Trying to get this to look good

[bnnrcn]

Thank you Colin, I'm a bit surprised because everybody is trying quite hard to get a better look

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.

[Manfred M]

Thank you Colin, I'm a bir surprised because everybody is trying quite hard to get a better look

Thanks everyone - no it's not a great image, but I thought the lighting was really quite interesting and was trying to see what can be done with somthing this challanging.

Interesting Colin; other than the crop, I did exactly the same thing in ACR; so you simply pushed those sliders a bit harder.

[bnnrcn]

Manfred, it is a nice image for people who admire nature. I can feel the fresh air and cool water

Thanks everyone - no it's not a great image, but I thought the lighting was really quite interesting and was trying to see what can be done with somthing this challanging.

Interesting Colin; other than the crop, I did exactly the same thing in ACR; so you simply pushed those sliders a bit harder.

[ajohnw]

I'm curious which lens you used for this shot Manfred as the exif info is missing,

Work?
Getting the mist down was a 5min job but feel I have over done that a bit. I click colour balance that needed 2-3 clicks to find a true white. Straight line selecting and correcting the bridge a little longer. Then spent more time deciding how light it should be playing with curves and saturation.

Didn't think to colour balance the bridge as I feel that's the part that is most out. That's life.

John
-

[Manfred M]

John - Shot with the Panasonic f/4 - 5.6 14-140mm at 14mm at 6:30 in the morning (sunrise was at 5:15). No sure why Flickr is stripping out the Exif data...

As for the colours; typical golden hour lighting; mixed lighting, so fighting both direct sun versus heavily reflected sky colours with the blue overtones. I decided to warm things up a bit as grey concrete tends to show whatever colour of light hits it.

[ajohnw]

I wondered because of the colouring. I had an email of an ebayer that I bought something off about using older manual lenses on m 4/3 and the colours coming out incorrectly. He'd found that a UV / IR filter fitted to the lens cured the problem. Not sure how accurate the info is but given cost cuttings etc it wouldn't surprise me if the lenses were coated in a way to cut both rather than relying entirely on filtering on the sensor.

I colour balanced on the basis that some blue in steady water is ok and caused by a blue sky.

I've been toying with the idea of a super zoom from wide type lens but I feel that they don't really make good use of the pixels on m 4/3. It's a big problem really. I did try the 4/3 18-180mm which will even shoot macro at all lengths but found the long end too soft for comfort in some ways especially at very short distances. It's "ok" at the wide end.

John
-

[Manfred M]

John - the main reason I got that particular lens is the only mFT lens that has linear motor on the autofocus, versus the more common stepper motor on all the other lenses. As I primarily was looking for a lens for video work; this was a "must have" feature.

Other than that, the lens has your typical tradeoffs found on any lens with such a long focal range.

[Colin Southern]

Thank you Colin, I'm a bit surprised because everybody is trying quite hard to get a better look

You're welcome. Seemed like a pretty easy fix to me.

[dan marchant]

Manfred,
Would you be willing to post the RAW file? I would be interested in have a play around too.

[ajohnw]

John - the main reason I got that particular lens is the only mFT lens that has linear motor on the autofocus, versus the more common stepper motor on all the other lenses. As I primarily was looking for a lens for video work; this was a "must have" feature.

Other than that, the lens has your typical tradeoffs found on any lens with such a long focal range.

i had wondered what video optimised meant. I vaguely recall Olympus doing 2, the 12-50mm and another similar to yours. Looking again though the no longer mention this on the 12-50mm only the variable speed electronic zoom for video use.

John
-

[Manfred M]

Manfred,
Would you be willing to post the RAW file? I would be interested in have a play around too.

No problem Dan. I just installed DropBox and hopefully, you can access the file:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/vw262pynu5pwt2l/_1070540.RW2

RAW file is about 19MB

[Manfred M]

i had wondered what video optimised meant. I vaguely recall Olympus doing 2, the 12-50mm and another similar to yours. Looking again though the no longer mention this on the 12-50mm only the variable speed electronic zoom for video use.

John
-

Obviously not a popular features... Frankly, other than setting up the shot I don't use this feature very often, I generally always switch to manual focus when I'm ready to shoot video.

[ajohnw]

Humble attempt 1. Lost some bright areas. Could be because I don't have an iCC file for this camera and there is something odd about the red channel in the raw file. It doesn't exactly clip but the slope reduces suddenly. I suspect this messes the colour balance up - hence sky. Just tried to get the shot as it was. No selection, just curves and contrast tools and contrast type work locally on the wall. Added vibrancy for warmth as that's what Manfred seems to want but also cooled it a little.

I left the lens cut off in the corners in and no vignette correction.



Curious to know if the brown tints in the water were there or not. They are common in fast moving water.

LOL just noticed the black lines in the rays - no idea where they came from.

John
-

[Manfred M]

Curious to know if the brown tints in the water were there or not. They are common in fast moving water.

The brown tea coloured water is pretty here typical in these northern areas and are primarily detritus (organic particulates) and tanin from leaves that do not completely decay due to the cold temperatures in the area. The water levels are particularly high this year after fairly heavy snow fall and a late melt.

[KCBrecks]

Just a thought Manfred, how about desaturating to B&W then pasting that over a coloured layer and painting the rays back in. As the rays are the feature you are looking for this could be rather dramatic.

[Colin Southern]

Quick play, with a little "ortonising" thrown in for something different (be sure to view full size) (1920 x 1080)

[rambler4466]

Very enjoyable thread. Can't you get rid of that **&$## lamppost?

When you posted the layers, what is the second to the top layer with a dark circle in the mask? Did that add a vignette?

[Manfred M]

Very enjoyable thread. Can't you get rid of that **&$## lamppost?

When you posted the layers, what is the second to the top layer with a dark circle in the mask? Did that add a vignette?

If you look at the very first post(s), it was removed. The later versions were done with the RAW file and it is still in that original capture.

The layer you are asking about is a light vignette I applied to draw the viewer's eyes into the image and away from the edges. I forgot to name it in the screen shot I posted.

[Manfred M]

Just a thought Manfred, how about desaturating to B&W then pasting that over a coloured layer and painting the rays back in. As the rays are the feature you are looking for this could be rather dramatic.

Actually I played with that approach early on and didn't like where it was going. In this shot, I found going to a base B&W image actually seemed busier than the colour version.

[Manfred M]

Quick play, with a little "ortonising" thrown in for something different (be sure to view full size) (1920 x 1080)

Thanks Colini; now if you would only spell my surname correctly...