The Apocalypse

[selig1656]

RSF_4706 blkwht by Raymond Friedman, on Flickr

[bje07]

Stunning, frightening sky

[Shadowman]

Nice shot.

[Wavelength]

I stood somewhere in between shocked and stunned

[joebranko]

Wow! What a great sky! Well taken.

[steveg4iwr]

Fantastic clouds.


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[Chataignier]

Amazing sky ! I think I might have spent the night in the cellar after seeing that.

[Tronhard]

presenting it on monochrome certainly makes what are likely very red clouds very ominous...

[xpatUSA]

Brilliant!

[Manfred M]

A very dramatic and striking image.

The one main issue I have with it is the large amount of detail that you have lost in the shadow area. Having texture in these areas would give you an even stronger image. The blue areas shown in the screen print I took in Adobe Camera Raw shows the areas where shadow detail has been crushed.

[xpatUSA]

A very dramatic and striking image.

The one main issue I have with it is the large amount of detail that you have lost in the shadow area. Having texture in these areas would give you an even stronger image.

Indeed, ImageJ tells the crushing tale:



I wonder if the crushing was done deliberately in order to enhance the effect? I wonder also if un-crushing the darks would reduce the drama?

[Manfred M]

I wonder if the crushing was done deliberately in order to enhance the effect? I wonder also if un-crushing the darks would reduce the drama?

In general, in a B&W image we want to see a full tonal range from pure black to pure white. The rule of thumb I was taught was a MAXIMUM of 5% of an image should be pure black or pure white, so yes, we do want to see those extremes, just not too much of them.

The problem with crushed blacks is that by definition, there is no data (a value of "0"), so there is nothing to recover. Just a tiny bit of texture in those areas would make the image more interesting.

[xpatUSA]

Originally Posted by xpatUSA I wonder also if un-crushing the darks would reduce the drama?

The problem with crushed blacks is that by definition, there is no data (a value of "0"), so there is nothing to recover.

Obviously, by "un-crushing", I did not mean recovery by further processing of the posted image. I wondered if applying less blackness during processing could reduce the drama in the clouds, apropos the 5% rule versus the posted image's 31% black.

[mugge]

I love it. Scary though.
Cheers Ole

[Astro]

It is a 'spectacular' image, but for me it is 'unrealistic'. I love photographing sky and clouds, and I have to agree with Manfred that there has been too much crushing of the blacks, resulting in an 'alien' i.e. 'not natural' depiction of a complex clouded sky. The complexity of the cloud cover is what would normally provide the interest for me.
That said, this image makes a great statement, in line with it's title.

[selig1656]

Originally I pushed it to the extreme as to create "Hell In Heaven"
RSF_4708 edit3 jpeg by Raymond Friedman, on Flickr

[selig1656]

Yes in processing the capture I took it to the extreme to get the effect I desired, here is the image as a basic image for the beauty of the sky that morning. "The Morning Tide"
RSF_4708 edited by Raymond Friedman, on Flickr

[Manfred M]

Raymond - two things strike me about the original:

1. This is a high dynamic range image. When I look at the original posted in ACR, I see that you have both clipped highlights and crushed shadows. If you have an original raw, these might be recoverable; your edits show that this is clearly the case for the highlights. The shadows, I'm not so sure about. This is the type of image I would tend to bracket while taking the shots; probably a +2, 0 , -2 exposure compensation and then use some kind of high dynamic range technique like HDRI, exposure fusion or manual blending to protect those areas in a final image.

Again, an ACR screenshot shows this clearly with clipped highlights in red and crushed shadows in blue.





The other thing that strikes me is that your adjustments have been global, rather than local, so in other words, to get the overall effect you were looking for, applied the effect everywhere, rather only where it would do the most good. Most high end photographers and retouchers would argue that most of the adjustments in an image should be local in order to bring out the details.

[xpatUSA]

People in this thread are pushing Raymond to do conventional processing in order to bring out the shadows in his clouds. I disagree.

I believe that both the processing and the capture (exposure value 11.6 EV) are quite deliberately under-exposed, i.e. they are not in error and do not require the remedial advice offered in this thread.

Under- or over-exposure is quite legitimate for artistic renderings in the genre and I firmly believe that bringing out shadow detail will detract from the originally-posted image and from the last image (post #17).

[DanK]

People in this thread are pushing Raymond to do conventional processing in order to bring out the shadows in his clouds. I disagree.

I believe that both the processing and the capture (exposure value 11.6 EV) are quite deliberately under-exposed, i.e. they are not in error and do not require the remedial advice offered in this thread.

Under- or over-exposure is quite legitimate for artistic renderings in the genre and I firmly believe that bringing out shadow detail will detract from the originally-posted image and from the last image (post #17).

I agree. As I wrote in a related thread quite some time ago, no one tells painters never to use pure black or white paint. If the photographer has detail s/he doesn't want in the final image, it's fine to remove it, and crushing the shadows is one way to do that. I do this all the time with flower macros against black backgrounds. The little bit of detail in the originals of those photos is unwanted reflections off the background material. If I want pure black, I'll make it pure black.

That said, to my taste--and it's just a matter of taste--#1 and #16 both take this too far, and I find the original in #17 both more interesting and more attractive.