Trying to get this to look good

[Manfred M]

A bit of background:

I was up early (at golden hour) and was out shooting a couple of places around town. Just as I was getting ready to leave, I wandered past the Hogs Back Falls and saw a very unusual scene; the rising sun coming through the trees was a form of crepuscular rays.

At the time, I had a small tripod (not usable, due to maximum height) and my mFT GX7 . My big tripod and camera had been packed away in the car and by the time I would have gotten there and back, the sun would have risen high enough for the effect to have disappeared, so I was stuck hand-holding without my usual capture tricks being available to me. The image is taken from a RAW file.

As you can see, the scene is quite strongly back-lit, so the rocks are in shadow. There is a lot of spray in the air so the contrast in the foreground is even lower than in a normal back lit scene. Bringing the contrast up using curves works against me, as it darkens the rocks even more and reduces the appearance light beams. I've done some selective dodging and burning, selective sharpening and a number of other tweaks and this seems to be as good as I can get it (I might want to dial the sharpening back a bit).

Even a B&W conversion, doesn't seem to do anything (using DxO Filmpack 4) doesn't really seem to do much.








Does anyone have any other suggestions that I might want to try to improve the shot? I seem to be out of tricks.

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Manfred,

Nice scene.

Have you applied any Local Contrast Enhancement?

e.g. UnSharp Mask with an amount in the range of 10 - 30% and a radius of 100 px or more?
A similar effect is sometimes known as "Clarity" in ACR (although I know you're not using that)

It would need to be applied before the overall contrast range is extended to the maximum, or it will lose shadow and/or highlight detail. (my excuse for not trying on these)

HTH,

[Manfred M]

Hi Manfred,

Nice scene.

Have you applied any Local Contrast Enhancement?

e.g. UnSharp Mask with an amount in the range of 10 - 30% and a radius of 100 px or more?
A similar effect is sometimes known as "Clarity" in ACR (although I know you're not using that)

It would need to be applied before the overall contrast range is extended to the maximum, or it will lose shadow and/or highlight detail. (my excuse for not trying on these).

Thanks Dave; I'll play around with your suggestions.

I applied the unsharp mask at a radius of 5 and amount 115%; but then applied a layer mask over the rays to soften them back to the original capture. I also cranked up the shadow detail to 100% in ACR to bring out more shadow detail.

HTH,

Actually Dave; I did run this through ACR and the RAW file has 35% clarity and 35% vibrance was used. I tried higher and lower settings and this is the one that looked best

I do use ACR when I am not 100% concerned about the colours being bang on, i.e. I use DxO Pro on my portraits.

[ajohnw]

Not sure how you would go about doing this with PS. Fotoxx has a flatten brightness range which literally does do that. The lum. histogram flattens. It also has graduated tone mapping. The amount applied is set according to contrast level in the shot via a low to high contrast curve.

This shot is way too contrasty to start off with for the technique to work well really. The bridge is a bit of a problem. What's happening in effect is that the brightness range is being evened out heavily and then contrast boosted selectively and any mist tends to loose out.



Cloning NVG too.

John
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[Dave Humphries]

Actually Dave; I did run this through ACR and the RAW file has 35% clarity and 35% vibrance was used. I tried higher and lower settings and this is the one that looked best

Ah, ok

(I didn't really think you would have missed that!)

On further assessment and thought about John's most recent words on the contrast range, I think whatever you try will need to be applied selectively. e.g. at least gradient filters in ACR (e.g. for river), but possibly more complex masking in PS is required for the sky because of the trees.

What ever would work best for the river swirls, probably won't be the same as what works best for say, the sky and further - the curves/levels of those individual areas might need to be adjusted before it has the desired effect.

Not an easy task - but you already knew that.

[ajohnw]

I suspect the problem with flattening and then boosting is mostly down to boosting the lot 1st. I really wants doing 1st before the enhancements otherwise the problem is enhanced as well.

To my eye it even comes out too contrasty in B&W



I reckon the answer is back to a fairly simple raw development. Minimise the effect of the mist and then enhance. Fotoxx works with hidden layers. I wish I knew just how that aspect is done on these 2 processes..

John
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[chauncey]

FWIW...my workflow is, make a complete duplicate and run it thru HDR toning...just to see what it looks like, then usually discard it. Play with the B&W adjustment layer set to luminance and go from there.

[Manfred M]

FWIW...my workflow is, make a complete duplicate and run it thru HDR toning...just to see what it looks like, then usually discard it. Play with the B&W adjustment layer set to luminance and go from there.

Thanks for all the comments - I'm starting over again on this one (about my fourth try).

This is the original SOOC jpeg.



My guess is I tried to do too much in ACR and may need to go to a bit of a hybrid and try to build two or three images using the dynamic range in the RAW data and then assembling from there. This shot is a combination of too much light, too little light, too much contrast and too little contrast. The image that I posted was already up to 8 layers in Photoshop.

At this point, I have not touched either contrast or curves. I suspect I was a bit heavy handed in the in-process sharpening and the shadow reduction (which drives some of the contrast). I tend to do this in ACR, but may need to back off and try a few things (selectively) as has been suggested (and the approach I was using = 8 layers already).

