Mountain Scenes - Experimental Post Processing

[Brownbear]

As a learning to post process exercise, for the following image I just forgot about post processing to replicate the scene as I saw it, increased the black point, and contrast, adjusted the middle point using the levels tool (after watching Richard's recommended video on reducing haze, where the levels tool was used). I Velvized the image boosting the saturation of the landscape.

f/8 ISO 100 SS 125/160 Focal length 120/300 mm




Please share your thoughts on my post processing of this image. Thank you.

[Kodiak]

Please share your thoughts on my post processing of these two images. Thank you.

I love the fact that you're involved in exploration… and that you've got the guts
to post your results, what ever the outcome.

In these cases, no. It's flat, blue, no micro-contrast and improper WB. This was
for the technical part of it.

Now for the artistic approach. Though the compositions here are very receivable,
they are far not as appealing as other works I have seen from you.

This has nothing to do with the pictures themselves but with their experimental
rendition. Feel free to experiment further but the direction doesn't reach me.

[Brownbear]

Yes, I'm on a learning quest.

I truly appreciate your honesty. I thought it was too blue but I used the WB tool in processing and that is the resulting WB, plus I pushed the saturation way more than I usually do.

Flat, I'm confused about because I raised both the white and black points as far as they would go without clipping.

Thank you.

I love the fact that you're involved in exploration… and that you've got the guts
to post your results, what ever the outcome.

In these cases, no. It's flat, blue, no micro-contrast and improper WB. This was
for the technical part of it.

Now for the artistic approach. Though the compositions here are very receivable,
they are far not as appealing as other works I have seen from you.

This has nothing to do with the pictures themselves but with their experimental
rendition. Feel free to experiment further but the direction doesn't reach me.

[Kodiak]

Yes, I'm on a learning quest.

To your discharge, I will say that you trapped yourself in a very difficult
work. To tell you the level of difficulty you are tackling with, I would need
to see an untouched original.

WB
This is the first and foremost adjustment to do. I these cases, the whitest
snow should be the sampling areas.

LEVELS • EXPOSURE
This is the second step. The two preceding will reveal the micro-contrast
in the scenes.

Try these steps first and let's see where that will take us…
if you don't mind, that is!

[Dave Humphries]

Flat, I'm confused about because I raised both the white and black points as far as they would go without clipping.

Not sure how it happened, but have you seen the histograms now Christina?



Black point is way up.
(although red channel is black clipped - but since there's precious little red there, I'd say that doesn't matter)

Somewhere in ACR/LR is a means of effectively getting a different white balance for shadows and highlights - might be worth a try, because apart from anything else, you have the 'usual' problem with any sunny snow shot; the WB of light falling on shadowed snow is vastly bluer than that in sunlight.

While Kodiak's advice is basically sound, you may need to be careful when sampling for WB on the sunlit snow in case any channels were clipping (over exposed) as that could throw it off.

As you experimentally increased the saturation, this has amplified any small WB issues.
They are two blue for me, especially the second one.

HTH, Dave

[Brownbear]

Hi Kodiak,

Since about late last Fall I've been trying to learn to photograph landscapes. These past few months I have managed to capture a few nice ones, but the scenes I really hope to capture well one day are of the surrounding mountains, and these are my absolute worse. I think I have just one or two that I like.

I have also been working on learning to post process, and I often hear that my images are flat. Hence I just thought I would try something totally different than my usual tame post processing.

Here is the screen shot of the original raw image. Photographed in bright light. Covered in haze. (polarizer used)



If you assign me an exercise, I will do it, but it will not be until Friday as I have a work project to finish tomorrow. And I have a ton of other mountain images if the quality of these is too poor.

Levels... I typically just use curves, so I'm not sure what type of levels adjustment I should be applying to these images. In this example I tried the levels tool, moving the middle slider over in RGB in Adobe Photoshop to deepen the colours.

Exposure... These are exposed a bit to the right, so likely I should lower the exposure a wee bit?

Thank you.

To your discharge, I will say that you trapped yourself in a very difficult
work. To tell you the level of difficulty you are tackling with, I would need
to see an untouched original.

WB
This is the first and foremost adjustment to do. I these cases, the whitest
snow should be the sampling areas.

LEVELS • EXPOSURE
This is the second step. The two preceding will reveal the micro-contrast
in the scenes.

Try these steps first and let's see where that will take us…
if you don't mind, that is!

[Brownbear]

Thank you Dave. Yes, I can see that the black point is way up.

Hopefully, Mike will miss this thread as I just promised to always check my histogram. I was carried away with a creative thought and forgot. And yes, I used the snow to set the WB.

Indeed very blue. I wanted to see if people preferred the stronger colours and higher contrast.

Thank you.

Not sure how it happened, but have you seen the histograms now Christina?



