A Couple of Love Birds

[Brownbear]

Thank you for a wonderful and very helpful explanation. Yes, I followed Grahame's thread and I'm very happy that I did so.

Yes, I do. Thanks again.

When the Output and Input values are different, I think the Output values are more important because they indicate the changed luminosity. Beyond that...

The brightest parts of an image are generally the parts that the viewer sees first, though there are also other factors such as saturation, contrast and sharpness. You want to "make" an image that leads the viewer's eye through the image and you want to control where in the image that journey is to begin. If you're wondering which parts of the image have the brightest luminosity (two different colors can have the same luminosity), you can easily determine that by reviewing the luminosity values.

You might also want to control the tonal range of part of the image, such as the background of a studio shot or the vignette around your swans. As an example, very recently Grahame made an image of a tomato and he wanted the white background to be uniformly white. Rather than rely on his eyes, perhaps the inadequacies of a monitor such as mine that doesn't cost several thousand dollars, and all of the deficiencies that go along with evaluating an image using a monitor when the goal is to make a large print, he was able to determine that the range of luminosity in his background was within the values of 253 to 255 -- very uniform throughout.

If you want to ensure that certain very dark tones are true black, the easiest and perhaps only way to reliably do that is to determine whether their luminosity value is zero. (I should use that method more often when making photographs of glass using a black background.)

There are probably other examples that aren't coming immediately to mind, but you get the point.

[Loose Canon]

Just for future reference Christina, not knowing what kind of camera or RAW files you have, you could always convert your RAW’s to .dng files. Even my olde version of Elements (ACR) recognizes these files. I’m not sure why Lightroom spit out a .jpg file for you to work on. I really don’t know much about Lightroom. I had a trial version for a time but I really didn’t find it very useful (Just me! I know everybody says its great!)

Since you processed the shot differently from the shot I worked on you would naturally get differing results using the same settings I used in Elements.

It looks to me like the version you worked on was a bit darker to begin with than the version I used. There is, of course, a way to get where you want to be and this is by going to menu bar>Enhance>Adjust Color>Adjust Color Curves. This is Elements’ version of the curve tool and this is where Mike gets to tell us “I told you so”! It is not a separate adjustment layer in Elements so I’d use it on a duplicate layer. Again so you could just trash the whole layer if need be and still not effect the work you have done prior to that. If you were of a mind to, just go to the curve tool and play around with the sliders, etc. and see what you come up with! You can get your swans back to white here, decrease/increase the overall darkness, contrast, all kinds of happy stuff! You might be surprised at what you can do with it. But just play with it and have some fun!

Also I would apply the curve adjustment before the vignette. With the vignette it looks to me like possibly the selection needed more feathering to make the selection less defined. Sometimes I find I need to just feather the soup out of a selection. Especially for applying a vignette. But the gradation will be less apparent if your overall curve favors lighter. And that is why you played with your curves! (Did that come out right?)

For dodging and burning I use a soft brush and very low opacity (usually). And I’m talking in my version of Elements 1-3%. Dodge and burn gradually to “build up” to where you want it. Be patient (a quality I lack!). Again I would burn on another duplicate layer. When I got it where I wanted it I would dupe the layer again and dodge on that. Cool thing about layers! Remember by doing this you can always toggle the dodge or burn layer on or off (eye icon) so you can compare it to where you were before you started dodging and burning. Another cool thing about layers! There are also other techniques for dodging and burning. Like for example doing it on a 50% gray filled layer and using black and white brushes. You can always google “dodge and burn in Elements” for a wealth.

I rarely dodge shadows and rarely burn highlights (although there are exceptions). Your eye will guide you here (and you have a good one). Burn the shadows, dodge the highlights to enhance them and bring some depth/contrast. For the mids I might go either way depending on what looks good to me. I consider dodging and burning a very important arrow to have in the quiver.

I also just want to say that I find Adobe Elements to be a very powerful piece of editing software. Especially after being away from it for all this time. You just can’t beat it for the $$.

