need advice, Chromatic aberration removal

[flechtight]

I am having trouble removing the chromatic aberrations from the trees at sky line on the upper left. I have tried running it through Lens correction "custom" in CS5 but it immediately starts pulling the opposite color in. Is there a way to manually remove this color from the trees and replace it?

[jeeperman]

Nice image, Jon. I gave the CA issue a go in LR4. Using the auto CA fix did nothing but using the color picker {eye droper} to select the edge color of the tree helped about 90%.

[Mike Buckley]

Absolutely gorgeous composition, Jon. Try raising the black point to about 10. Also try selecting the distant mountains and pull the middle of the curve down just a bit to eliminate the small amount of haze. After you do that, you might need to tone down the really bright area underneath the bridge so the bridge remains the focal point.

[dje]

Very nice shot Jon, great composition. I tried reducing the Highlights by 10%, raising the black point slider in the Levels adjustment to 25 and also added some LCE (Unsharp mask 15%, 350 pixels, 0 threshhold). This really gave it some "pop".

Dave

PS I cant really see the CA well enough to comment.

[flechtight]

Thanks to all for the advice, obviously there was more to improve besides Chromatic aberration.

All your advice helped me pull more potential out of this pic. What I took for chromatic aberration in the trees in the upper left was partially caused from my ND filter line.

Color picker in Aperture 3.4 helped clean that up.
Dave was right on the money with the levels adjustment and the "pop".
Mike I dropped the Brightness level down a bit under the bridge as well as pulled the curves down a bit and also brightened up the supports under the bridge. Sharpened and then masked out the river to remove any sharpening in the water.

Now if I could take care of that blown out cloud in the left!

[Mike Buckley]

It's really fun to go back and forth between the two photos using the Lytebox. The second one is SUCH a huge improvement and a very worthwhile keeper.

Now if I could take care of that blown out cloud in the left!

If that bothers you, replace it by copying part of a cloud from elsewhere in this photo or from another photo.

[dje]

Now if I could take care of that blown out cloud in the left!

Now we are getting picky !

Looks good Jon.

Dave

[andrewaxford]

What a lovely picture Jon. As a novice I can learn so much from it about the art of composition. The suggestions and improvements still make an amazing difference though. My question is this. Have all you guys had lessons in photo editing or is it something you have picked up as you go along. As a beginner are there any info sources that you can recommend ?
Thanks for a great picture.

[RockNGoalStar]

It's a very cool picture Jon, and I think the advice from Mike and Dave to increase the contrast has certainly improved it. To be honest, I don't really notice the CA on the trees. There is enough in the picture to keep my attention.

I can't decide whether it is ever so slightly too saturated for my liking But that's a personal preference issue.

Perhaps you'd be so kind as to tell us how you processed it from the original, what software and settings you used.

Thanks,

Tom

[dje]

What a lovely picture Jon. As a novice I can learn so much from it about the art of composition. The suggestions and improvements still make an amazing difference though. My question is this. Have all you guys had lessons in photo editing or is it something you have picked up as you go along. As a beginner are there any info sources that you can recommend ?
Thanks for a great picture.

No lessons for me Andrew - I 've just picked things up along the way, particularly from various CiC members who have commented on my images or on those of others ! There is a wealth of information out there on the web but a lot of it just describes the adjustment processes. The trick is to know what adjustments will work best for any given image and I think this basically comes from practice and experience. As well as trying things on my own images, I sometimes try things on other people's images.

In my opinion, lack of contrast and over-bright highlights are two of the most common deficiencies in images and these can usually be easily fixed.

Dave

[Mike Buckley]

Have all you guys had lessons in photo editing or is it something you have picked up as you go along. As a beginner are there any info sources that you can recommend ?

You might want to start a thread to discuss this topic. At the risk of Jon's thread being hijacked, I'll mention that I learned gradually on my own and wish I had known about the CiC tutorials when I first began post-processing. They are laid out in a logical sequence and they explain the issues and solutions quite well.

The most important thing is to learn the look that you want to produce. For me, that took time reviewing other people's images and my own. Ironically, it's ideal to know the look you want to produce before you release the shutter rather than only as you post-process the image, but it's understandable that that perhaps rarely happens for the novice photographer or for the photographer who has never seriously thought about this stuff.

As for the specific use of post-processing tools, there are three basic parts of post-processing: understanding the histogram (as an aid for both making the desired exposure and for post-processing the photo), how and why to use the Levels and Curves tools, and sharpening. Once you have attained a reasonable command of those three parts of post-processing, you will probably be 90% along the way to achieving the look that you desire. (Notice that it always comes back to knowing what that look happens to be; it's impossible to assuredly and effectively post-process an image unless you know what you want it to look like.)

[andrewaxford]

Thanks Mike. i have started a new thread in general discussion page and thanks to everyone for the advice.

[flechtight]

My work flow on this Pic went something like this, ( my workflow is still a work in progress)

Image captured on Canon 5D Markll, 16-35mm, at 30mm, 1.6sec @ f/22 iso 50

As I only had one exposure of this shot, I made 2 duplicates of the RAW file in Aperture 3.4 and applied -.3 exposure to one and +.3 to the other, ran them through Photomatix Plug-in Aperture to help deal with the dynamic range issue. I applied strength at 100%, lighting to "neutral" and smoothed highlights.

Then into Photoshop CS5 for dust spot removal, Nik Viveza 2 for structure and saturation, back to CS5 then to CiC for help on the chromatic aberration issue, Back to Aperture for color picker for chromatic fix, CS5 for levels and curves adjustment, masked and sharpened everything but the water, then today in CS5 some more brightness/Contrast to the bridge and some slight desaturation.



and here I am today, still pondering the blown out cloud that I obviously blew out in photomatix

[Dave Humphries]

As I only had one exposure of this shot, I made 2 duplicates of the RAW file in Aperture 3.4 and applied -.3 exposure to one and +.3 to the other, ran them through Photomatix Plug-in Aperture to help deal with the dynamic range issue. I applied strength at 100%, lighting to "neutral" and smoothed highlights.

Hi Jon,

If that means + 0.3 and - 0.3 stops, I am puzzled why such a small increment?
If the camera has a dynamic range of say, 12 stops, making it 12.6 hardly seems worth the effort and is unlikely to result in any discernible difference in the shot beyond the messing that Photo-Matrix does - not to mention we're viewing it on a monitor with a 6 stop dynamic range.

That said, all the processed versions undoubtedly look better than SOOC above, probably your second attempt seems most natural to my old eyes.

I guess if the scene's dynamic range (after the GND I think you said was used) is 12.6 stops, that explains it and I'm being a prat querying it

If I bother to do a double process from a single RAW, then I'd go to 1 or 2 stops above and below standard, but I'd blend them manually from different layers in Photoshop to recover detail in specific areas. I would tend to overdo the reduction in the DR in order to give me wiggle room to apply LCE later in processing (which I know expands it).

Hope that's helpful,

[flechtight]

Dave, I choose the +/_ .3 just by watching the histogram and stopped when it bumped up against the "0" and "255". I assumed I should not have gone more or risk blowing out highlights and shadows. I would love to learn how to blend in photoshop as I routinely see photo matrix muddle the detail from the actual pics.

I am still shy on using the curves