Early Wake up Call!

[ShaneS]

...and it's all Grahame's fault

Seriously though I have been following his threads with great interest and have been wanting to make some similar images and learn the skills to do so for some time. So I got at up 4AM and headed out!

I will state up front that I know this image isn't a keeper but I hope that it will serve as a good starting point for me to learn how to do it better next time. That being said I am up for any and all C&C.



The settings: f8 30 seconds ISO 100 shot at 32mm about 20 minutes before the sun came up (no filter)

I like the basic composition although will take your feedback on whether the island works centered as it is or any other thoughts that you might have on that.

The challenges were many...

The image lacks clarity and I think that there are a couple of reasons (feel free to correct me or elaborate). The first is that even though I looked up the hyper focal distance for my lens I did so for 18mm and I shot at 32mm so I think that the focus is off

I also had trouble activating the bulb mode in the dark and even though when I clicked 'auto' in ACR the program deemed the exposure to be correct. I suspect I should have used a longer exposure but I'm not sure how that would have impacted the sky given that I have no ND filter.

Even SOOC the image seemed noisy viewed at 100%. I'm not sure why and I am looking forward to being educated on that as it seems to be a consistent problem that I have when shooting in low light.

ACR settings:

Brightness +50
Contrast +43
Clarity +13
Vibrance +16
Medium Contrast Curve with the highlights raised slightly
I added a gradient to brighten the foreground (+20 brightness)

I then took the image into Photoshop CS5 and did the following:

Adjusted the levels on each of the color channels so the black and white points were correct. I also move the midpoint to 1.24 globally (more brightness which is part of the reason I think that I needed a longer exposure)
Added more vibrance (+20) - I guess I could have done this step in ACR but I wasn't sure and didn't was to start over.
Added some structure using NIK Viveza (+25 globally)
Downsized and sharpened for web.

Educate me please and thanks

[bnnrcn]

Hi Shane, this is a lovely shot If it was my image I would crop most of the water and I would put the horizon nearly to the centre of the frame . I would also add a thick border to the image.

[John 2]

Agree with Binnur (again) on the crop but not the horizon position. Interesting shot though. I've often wondered what the world looks like before sun up.

[Brownbear]

Hi Shane,

I also think this is a lovely shot. However, I absolutely love the water so if it were my image I would crop half the sky. My turn to confuse others artistic vision.

I love the post processing as is....

[Shadowman]

Hi Shane,

I like the shot, agree with John and Binnur about the crop.

[ShaneS]

Thank you Binnur, Christina, and both John's

Any thoughts on the technicalities regarding the exposure and PP?

[Stagecoach]

Hi Shane,

Oh no, not my fault

Just a very quick response as shooting out to get that darn tree at sunset.

To be absolutely honest my first impression is that you have made a 'daytime' shot and the only advantage of the 'early' shooting is that you have been able to make the water silky easily

I see no problems with sharpness/clarity on the areas that are still. What I would love to see is your original and how was the exposure?

Must rush, but will add more later.

Grahame

[ShaneS]

I forgive you Grahame Here is the shot with all of the ACR sliders set to default.



Unfortunately there wasn't much color in the sky or pretty clouds to work with. Now that I look at it again I am thinking that my first edit might be a tad too bright.

Anyone who is so inclined is more than welcome create an edit of this image but I would appreciate your explaining what you did when you post it.

[ShaneS]

And here is another one from this morning...I don't really care for the composition. Too much rock and not enough sky IMO but I think that I did a better job on the focus. I might need to employ your tripod foot design and get a little wet Grahame

I also wish that both islands weren't on the same plane and that I took the shot from an angle where the big island was more in the foreground and with the smaller island (in the first image that I posted) leading the eye back into the frame.

But again they are sketches and the location is nearby so feel free to throw ideas at me...

f8 ISO 100 2 seconds (captured about 13 minutes before sunrise)



That's all I got except the usual sunrise shot which was nice but not what I was working on so I won't bother to post it here.

[Stagecoach]

Hi Shane,

I'm back, typical Fiji drive one hour along the coast and the sky and weather has changed from brilliant to yuk but I did capture a rainbow

I have had a close look at the 'original' and agree there was little colour and character in the sky but that's the way it is at times.

To me it appears focussed well as both the island outline and nearest rocks sharpen well with basic settings. As there's nothing in the immediate foreground but milky water you can not determine the near focus distance. I would have simply focussed on the nearest rocks in the scene.

I have not used bulb mode at all I simply work in manual and rotate the rear thumb wheel to set the shutter speed I want that allows me to go up to 30". The histogram is spot on and if you had of increased exposure you would have blown the small areas of light in the sky.

It's not possible to assess the noise in the original you posted but you may have had additional due to the long exposure time. I have not come across any noise concerns on exposures up to around 8 seconds recently. What I do is in ACR if I can see a wee bit at 100% is add some noise removal up to 50% due to the fact that skies are notorious for this and I am going to be pushing them possibly. There will be a reduction in sharpness but these scenes have nothing of significant detail that is going to be ruined.

Your ACR settings seem not that far out from what I have been using although I rarely use any clarity and my ACR does not allow for contrast curves and gradients.

Ok, I took up your challenge and PPd the orig Jpeg in the identical procedure that I have just used to complete new versions on the tree. This process I learnt from a book about getting maximum from Elements 7 and found it works pretty good for me with land/sea scapes but of course you have PS.