[Brownbear]

Hi Terry,

Yes, indeed I think I can make LR spit out DNG files but I have yet to try it, and will do again when I revisit this photo.

Yes, I never save my worked files in LR and I started all over again from scratch so the photo I was working on was different then the one I posted. I will try again, but give me a week or so, so I can approach it with a fresh bright mind. I will play with those curves on the DNG file... (I did apply the vignette as the final step)

Thank you for sharing the tips on dodging and burning. I've never tried it with layers as these are also new to me... But I do see the advantage of being able to work with layers, and save the PSD file for later... I have yet to try a soft brush with a low opacity and a gradual approach. Google I will... Thank you.

Yes, Elements does seem to have a lot of wonderful tools. As soon as I finish my LR tutorials I will start learning about Elements.

And later on but not too far in the future I will try this again. I liked your photo so much I tried to photograph a high key swan but of course the fog and the light was just not the same. But I will try both again.

Thank you for a wonderful lesson and for making it fun. You are indeed a great teacher.

Just for future reference Christina, not knowing what kind of camera or RAW files you have, you could always convert your RAW’s to .dng files. Even my olde version of Elements (ACR) recognizes these files. I’m not sure why Lightroom spit out a .jpg file for you to work on. I really don’t know much about Lightroom. I had a trial version for a time but I really didn’t find it very useful (Just me! I know everybody says its great!)

Since you processed the shot differently from the shot I worked on you would naturally get differing results using the same settings I used in Elements.

It looks to me like the version you worked on was a bit darker to begin with than the version I used. There is, of course, a way to get where you want to be and this is by going to menu bar>Enhance>Adjust Color>Adjust Color Curves. This is Elements’ version of the curve tool and this is where Mike gets to tell us “I told you so”! It is not a separate adjustment layer in Elements so I’d use it on a duplicate layer. Again so you could just trash the whole layer if need be and still not effect the work you have done prior to that. If you were of a mind to, just go to the curve tool and play around with the sliders, etc. and see what you come up with! You can get your swans back to white here, decrease/increase the overall darkness, contrast, all kinds of happy stuff! You might be surprised at what you can do with it. But just play with it and have some fun!

Also I would apply the curve adjustment before the vignette. With the vignette it looks to me like possibly the selection needed more feathering to make the selection less defined. Sometimes I find I need to just feather the soup out of a selection. Especially for applying a vignette. But the gradation will be less apparent if your overall curve favors lighter. And that is why you played with your curves! (Did that come out right?)

For dodging and burning I use a soft brush and very low opacity (usually). And I’m talking in my version of Elements 1-3%. Dodge and burn gradually to “build up” to where you want it. Be patient (a quality I lack!). Again I would burn on another duplicate layer. When I got it where I wanted it I would dupe the layer again and dodge on that. Cool thing about layers! Remember by doing this you can always toggle the dodge or burn layer on or off (eye icon) so you can compare it to where you were before you started dodging and burning. Another cool thing about layers! There are also other techniques for dodging and burning. Like for example doing it on a 50% gray filled layer and using black and white brushes. You can always google “dodge and burn in Elements” for a wealth.

I rarely dodge shadows and rarely burn highlights (although there are exceptions). Your eye will guide you here (and you have a good one). Burn the shadows, dodge the highlights to enhance them and bring some depth/contrast. For the mids I might go either way depending on what looks good to me. I consider dodging and burning a very important arrow to have in the quiver.

I also just want to say that I find Adobe Elements to be a very powerful piece of editing software. Especially after being away from it for all this time. You just can’t beat it for the $$.

[Brownbear]

Here are my new edits of the swans following Terry's lesson plan to create a high-key image. Although they look nothing like Donald's swan it has been a very good lesson in post processing for me. I've learned a lot about high-key images and post processing. Thank you to all.




Another version... Here I used the blur brush on the top half of the photo.




And after all that I think I prefer them in colour, and not high key but I do know that the next time I photograph swans I will be trying for a shot which is more high key out of the camera, likely not in the fog because of the low light, high isos and noise.

Thank you.