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DPChallenge Forums >> Tips, Tricks, and Q&A >> Learning Thread — Landscape Photography
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05/27/2006 01:19:21 PM · #651
Original:... Hyper: ... Rikkied:

I hope you don't mind. In the interest of better learning this technique for myself and gain a little practice I decided to try and hyper-process your image more "rikkied". I probably could have did all this with just one "color balance" layer but at first I was only going to do sky and then changed my mind. Btw... I like the original best!

There were three goals:
1-Hyper-process "Rikki"-like sky with false generated color
2-Make ground "consistent" with sky
3-Bring out foreground vegetation detail

Post:
1-Open original
2-Basic "Levels" adjustment layer.
3-Make sky selection and save with name "sky".
4-Add Rikki "Color Balance" adjustment layer with "sky" selection. Adjust sliders for magenta color.
5-Paint with black on layer mask to blend magenta with existing blue sky
6-Deselect, reselect "sky" and inverse to select ground only.
7-Add Rikki "Color Balance" adjustment layer with ground selection. Adjust sliders for ground magenta color.
8-Paint with black on layer mask to blend ground magenta with existing blue ground.
9-Reselect ground. Add "Select Color" adjustment layer. Make green and yellow slider changes to bring out green foreground.
10-Add new 50% grey layer. Paint with vivid light with white to make green brighter. Paint with dark green in normal to bring out more green color.
11-Flatten, some artistic sharpening and saved in .jpg.

You did not identify the steps taken and I was unable to easily duplicate your red color using Rikki's "color balance" method so decided to switch to magenta color balance that retained some of the sky's gradient features instead. I probably should have went with yellow! LOL.

Message edited by author 2006-05-27 13:22:12.
05/27/2006 01:23:18 PM · #652
hehehehe... seems like you've been smokin' Soup's mushroomsagain eh?
05/27/2006 01:32:34 PM · #653
Originally posted by Rikki:

hehehehe... seems like you've been smokin' Soup's mushroomsagain eh?

Yeah and while watching the latest version of "War of the Worlds". Remember the tripods periodically sprayed out red waste water that fell all over everyone? This is what the sky would have looked like if they had won the war.
05/27/2006 02:01:13 PM · #654
Originally posted by stdavidson:

Originally posted by Rikki:

hehehehe... seems like you've been smokin' Soup's mushroomsagain eh?

Yeah and while watching the latest version of "War of the Worlds". Remember the tripods periodically sprayed out red waste water that fell all over everyone? This is what the sky would have looked like if they had won the war.

Mars-scape

Color-adjusted

Message edited by author 2006-05-27 14:02:40.
05/27/2006 09:04:15 PM · #655
Just to contribute that I have found this tutorial EXTREMELY helpful. (Warning: it is a 95MB download)

Quicktime:
//www.radiantvista.com/media/video_tutorials/mov/radiantVista_tu_photoshopReference.mov

Windows Media:
//www.radiantvista.com/media/video_tutorials/wmv/radiantVista_tu_photoshopReference.wmv

It covers adjustment layers, which have made an enormous difference as until now I have been following Bear's instructions all on the background layer, and subsequently regularly getting in a horrible mess.
05/27/2006 09:07:47 PM · #656
I'm sure it is helpful. I established this as a watched thread on the day it was started. I don't have a lot of time to really follow it right now, but I intend to read every post sometime soon as if it was a college class (which it probably exceeds in content and quality).
05/27/2006 09:17:36 PM · #657
Originally posted by samchad:

It covers adjustment layers, which have made an enormous difference as until now I have been following Bear's instructions all on the background layer, and subsequently regularly getting in a horrible mess.


And WHY would you be "following my instructions all on the background layer" and getting in such messes to begin with? Have I not been clear enough about making a new layer for EVERYTHING?

Tsk, tsk...

R.
05/27/2006 10:40:20 PM · #658
: )

"Normal Landscape"


Hyperprocessed Version


All Curves, curves, and more curves ...
05/29/2006 08:35:20 AM · #659
Originally posted by samchad:

Just to contribute that I have found this tutorial EXTREMELY helpful. (Warning: it is a 95MB download)

Quicktime:
//www.radiantvista.com/media/video_tutorials/mov/radiantVista_tu_photoshopReference.mov

Windows Media:
//www.radiantvista.com/media/video_tutorials/wmv/radiantVista_tu_photoshopReference.wmv

It covers adjustment layers, which have made an enormous difference as until now I have been following Bear's instructions all on the background layer, and subsequently regularly getting in a horrible mess.