So here's what I did,

a) Spot and Clone layer (dust spots, rubbish removal etc)
b) Capture Sharpen layer (I used 30% at 3, it easy to make things unnaturally sharp with these)
c) Soft Light layer (global contrast of which I can adjust black, mid and white points and opacity)
d) Multiply layer Water (gradient to water for which I can adjust black, mid and white points and opacity)
e) Multiply layer Sky (gradient to sky for which I can adjust black, mid and white points and opacity)
f) Levels layer (global for which I can adjust R, G & B channels separately to fine tune the colours I want)
g) Levels layer final (global adjustment after final capture sharpening)
Image is then saved as PSD and then any crops downsizing and output sharpening done.

All these adjustments will darken or reduce shadows in some areas you do not want so I simply use the masks to brush over these as necessary. In this image I would brush over the main rocks to reveal the shadow that has been hidden.

As for colours of the final image you can play till your hearts content

But it will all be different for you Shane as you are not stuck in the dark ages like me with Elements

Grahame

[Stagecoach]

And here is another one from this morning...I don't really care for the composition. Too much rock and not enough sky IMO but I think that I did a better job on the focus. I might need to employ your tripod foot design and get a little wet Grahame

I also wish that both islands weren't on the same plane and that I took the shot from an angle where the big island was more in the foreground and with the smaller island (in the first image that I posted) leading the eye back into the frame.

But again they are sketches and the location is nearby so feel free to throw ideas at me...

f8 ISO 100 2 seconds (captured about 13 minutes before sunrise)



That's all I got except the usual sunrise shot which was nice but not what I was working on so I won't bother to post it here.

Now this is getting more like it Shane. Foreground rocks spot on for sharpness and islands look a bit unnaturally over sharp.

I far prefer the water speed here I'm not a silky smooth fan and it would be great if you could capture the flow around an area of rock timed for when the light swell comes in. Come up to f/11 or f/16 and that should slow the water just a bit. Have a few goes at different shutter speeds at the same spot and analyse them at home.

Grahame

[Mike Buckley]

When you're concerned about lack of detail and/or color in the sky, select the sky and push the parameters to extremes. You may be very surprised about what you can bring out in a photo that wasn't remotely there when you were at the scene. One example of doing that for a monochrome version is displayed in this thread but the same sort of thing can often be done to a color version when pushing the color parameters. It's really just a matter of trying the extremes to determine whether more interest can be added to the sky.

[Kaye Leggett]

And here is another one from this morning...I don't really care for the composition. Too much rock and not enough sky IMO

I like the composition - it doesn't look like the sky was doing much so I think you've got a great image from what the day sent to you, which as we all know is not always what we wanted when we set out. I love the blend of colours too - very effective

[csa mt]

".I don't really care for the composition. Too much rock and not enough sky "

I strongly disagree! The rocks in the foreground with the water pooling, takes the eye right out over the open water to the island. Cutting some of these rocks out in my opinion, would spoil an absolute beautiful image. Just my opinion and worth it's penny's worth!

[deetheturk]

Lovely captures Shane

[Brownbear]

Hi Shane,

Just to say that the 2nd image is lovely! I like the rocks in the foreground, and I love the sky and the water!

[bnnrcn]

Hi Shane , I agree with Mike about the sky, I would give it a go for #1. I like the colours in your version of #1.

IMO #2 is a more powerful image than #1. There are more movement in the clouds and in the water. Also rocks at the FG add to the composition

[ShaneS]

Thank you everyone but especially Grahame. I had a play date with a girlfriend today and got some new shoes Needless to say, I have just started to work on an edit based on Grahame's tips but there is a lot of to and fro happening with the sliders and layers so I'm going to let it rest overnight and see what I think in the morning.

Mike and Binnur there doesn't seem to be much more to that sky that what Grahame has pulled without it getting really ugly and trust me I tried!

[ShaneS]

Here is my edit...it is very different from what Grahame produced.



I had a very hard time translating Grahame's steps in Elements to Photoshop layers.

I ended up doing the following in addition to capture and final sharpenning:

1. Soft light curves layer for the water.
2. Normal Curves layer for the sky. I couldn't pull much detail out so I decided to minimize the band across the top.
3. Overall Curves Layer set to Multiple which I selectively masked.

Overall my version is much bluer and darker and I think that it has less punch because I chose to leave the green on the island darker and I also left the sky darker. I was having a hard time matching the brightness of the sky and water and I was cautious about make the sky too bright.

I am now very aesthetically confused by this image and and basically paralyzed. So I will toss it at you folks to help me translate the PP steps and any other observations that might strike you about my approach to these types of shots in the future.

[Stagecoach]

Hi Shane,

I would suggest that you can play around with this image for ages and you are not going to improve or be able to change things much. The sky has no colour in it apart from a wee bit of yellow and the sky and clouds are very bland, it just happened to be how things were at that time.

The lower half of the image is plain water with little interest and whilst the water colour can be varied between, blueish, greenish and a bit pinky if so inclined according to your taste (I like bluey silvery) it's not going to solve things.

Some of my early morning (pre sunrise) shots have totally lacked any light colour whereas with many there is an abundance there that can (if you wanted) be pushed to the ridiculous.

What I do notice with this image is the 'evenness' of the sky brightness from left to right whereas all mine, due to the position have had the light coming from the side, basically at 90 degrees with the position where the sun is coming up well out of frame. I wonder if this makes a lot of difference? Your second shot clearly shows the light intensity difference and angle of it.

Interested to hear what others have to say.

Grahame