Julington Creek at Westminister Woods near St. Augustine, Florida

[bnachman]

I'm new here, and I'd appreciate your opinions on how to make the following better:

Westminster Woods 021 by bnachman, on Flickr

[dje]

Hello and welcome

The easiest way for me to show what I think should be done to improve this image (in PP) is to post my version. I hope you don't mind.

Basically the image is over-exposed and the highlights (sky) are blown. So it's a matter of trying to recover the sky someway, reduce the highlights, and add more contrast to the image.

I tackled this in CS6, first in Adobe Camera Raw and then in PS.
Here are my settings

ACR

Exposure -0.55
Contrast +10
Highlights -75
Whites -75
Blacks -30
Clarity +10
Vibrance +10
Saturation +5
Medium Contrast Curve
Sharpening 20
Radius 1
Detail 25

Photoshop

Colour Balance : Highlights Cyan -10, Yellow +10 (This was done to get a bit of colour into the sky.)
Output sharpening Smart Sharpen 30 Radius 0.3

Hope this helps

Dave




PS To get a good comparison click on the first image to open Lightbox and then use the cursor to go back and forth between the two images.

[AB26]

Hi “bnachman”,

Welcome to CiC. Now before Donald jumps all over you let me ask you, please to edit your profile and add your real name. CiC is a community of friendly, caring people, calling each other by the name.

Who am I in this community: a member like you, eager to learn from others on how to improve my photographic skills. Whatever I say is from an amateur point of view.

I do not believe Photoshop is an alternative to good camera skills, “fixing” images. The only way of improving this image is to obtain beter skills with your camera. Learn to understand the different settings on your camera and how it affects exposure, colour, contrast, white balance and saturation.

In CiC there are tutorials dealing with most of the subjects you need to improve your camera skills. Go to the tutorials section and start working trough them one by one on all the subjects you do not understand. Play with your camera and experiment with different settings. Learn camera skills before you resort to any form of Post Processing, except for sharpening and cropping. There is no alternative for good camera skills, if you wish to improve your photographic skills.

The image you posted is overexposed in most areas. An overexposed image cannot be “fixed”, as some areas are “blown out”. Any “blown out” detail cannot be recovered in PP. You need to learn how not to blow out highlights in an image. You need to understand the dynamic range your camera is capable of capturing. You need to know the limitations of what your camera can do and what it cannot do.
I would recommend going back to the site and reshoot, with the correct camera settings. Try using an aperture between F7 and F11 at ISO 100 with a shutter speed depending on light intensity. I believe it is the only way to “fix” an image, you shoot with the correct settings, never rely on PP to "get it right”.

Posting an image not containing any EXIF data is not very helpful to those wishing to assist you. It will help posting more information on the image you posted. Camera settings are important.

You will enjoy it here at CiC if you wish to improve your skills.

Hope to see many more of your posts.

Regards,
Andre

[bnachman]

Thanks for your suggestions. I went back and reviewed the other pictures I took at that site and saw that the sky was blown out on everyone one of them. I was shooting at F22 with an ISO of 400. I selected that aperture because I wanted to keep as much as I could in focus. Obviously the ISO was way too high. The sky was overcast that day, and I suppose I used 400 to keep the speed down. My bad!.

[AB26]

Hi Bernie,

Much better talking to someone with a name.

You seldom need to shoot at F22. They call it lens degridation, starts setting in at to small an aperture. Most probably that is why your image is not sharp as you would like it to be.

Most lenses will give optimal performance at around F5.6 - F 11. In daytime light you seldom need to shoot at ISO 400.

What camera do you use and how much do you know about cameras and camera settings?

There are a few people on this forum who will give you lots of very helpful info if they know how much you know and what equipment you use. If Manfred or Richard respond to your post, you will find them writing essays to assist you. Manfred loves helping "newbies" in photography, he will go into fine detail explaining whatever you want to know.
I do not like writing long essays as my typing is slow and I like it if you find out as much as possible by yourself.

The more info you give the better help you will get from members.

By reading as many threads and tutorials as possible you will find your skills improving quickly, here at CiC. Mine has.