Mixed lighting shots

[xpatUSA]

Thanks to both you Gentlemen,

The need for considerable post-processing is clearly explained.

[Wavelength]

Great images !!!!

[loosecanon]

There is the ability to chance the colour temperature with lightrooms adjustment brush which works well as a means of ballancing mixed exposures.

[Manfred M]

There is the ability to chance the colour temperature with lightrooms adjustment brush which works well as a means of ballancing mixed exposures.

Lightroom is not an option if one works in layers; which is a must in creating panos. I find that layer masks with clipping masks are a far more accurate way to work.

[kateveber]

Note: These panos look a lot better when you click on them to view them.

I just wanted to share some thoughts and get some feedback on how I handled a posting that I made yesterday. Night shots are by their very nature generally a mixed lighting situation and one has to deal (or ignore) a multitude of different colour temperature light sources. The traditional way to handle mixed lighting in photography is to go crazy with gels; I certainly use gels on my flashes to compensate for this situation and do know that gelling windows is sometimes used in movie / video production. Regardless, gelling all of the lights in a nighttime shot is not realistic.

When I got at looking at the shots I had taken of the Rideau canal last night; there were two primary light sources; I could either get the snow on the right side of the image looking right at the cost of an overall warm image (which is what I did in my original posting).




The other option I looked at last night was to colour balance the snow on the far side of the canal and render the National Arts Centre more accurately, at the cost of having a very blue cast on the snow on the near side of the image:





After sleeping on it, and through the magic of layer masks, I came up with two other views that resulted in more neutral colours on both sides. I went slightly cool for the background in the first instance:




In the second instance I went for an overall warmer look.




While I certainly subscribe to the concept of "get it right in camera"; it's still amazing what one can accomplish in Photoshop.

Here all the images are looking awesome but i like that image most which has made by mixing blue lighting colour combination.

[Downrigger]

Lightroom is not an option if one works in layers; which is a must in creating panos.

What an excellent thread.
Is the statement above relevant only to panos? Those of us who started out with and still are still only using LR aren't sure what the difference is between using the brush (or graduated filter, radial filter) for local modifications of things like WB, and using "Layers and Masks". What does (can) the latter do that is not possible with the LR tools?

[Downrigger]

Lightroom is not an option if one works in layers; which is a must in creating panos.

What an excellent thread.
Is the statement above relevant only to panos? Those of us who started out with and still are still only using LR aren't sure what the difference is between using the brush (or graduated filter, radial filter) for local modifications of things like WB, and using "Layers and Masks". What does (can) the latter do that is not possible with the LR tools?

[Manfred M]

Here all the images are looking awesome but i like that image most which has made by mixing blue lighting colour combination.

Thank you - what I was trying to show was different ways of handling mixed lighting situation. There is no right or wrong answer here, rather personal preference and taste. I tend to aim for a neutral base to start with and then may go warm or cool tone, depending on the specific image.

[Manfred M]

What an excellent thread.
Is the statement above relevant only to panos? Those of us who started out with and still are still only using LR aren't sure what the difference is between using the brush (or graduated filter, radial filter) for local modifications of things like WB, and using "Layers and Masks". What does (can) the latter do that is not possible with the LR tools?

Layers are certainly required to create panos, but are not necessarily required for working with other aspects of the image.

I am by no means an expert in Lightroom, and while I can use it, I find Photoshop much more powerful. In this case I would say the look I got would be impossible to do in Lightroom. This opinion is basically driven by my understanding of how a parametric editor works, versus what happens in a pixel based editor. The lack of layers is another serious drawback, as it is impossible to merge two or more separate images.