[rambler4466]

The sky might be helped if it were darker especially on the side around the sun. Have you tried using the gradient tool?

A couple of steps you could try: Duplicate the original and you have a layer over the original. Set the mode to "Multiply" which will darken it, but then paint over (or erase) all except the sky to bring back the brightness of the rest of the image below the sky.

Or, save an over-exposed version of the image and then save an under-exposed version of the image. From ACR open each as smart objects. Drag the darker over the lighter.so you have the darker layer above the lighter layer (ie. open as layers in PS).
Add a layer mask to the top image (the darker one). Select the gradient tool with a white-to-black gradient. This will fade out the top layer a bit.
Select the bottom layer, double click on it to open it back into ARC, play around with the Tone Curve panel to add more contrast, click OK to close up ACR.
Go back to the darker image and fine tune the white balance to your taste.

Hopefully this will not loose the nice lighting effect you captured with those rays which is why you took the shot in the first place!

See Martin Evenings' book Photoshop for Photographers, Chapter 7, "Extending the Dynamic Range" or "how to fool merge to HDR"

PS I would clone out that lamp post on the bridge.

John's B&W is a bit "contrasty', but I like the look. Maybe you could find a way to soften it a bit.

[NorthernFocus]

Manfred, have you thought about going the other direction with it. Forget about trying to pull out detail and do the opposite. Enhance the highlights and darken the shadows. This shot is all about the sun, mist, and water anyway. Just a thought.

[rambler4466]

I noticed when working with an image of mine that if you convert an image already open in PS to a smart object, you will not be able to return to open it in ACR. However, if you open an image from ACR as a smart object into PS, you will be able to re-open it again in ACR later for further editing in ACR. (In ACR, hold down the Shift Key and the image will be opened in PS as a smart object)
So, in my example above, if you can not re-open the image in ACR, use Curves in PS instead of the Tone Curve in ACR. Also, changing the opacity can have a similar effect as the gradient tool.

[ajohnw]

I had another go. A bit more success clearing the green stuff but then the "rays" seem to detract and sit near the middle of the tone range just to be awkward.. I suspect B&W as Manfred has tried is the best option maybe not even trying to clear the mist, just bringing out the dark detail first.

This was the same as last time but more care and selected the bridge and more or less put it back as it was



It's a tough shot to work on. Not surprised by the number of layers.

John
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[Manfred M]

Thanks for everyone's ideas and comments. They were great food for thought and I tried out many of the ideas; some made it into this version and others did not quite work out the way I had hoped.

I started from scratch; still at 8 layers (the top layer was the original image posted here that I used as a reference as I worked on the new version), blending modes and masks galore. The colour space and output sharpening layers happened after this was put together.




And of course the various layers and masks are shown. Definitely the most complicated image I've worked on in some time. Bracketed exposures on a tripod would have made my PP life a lot easier.

[Mike Buckley]

Manfred,

There's no question in my mind that your most recent version works the best for me. However, as I have watched the thread evolve I have never been able to get away from the fact that the composition has never worked for me. That's because there are three strong elements (rays of sunlight, white water and bridge) competing with each other.

Perhaps its sacrilege to suggest the composition shown below after you and everyone have worked so hard on the image. Even so, reducing the scene to simplicity works better for me. I did nothing other than crop your most recent version.

[Colin Southern]

[LocalHero1953]

I've thought about this one a lot, but was too lazy to try out any ideas on a download of the image. Like Mike, I thought the composition suffered from the three strong elements and that the bridge was an irrelevancy. I also prefer the monochrome/low saturation versions, because of the difference in colour temperature between warm sunlight and cold shaded falls, which is a distraction.

[tao2]

[IMG][/IMG]

Using simple adjustments in Zoner Studio 15 Pro...

1/2 stop reduction in exp.
2 clicks contrast
sat + vib...+5%
adjusted mid-tones in levels
brightened shadows
10% NR+Colour NR

Ah wouldn't normally do so much PP, so it was a good exercise for me...less is always more (imo)

[pnodrog]

Hi Manfred. Sometimes there are stunning scenes that just do not seem to work as a photograph. Usually I find I need to search for a simpler composition if I can find one. I think your processing in your last version is pretty good and is certainly not the problem. Colin has headed towards simplifying it by avoiding the white water at the bottom to produce a more panoramic composition which I think works reasonably well and gives it a stronger base. I had a little play and tried a slightly wider square crop than Mike to include the river at the bottom. Nearly did not bother to post as it does not solve the dilemma caused by such a complexed scene.

With a full size file I would have been a bit more careful at the tree edges.

[bnnrcn]

How did you do this Colin ? It looks really good

[Colin Southern]

How did you do this Colin ? It looks really good

Thanks Binnur,

Just opened in ACR - cropped - clarity - slight colour temp adjust - slight vibrance boost. Open in Photoshop - resize - quick sharpen. Just a quick and dirty job really - could do much better with the original RAW.