Lee's Chapel (7-21-12)

[Digital]

Would very much welcome C&C. Bruce

[GEORDIE]

A really nice clean sharp image well done.
Colin.

[Digital]

A really nice clean sharp image well done.
Colin.

Colin, thank you for your comment. Bruce

[Mike Buckley]

It's a straightforward, simple image of a scene that might benefit from more interesting light. At a glance, it appears to be about 1/2 stop underexposed. Review the histogram for confirmation of that. Even so, you can easily compensate for that amount of underexposure in your post-processing.

[Digital]

Is this better regarding exposure? Bruce

[Mike Buckley]

I wonder if you're used to using the histogram when you capture the image and when you postprocess it. If not, be sure to review CiC's terrific tutorial on using the histogram.

The image shown immediately below is the histogram of your second version. Notice that it doesn't extend to the right side. That indicates that your image is missing some highlights (is under exposed).





I did only one thing to produce the following version. Notice that it's brighter and has more pop.




My one adjustment was to move the far right slider of Levels & Curves to the left until the histogram displayed data across the entire dynamic range, which in this case included the highlights. Notice the resulting histogram shown below.

[arith]

Nice image; had some fun with it trying to correct colour and then make it stand out, but just a bit of auto correction is good enough.

It might look better near sunset or sunrise because the shadows are a bit harsh, but I like it.

[Digital]

Thanks guys for your comments, and assistance. Bruce

[MrB]

Bruce,

If the aim is to reproduce a faithful record of the scene, I would agree that the image needs the histogram shifted right, as suggested by Mike. However, the shadows indicate that the scene was lit by almost directly overhead sunlight, but none of the edits so far show this, as many features (e.g. the trees, grass and roof) are still too dark. Some adjustments to the mid-tone levels can help to bring out those areas, perhaps together with a bit of added saturation to compensate for these changes, e.g.-



Philip

[Mike Buckley]

I agree with Philip and his version effectively demonstrates what he mentions. I decided to focus on use of the histogram as the first very important step and forgot to mention that additional postprocessing is necessary. Thanks for your contribution, Philip.