This is the best overall tutorial on contrast and color correction with adjustment layers on the web. From novice to Photoshop pro it has much to offer. They have what they call the "five essential adjustment layers".

Layers are a fundamental part of non-destructive image post processing and have been advocated in this discussion since the beginning. If you don't already use them much then now is the time to start.
05/29/2006 02:10:27 PM · #660
Finally went out to take some pictures yesterday; this is the first one I've had a chance to edit, using some of the tips we've discussed here.

Original: Edited:
05/29/2006 03:47:42 PM · #661
Originally posted by GeneralE:

Finally went out to take some pictures yesterday; this is the first one I've had a chance to edit, using some of the tips we've discussed here.

Original: Edited:

Given what I've done to images lately, be it for me to suggest that it appears you have over processed the background hills to the point they no longer look natural.

Looks to me like you applied Bear_Music's "contrast mask" technique which is what I believe is giving the hills a slightly flat overexposed look with "odd" colors. I suspect that it is because it generates out-of-gamut colors for the color space you are working in. I downloaded your image and it looks different if I toggle back and forth from out-of-gamut colors. That supports that idea.

It also makes me wonder if your monitor is well calibrated.

Message edited by author 2006-05-29 15:48:27.
05/29/2006 04:01:39 PM · #662
Originally posted by stdavidson:

It also makes me wonder if your monitor is well calibrated.

No. Neither are my eyes. Also, the BG looks bluer when uploaded than in PS, so there's something screwy.

I'll try taking out the blue curve and see what that does ... maybe push up the gradient mask higher and use that so I can saturate the sky without messing with the hills so much.
05/29/2006 04:03:52 PM · #663
(Sitting back and letting Steve do the heavy lifting, he's so good at it...)

R.
05/29/2006 04:29:38 PM · #664
Originally posted by GeneralE:

Originally posted by stdavidson:

It also makes me wonder if your monitor is well calibrated.

No. Neither are my eyes. Also, the BG looks bluer when uploaded than in PS, so there's something screwy.

Monitor and eyes being OK then out-of-gamut colors is the likely culprit.

Out-of-gamut means that you are trying to use colors that do not exist in the color space you are creating your output from. When that happens the software makes a decision to replace it with whatever it thinks is the closest color when saved. From experience I can tell you it is NEVER what you want.

I've encountered this when printing images containing out-of-gamut colors and the prints look like crap. The key is to fix the out-of-gamut colors yourself with curves or other color adjustments for the output color space you are targeting. "View->Proof Colors" in PS is what allows you to see what your target output image will look like when you have it's ICC profile properly selected. Then you make adjustments to eliminate all your out-of-gamut colors.

Hope all that makes sense.

Message edited by author 2006-05-29 16:30:26.
05/29/2006 05:49:43 PM · #665

Took away the original Blue Channel Curve.

Created a gradient mask for the sky; used that to apply additional RGB and Blue Channel effects to the sky and topmost hills, which are some miles farther away, across San Pablo Bay from the hills behind the reservoir.
05/29/2006 08:08:37 PM · #666
Maybe I'm too old, but I just can't get into the hyperprocessed images. All the mods of GeneralE's gate looked too synthentic for my tastes, so rather than just complain, I did my take on the image:



I did all my mods except for Shadow/Highlights and Levels as layers. I woulda done Levels, but stupid me forgot to . My PSD for download.

Message edited by author 2006-11-14 15:44:07.
05/29/2006 10:39:51 PM · #667
Originally posted by GeneralE:

Finally went out to take some pictures yesterday; this is the first one I've had a chance to edit, using some of the tips we've discussed here.

Original: Edited:

This GeneralE image is not really hyper-processed in the "Rikki" sense. I don't even think that is his intent, but I could be wrong.

Original:... Hyper-Processed:

The hallmark of Rikki's image is that he created a "Color Balance" layer where he flipped 'blue' to it's complimentary post processing color 'yellow'. That is what I interpreted as the "hyper" part. Interestingly Rikki's hyper-processing above is almost the opposite of what you would do for a yellow color cast correction.