Black point is way up.
(although red channel is black clipped - but since there's precious little red there, I'd say that doesn't matter)

Somewhere in ACR/LR is a means of effectively getting a different white balance for shadows and highlights - might be worth a try, because apart from anything else, you have the 'usual' problem with any sunny snow shot; the WB of light falling on shadowed snow is vastly bluer than that in sunlight.

While Kodiak's advice is basically sound, you may need to be careful when sampling for WB on the sunlit snow in case any channels were clipping (over exposed) as that could throw it off.

As you experimentally increased the saturation, this has amplified any small WB issues.
They are two blue for me, especially the second one.

HTH, Dave

[Brownbear]

Hi Kodiak,

I took the 2nd image. Used a cloud to set the WB, adjusted levels using the curves tool (each channel separately) using what I thought looked right for the colours in the image as a guideline. Then I went to the curves tool RGB and raised the black point and the white point to cover the entire base of the histogram.

Cropped and sharpened.

New Histogram



* In this view of the histogram it doesn't look like the black point extends all the way but in the RGB view (curves) I did extend both the white and the black point.

New Edit

[TonyW]

Christina, Your last edit is much better than the original. I had a play with it in photoshop. I tend to do most of my processing in PS and a minimal amount in ACR, and for this kind of thing I would use mostly adjustment layers. I find the colour balance in PS is nice and direct as it adjusts red, blue and green explicitly.

With this image, I found that turning down the blue a tiny bit more and turning up the red a little gave a stronger image with even less appearance of haze. Whether it is closer to what you wanted or what you saw I can't tell and I was working only with the 1200 x 476 pixel version. It would probably be better with more localised adjustments, to keep the snow white and the trees green.

This is my edit - I hope you don't mind.

[Kodiak]

New Edit

Already, that looks much better… seems like you're going somewhere!

I see Tony's suggestion, pretty cool! Much closer to reality…
Now that this is done, it is possible to enjoy the subject and you composition.

Keep going ;-)

[pnodrog]

I have always found it easier and quicker to do the initial adjustments on individual channels using the levels adjustment sliders. With levels you can easily adjust the white and black points and also have a midpoint slider. It is done by successive approximation so I may need to go back and modify the adjustments several times before I end up with what I like.
Then I use the curves to fine tune the adjustment in specific regions such as warming shadows etc.

When doing it this way I never bother with a separate WB adjustment. You should know what looks right - after all you were there...

[Brownbear]

Tony...

Thank you kindly for your edit. Truly appreciated, and helpful. The true scene was hazy but I'm starting to see that stronger tones/colours work better with the jagged mountain peaks. I will give this a try tomorrow.

L Paul

Thank you for the tips. I read up on levels last night, and will explore its use.

Kodiak

Step 2, tomorrow!

[Nicks Pics]

It must have been fun to capture such amazing mountain photos! Understanding these were processed experimentally, I notice a blue hue to both of them, they may look more realistic if that was changed, (IMO)

PS Were you in a plane?

[Brownbear]

Hi Nick,

Thank you. Indeed it is a beautiful area that I hope to visit again. Although the scenery is truly stunning I'm struggling with these hence the post processing exercise. Agreed, too blue!

No plane but one day I would like to hire one to take me up at sunset or sunrise. I am fortunate in that I live in an area with beautiful mountain scenery, and most recently a couple of the areas have built gondolas to take tourists up to view points which open up miles of back country hikes previously not possible to reach in just one day, unless one hires a plane!

It must have been fun to capture such amazing mountain photos! Understanding these were processed experimentally, I notice a blue hue to both of them, they may look more realistic if that was changed, (IMO)

PS Were you in a plane?

[Brownbear]

Below is my edit..

I used levels to increase the greens and reds... This was the hardest part for me because the colours change so much. I also added contrast using curves, raised my black point, and watched my histogram constantly. It now has spikes in it which I suspect is not a good thing.

Screen Shot of Post Processing



The Edit



Note... I like the mountains in the edit, and I cropped this one to a lessor extent because the PP brought out the leading lines I saw. But the green trees are too dark, and I also feel the green is not quite right.

What next?

Thank you.

[Mike Buckley]

Hopefully, Mike will miss this thread as I just promised to always check my histogram.

He saw the thread.

About white balance: You may want a warmer, cooler or the same white balance as you witnessed in the scene. It doesn't matter what part of the image you use to set the white balance so long as the overall image has the white balance that you want. Once you recognize that it's too whatever, change it to something else rather than accepting that a particular tool selected the so-called proper white balance.

Once you've got the white balance set, you may still need to adjust portions of the image generally using a color balance tool. As best as I can tell, the primary difference between the terms, "white balance" and "color balance," is primarily that the first term is about getting the white tones as you want them to appear and the second term is about getting any other colors the way you want them to appear after you have achieved the desired white balance. The secondary difference is that adjusting the white balance affects the entire image whereas adjusting the color balance usually is about affecting only part of the image. However, I often use the color balance to adjust the entire image because fine tuning it is often easier to do when using my particular software (I don't know about other software).

