subject to draw you into the image. What drew me into it was the white cloud bank in the right hand corner. I wouldn’t have taken this photo but looked for a better view f the mountain range with something in it to draw in the viewer.
I do agree with the critics that the image is stronger in black and white. It doesn’t make it in color.
November 22nd, 2009 at 9:18 am
For me, the real subject of the photo turned out to be the trees in the foreground rather than the mountains. The trees could not be ignored and mountains just could not be brought into focus, so I went that direction. Even though I own it, I am not so hot with Photoshop but I have enjoyed working with an old copy of Microsoft Digital Image Pro which, to my knowledge, is not sold any more. So, I adjusted used the histogram to increase the dark levels, decrease the light levels, then burned in the mountains with a light brown tint to make them stand out a bit more.
"
November 22nd, 2009 at 3:14 pm
I used Gimp with the ufraw plugin. I didn’t mark the steps down, but they involved for example using infrared to bring out the trees; masking to create more pop, a slight vignette, etc. I chose a square crop because to me it gives a much stronger emphasis of the trees surrounded by majestic mountains.
November 22nd, 2009 at 3:51 pm
I adjusted exposure and saturation to a realistic level, sharpened the image and added a small adjustment to contrast.
November 22nd, 2009 at 9:58 pm
I wanted to see how I could improve the image as opposed to use it to make my own.
Adjusted levels, curves, colour balance, exposure, more colour balance, hue/saturation and levels again, a little trick with brightness/contrast and some unsharp mask sharpening. Clouds are brightened even more just to make the mountains stand out better.
November 23rd, 2009 at 2:58 am
November 23rd, 2009 at 8:27 am
Wow, a lot of these look really great…who knew one image could look so many different ways. Emmanuel R’s really stands out to me…I love high contrast. Nice job everyone!
November 23rd, 2009 at 3:42 pm
- adjusted White balance and exposure
- adjusted saturation
- replace some cloud with the sky
- replace the yellow bushes in the foreground with nearby trees so they don’t attract the attention (I thought about cropping them out, but the pic is somewhat imbalanced)
- whitened the snow a bit
- unsharpen filter
Add your comme
November 23rd, 2009 at 9:26 pm
Yaay! Do I win something? lol.
November 24th, 2009 at 1:56 pm
From Desktop
November 24th, 2009 at 11:04 pm
this image is underexposed, adjust the level a little bit
to enhance the color of the blue sky, adjust the curves and brush those trees so it doesnt look too dark
Im focusing on mountain, so cropped the trees gave me a perfect view
dont forget to sharpening the mountain
November 25th, 2009 at 3:49 pm
and here is how it look
November 26th, 2009 at 5:24 pm
I felt that the image had too much into it. I was actually able to crop it into two images. After cropping, I adjusted the exposure. It looked a little underexposed to me. Then, I applied a contrast color range filter from Nik Software’s Color Efex Pro. On the more vertical shot, I also applied a neutral density filter from Color Efex Pro. I applied a slight vignet to bring out the focal interest. Then I used Nik Software’s D’fine 2.0 to rid the photos of noise, both contrast and color, applied manually to the sky only. Finally, I used Sharpener Pro (also Nik Software) for output sharpening, making sure the structural sharpening was emphasized. Here are the results
November 26th, 2009 at 5:35 pm
I felt that there was a little too much information for a single photo, so I cropped it into two photos. The photo was a little underexposed, so I upped the exposure about 1/2 stop. On the vertical crop, I lowered the tree to the right using the clone stamp and raised the tree directly to its left. I felt it improved the composition. From there on, the same filters were used on both. , I went to work on them with Nik Software’s Color Efex Pro. I applied the contrast color range, neutral density and their darken/lighten center for a slight vignette. Then I applied a de-noise filter, Nik’s D’fine 2,0 and lastly, I applied an output sharpener, meant for video display from Sharpener 3.o. These were the results:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2539/4134811889_6d6740c91e_m.jpg
December 4th, 2009 at 5:40 am
This is my first time to be a critic in your site and I hope the methods I used here can shed some light.
I found the image a bit gloomy as I think it is a bit under exposed. I believe it was taken on a day where it is about to rain. The trees in front are not really standing out and it tends to blend in with the background. The sky is also very dull.
After downloading the original RAW file, I opened it in Adobe Photoshop camera Raw 5.0 and the following settings have been adjusted to give it a brighter feel:
Exposure : +0.70
Blacks : 8
Brightness : +75
Contrast : +30
Vibrance : -10
Then I opened the image in Photoshop CS4 and adjusted the intensity of the CYAN in the background using Selective Color Adjustment.
Colors : Cyan
Cyan : -50%
Magenta : +75%
Yellow : +75%
Black : 50%
Finally, I adjusted the Color Balance to add more depth to the trees and reduced the blue and to add a bit more sunlight effect to the front trees.
Color Levels : +50 +50 0
And…..Presto!!! Enjoy
Unfortunately i can’t open an account at flickr to show you the finish product because my isp is blocking the site. The good news is – You can try it for yourself
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