How to achieve this effect?

[batmura]

http://500px.com/photo/50611860

Can anyone tell me what kind of pp might have been done to get the water so white compared to the sky? Normally the colourful sunset sky would reflect its colours on the sea, but I have seen several such images where the water is so smooth and lighter toned. Do they perhaps paint over it with the brush underexposing? If so, how come it looks so clean at the edges of the water?

Please explain this to me like you would explain it to a 2-year old. Thanks!

PS. I use Lightroom for pp.

[Walshy]

HI Murat
I think you will find this effect is achieved by the use of an ND filter on the camera lens. It has the effect of slowing to shutter speed and thus flattening out the waves on the water.

[Mike Buckley]

My Nikon software uses the same control-point technology that is used in the Nik suite of software apps. It would be reasonably easy to select the water and adjust it without affecting anything else in the image.

[batmura]

HI Murat
I think you will find this effect is achieved by the use of an ND filter on the camera lens. It has the effect of slowing to shutter speed and thus flattening out the waves on the water.

Hi John, I understand they used an nd filter. What I don't get is how come ALL of the water is so white like it looks overexposed but the rocks look perfect?

[FootLoose]

I think it looks weird. The light reflecting on the rocks is white, but the light in the sky is pink(ish).

[dje]

Murat you could probably achieve this selective work with Nik plugin Viveza and it's control point functionality.

You could also do it with a mask in ps.
Dave

[Andrew76]

I think it looks weird. The light reflecting on the rocks is white, but the light in the sky is pink(ish).

Agreed. It doesn't look right at all.

Sorry to be of no help, Murat.

[Mike Buckley]

For the record, I don't like the effect either. Though I explained how it can be achieved, which is the thrust of the question that was put to us, I don't like that it has been achieved.

[batmura]

Anyone think the sky might have been added from another shot while overexposing the water?

Dave, I do have Nik, but just use it for bw. I will check if Viveza works like Silver Efex 2.

[Manfred M]

Murat - this image is mostly done in camera and shot on a tripod. There may have been a bit of PP work, but not necessarily.

The data says the image had a 300 second exposure (5 minutes) at f/18 and ISO 100. Looks to me like a heavy duty ND filter (10-stop? (Lee Big Stopper or B&W are the only two 10-stop filters that I know of) was used as well, which explains the foggy / white looking water and the streaks from the clouds.

Based on the other settings, the shot must have been taken around sunset or sunrise.


I played around with the technique a couple of years ago. This shot is just a 3 second exposure. I think I used a 5-stop ND filter to do it and was taken during "magic hour" before sunset. The water has the streaky / dreamy look to it and the rocks have the same hyper crisp look.

I didn't particularly like the result, so have not played around with the technique since; maybe when I have nothing else to do...

[dje]

Anyone think the sky might have been added from another shot while overexposing the water?

Dave, I do have Nik, but just use it for bw. I will check if Viveza works like Silver Efex 2.

Murat I doubt that the sky has been substituted judging by the colour of everything else in the image except the white water but who would know !

I think the control points in Viveza are a little different to Silver Efex and they are based on the colour of the centre point. The adjustment mask they produce can be viewed by holding down the Ctr key when moving the centre point of the control point. There is a good and low cost Kindle book by Robin Whalley on Viveza (and also one on Silver Efex).

Dave

[batmura]

Dave, if I hold down the ctrl key will I know which area my edit is hoing to affect? Is that what you were saying? i'm on my ipad so that's why I'm asking. Also, what do you mean the control points are based on the colour of the centre point? Do I have to manually select the colours I want to overexpose or underexpose?

[Polar01]

Murat: with that 5 minute exposure and shooting low, there may have been a lot of small whitecaps, five minutes of that would give that milky effect. I know what I would do next however I can not explain as I would have to work it out, something like colour picker select the white mask the layer so the white will not be affected than work on rest of image.
Just a guess

Cheers:

Allan

[dje]

Dave, if I hold down the ctrl key will I know which area my edit is hoing to affect? Is that what you were saying? i'm on my ipad so that's why I'm asking. Also, what do you mean the control points are based on the colour of the centre point? Do I have to manually select the colours I want to overexpose or underexpose?

Murat

Yes if you create a control point, holding down the CTR key as you position the control point will show the areas affected by the control point adjustments. This area will be based on the colour in the image where you position the control point and also by the radius set for the control point. In other words, if you position the control point on the water which has a certain colour, the adjustment area will be all parts of that water within the radius of the control point (roughly speaking). It clearly can't just work on one precise colour value but a range of colour values around that of the point selected.

Hope I've made that a bit clearer ! If you try it out I think you'll see what I mean. A quick Google search will also find free tutorials.

Dave

[pnodrog]

Most likely two or three shots with vastly different exposures blended together using HDR software or as I think I would do tend to do manually blended using layer masks.

There is no sign of a graduated filter as the change of exposure from sky to sea is more abrupt than any grad filter I have and there is no sign graduation in the land area. If one was used its effect is insignificant in context of the tonal range being mapped.