GeneralE's post processing is more or less 'normal'. I think that a lot of the flatness of the background comes from shadow/highlight processing. I'm unsure if that is even needed with that particualr image, but this is how I would have processed it without shadow/highlight:

05/30/2006 09:03:02 AM · #668
I think the thing that stands out the most in many of the versions of this that I've seen is the near lack of detail in the shadows, particularly in the distance. It looks as if, in an attempt to eliminate completely the distance haze, the contrast is increased so much that the shadows become too dense.

On the other hand, I like the highlights you brought out in the grass. Did you do any sharpening? That's the only step that I can think of that I'd forgotten to do...
05/30/2006 09:44:08 AM · #669
Originally posted by fracman:

I think the thing that stands out the most in many of the versions of this that I've seen is the near lack of detail in the shadows, particularly in the distance. It looks as if, in an attempt to eliminate completely the distance haze, the contrast is increased so much that the shadows become too dense.

On the other hand, I like the highlights you brought out in the grass. Did you do any sharpening? That's the only step that I can think of that I'd forgotten to do...

The shadows were pretty blocked-up to begin with; the fence-posts are backlit (10 am sun 90 degrees off to the right), and those oaks on the hillside are at least a mile or two away -- I didn't expect that much detail there. I really wanted mainly to get rid of the haze, and bring a feeling of depth by making the different "layers" (foreground grass, mid-ground hills, background hills/sky) more distinct from each other.

On the earlier two versions, I used the extracted Shadow/Highlight layers, but with a very "light" application, so I don't think that's what's creating the problems. Here's a version I processed more or less "normally" with only Curves, and a couple of gradient masks to help isolate the grass and the sky.

"Normal" Processing: Original: First edit: Second edit:

stdavidson is right, I'm not trying to "hyperprocess" this image, or I'd probably end up with something like this, although the "smog layer" makes it look rather more realistic in some ways than the others ...

05/30/2006 11:41:36 AM · #670
Thanks Rikki for the explanation of that technique, I for one learned some new stuff about PS from it :)

Tried an edit of one of my pictures loosely following the technique, here it is:
05/30/2006 08:39:44 PM · #671
Originally posted by Bear_Music:

Originally posted by samchad:

It covers adjustment layers, which have made an enormous difference as until now I have been following Bear's instructions all on the background layer, and subsequently regularly getting in a horrible mess.


And WHY would you be "following my instructions all on the background layer" and getting in such messes to begin with? Have I not been clear enough about making a new layer for EVERYTHING?

Tsk, tsk...

R.


Sorry Bear! Must have not read that bit clearly enough! Oops.
05/30/2006 08:46:20 PM · #672
OK - back on track. Here's a shot I took yesterday looking south from the George Washington bridge. What I thought was 'respectable' hyper-processing. But hoped that is still looks 'believeable'...kind of. Some of Rikkis I like, but I think a couple are a little OTT (IMO).

Usual levels (actually very minor changes). Changed the sky from blue to red with feathered mask (guess the building on the left gives this away) and heavily saturated the green of the trees in the foreground using both a hue/saturation mask and also a curves adjustment layer varying the green channel only.

//www.samchadwickphoto.com/projectnyc/index.htm#id=NYC&num=4

wow - I almost sound like I know what I'm doing. Proves that this thread is REALLY helping. Thanks once again!
05/31/2006 12:09:02 PM · #673
Now that we've had our fling with hyperprocessing (big thanks to Rikki and Steve for their hard work this week), let's get back to basics for a bit, eh?

I'm open to suggestions for what you want to explore in the next lesson. I'll hold off for a day and see if there's a consensus, and then prepare the next lesson. Absent any brilliant or compelling suggestions, we'll work on another compositional exercise.

R.
05/31/2006 12:26:13 PM · #674
Thanks for the opportunity to teach Bear ;) It was fun and still is ;) Kudos to Steve for his wonderful approaches to processing as well ;)
05/31/2006 12:29:25 PM · #675
I don't know if anyone else is interested, but I struggle with figuring out how to frame really wide vistas. I've played with stitched panoramas and am begining to play with my new wide-angle (18mm on a D50) lens, but haven't really gotten the hang of it yet. Some examples of my more successful "failures" are:

Panorama from Fire Point, Effigy Mounds National Park


Panorama of the Arizona Meteor Crator


Panorama of Fisherman's Wharf, Monterrey, CA


Wide-angle of Seattle skyline from Bainbridge Island ferry


In all the above examples, I was trying to capture the sheer size of the scene, how wide, how grand, how huge, etc. The images I produced, however, make everything seem tiny.

Message edited by author 2006-11-14 15:49:35.
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