When communicating with others about adjustments to the black and white points, make sure you use the terminology properly (a lot of people don't, so you're not alone). Otherwise, people may misunderstand your intentions.

To raise the black point is to map the darkest tones in the image to black and is done by moving the far left level tool to the right. Doing so raises the numerical value of that tool from zero to a higher value, which explains why doing that is called raising the black point. When the histogram does not extend to the left, the black point is lower (not higher) than it otherwise could be.

To lower the white point is to map the lightest tones in the image to white and is done by moving the far right level tool to the left. Doing so lowers the numerical value of that tool from 255 to a lower value, which explains why doing that is called lowering the white point. When the histogram does not extend to the right, the white point is higher (not lower) than it otherwise could be.

Have I ever mentioned the importance of constantly monitoring the histogram as you post-process an image? Apparently not often enough.

[Mike Buckley]

In my opinion, you're making the task of experimentally fine-tuning everything in these images far too hard on yourself by starting with an image that has so much haze.

Dispel the notion that simply setting the black and white points "properly" also ensures that an image won't be flat. The mid-tone contrast also has to be evident and may require considerable adjustment. Moreover, when working with an image that has haze, it may not be possible to achieve an image that displays the pop that so many people hope to see.

Your biggest issue that I detect has far less to do with your use of software and far more to do with a lack of confidence about what you want to see. As an example, you often post images to determine if others like this or that adjustment. I believe it will be more productive for you to make note of the characteristics of photos that you admire and to then figure out how to make your own photos so they have similar characteristics. More often than not when making landscapes, your first choice will be to delete photos such as these that include significant haze.

[ajohnw]

Keep it up Christina - I recently noticed that threads can be rated. Yours are often very interesting ................

One thing I will say is that I suspect you made an excellent choice of focal length for the shot I played with.

On this one the trees are showing an definite cast that may or may not be present in the entire image. I'd guess looking at the rgb histograms that the blue channel is out of sink but have no idea how that would be shifted with the software you use. It might be that it's an aRGB colour that doesn't come out right on sRGB. Anyway I played with the mid point and highlight end of levels blue channel and this is what happened



Still not right but notice that a lot of the image has popped some what. I suspect what you need to do is to use levels and get the gamma, black and white points right initially before doing anything else. Then the selective work where needed

I'd guess that Adobe auto levels may well do the same thing as GIMPS does - alter setting in all channels. Try it and see what it does and get a feel for using them to even out the colour balance. This might help - he talks a lot but gets it across.

RAW --> CROP --> LEVELS ---------->

Whoops a link might help
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTIBx_JZ3po

The GIMP but levels are pretty much levels. I'd be cautious about using up all of the output space as that leaves a problem if you want to do more to highlights and lowlights Like most things shots vary but this isn't a bad place to start. Something to look at before anything else.

John
=

[Nicks Pics]

Looks better in my opinion.

[Brownbear]

Hi Mike,

Yes, I suspected that you might eventually see this thread.

Thank you for the wonderful explanation of raising/lowering white and black points, and also WB versus colour balance. My PP programs do include tools for colour balance and indeed I tried using the colour balance tools to see if I could get the colours in the trees right but when I do this (as with shadows) it doesn't match the rest of the scene.

Yes, and I will be doubly careful about checking the histogram. It was the use of the levels tool that addled my mind. No more reminders needed. Thank you.

He saw the thread.

About white balance: You may want a warmer, cooler or the same white balance as you witnessed in the scene. It doesn't matter what part of the image you use to set the white balance so long as the overall image has the white balance that you want. Once you recognize that it's too whatever, change it to something else rather than accepting that a particular tool selected the so-called proper white balance.

Once you've got the white balance set, you may still need to adjust portions of the image generally using a color balance tool. As best as I can tell, the primary difference between the terms, "white balance" and "color balance," is primarily that the first term is about getting the white tones as you want them to appear and the second term is about getting any other colors the way you want them to appear after you have achieved the desired white balance. The secondary difference is that adjusting the white balance affects the entire image whereas adjusting the color balance usually is about affecting only part of the image. However, I often use the color balance to adjust the entire image because fine tuning it is often easier to do when using my particular software (I don't know about other software).

When communicating with others about adjustments to the black and white points, make sure you use the terminology properly (a lot of people don't, so you're not alone). Otherwise, people may misunderstand your intentions.

To raise the black point is to map the darkest tones in the image to black and is done by moving the far left level tool to the right. Doing so raises the numerical value of that tool from zero to a higher value, which explains why doing that is called raising the black point. When the histogram does not extend to the left, the black point is lower (not higher) than it otherwise could be.

To lower the white point is to map the lightest tones in the image to white and is done by moving the far right level tool to the left. Doing so lowers the numerical value of that tool from 255 to a lower value, which explains why doing that is called lowering the white point. When the histogram does not extend to the right, the white point is higher (not lower) than it otherwise could be.

Have I ever mentioned the importance of constantly monitoring the histogram as you post-process an image? Apparently not often enough.