A little help please

[gregj1763]

Took this shot a couple of weeks ago across a lake during a night photography course I was doing. I made some adjustments to shadows and highlights and removed some car headlights behind the trees but it's pretty much as I took it. Exposure was about 90 sec or so and I like it, BUT not sure about the shadow the sloping bank casts down over the rushes. Didn't wan't to crop the rushes out though because of the colour they contribute to the image. C&C most welcome. Composition is probably what I need the most help with.
Greg.

[CBImages]

Hi Greg

There is not a lot you can do to remove the black line in the foreground apart from cropping it out. A suggestion for future would be to take a small LED torch with you and while you are making your 90 second exposure, paint light from the torch into the shadow areas to bring some detail out in them. It is very much a trial and error method to get the timing right - paint too much light and you over expose it, too little light and you still get a dark line. Examining each exposure in 'live view' can help you to guage the amount of light required and small adjustments can be made by dodging and burning in Photoshop.

Chris

[RockNGoalStar]

Hi Greg,

Hope you don't mind but I had a quick play with it in Photoshop...

First thing I did was rotate it clockwise by just under 2 degrees (based on the reflections I got what I thought was the correct angle).

Then I cloned out the black shadow with the clone tool. What software do you have / use?

[gregj1763]

Thanks Chris, Tried that sort of thing with some macro shots I took last month. Never thought of using it in this situation.

[gregj1763]

Tommy, That is what I was trying to achieve it looks fantastic. I used iPhoto for my editing. I have CS4 but need a lot of practice with it.
To be pointed in the right direction with photo editing is a great help.
Greg

[RockNGoalStar]

Have a search on youtube for "Photoshop clone stamp tool tutorials" and watch as many as you can. You'll pick up many tips and see how it's used.

My biggest tips for cloning something like this, where the sample area is quite uniform but you don't want repetition, is to use a fairly soft brush and keep changing where you sample from. Use a harder edged brush for the edge. Once done you can get rid of areas of repetition with a soft brush and using random sample areas.

To straighten the horizon, I used the measure tool (right click on the eye-dropper tool to find it) and drew a straight line between the top of the thin white trunk on the land and the opposing thin white trunk on the reflection. Then simply goto Image > Rotate Image > Arbitrary and the exact amount should be inputted in there for you. Then crop the image.

You can find all this out better explained on Google or Youtube.

Good luck

[gregj1763]

Thanks mate