Sunset, Bird and Boat

[joebranko]

[Shadowman]

Very dark on this monitor, I'll check it again later.

[jcuknz]

Dark on my monitor too which I suspect tends to be a bit bright. 1/50 shutter speed didn't capture the bird very well and the sky doesn't look dark enough while the foliage is too dark. I am sure somebody could do better but I selected the foliage and its reflection and lightened it and then inverted the selection to darken the sky and its reflection.
Perhaps the sky needs more saturation but that is a skill beyond me.



It is a tricky one with the bits of open foliage sticking up into the sky so on a first attempt I had light patches of sky behind the tops so for this second attempt I selected inside the foliage and let the tops be part of the sky and get darker. As to if it works I am not sure ... if it was my shot I would have left it in my filing system
Not sure how spot metering helps here ... but then I rarely use it. Deliberately misleading the camera'scentre weighted meter to obtain the exposure I think is correct etc.

[joebranko]

Very dark on this monitor, I'll check it again later.

The trees were dark in reality. I tried to lighten them up without loosing the colour in the sky. I did not try an adjustment brush....

[jcuknz]

That is an interesting idea Joe but my first thought was an adjustment layer with areas selected to only work on them. But possibly you do not have adjustment layers in your editor ... you list your camera gear but not the important editor as like cameras not all are equal to the tasks asked of them. My choice for years has been Paint Shop Pro.
My experience with brushing tools is that unless one is very careful and using them at low intensity it is very easy to make them obvious.

[Stagecoach]

The trees were dark in reality. I tried to lighten them up without loosing the colour in the sky. I did not try an adjustment brush....

Joe, I see in the Exif you have Lightroom. A simple increase of the shadows slider and decrease of the highlights slider would bring out more detail in the shadows and darken the sky if that's the way you would want to go without having to play with brushes or layers.

[IzzieK]

Nice scene, Joe...very crispy water in my opinion...

[Ziggy]

Nice scene and that's a tough shot.

Sometimes when I'm taking a shot with a great difference between dark and light I will use spot metering.
Using the viewfinder and then try moving the camera between the dark and light until I get the best balance and then use AE-Lock. Will then reframe and take the shot.

[joebranko]

That is an interesting idea Joe but my first thought was an adjustment layer with areas selected to only work on them. But possibly you do not have adjustment layers in your editor ... you list your camera gear but not the important editor as like cameras not all are equal to the tasks asked of them. My choice for years has been Paint Shop Pro.
My experience with brushing tools is that unless one is very careful and using them at low intensity it is very easy to make them obvious.

Thanks John. I use Lightroom 5 for PP, which, as far as I know, does not have layers in my current version.

[joebranko]

Joe, I see in the Exif you have Lightroom. A simple increase of the shadows slider and decrease of the highlights slider would bring out more detail in the shadows and darken the sky if that's the way you would want to go without having to play with brushes or layers.

Thanks Grahame, I did use the shadows slider, but for some reason stopped at 89%. Moving it up to 100% lightens the trees even more. I will repost this shot with that adjustment.



I also adjusted the 'highlights' slider and applied a filter to the sky. Is this better?

[joebranko]

Nice scene, Joe...very crispy water in my opinion...

Thanks Izzie!

[joebranko]

Nice scene and that's a tough shot.

Sometimes when I'm taking a shot with a great difference between dark and light I will use spot metering.
Using the viewfinder and then try moving the camera between the dark and light until I get the best balance and then use AE-Lock. Will then reframe and take the shot.

Thanks Jim. I have not used the AE lock in this manner. Very interesting application! I must try it!

[bnnrcn]

Hi Joe IMO you lifted the shadows too much in this version. I think something between your original and this one would look better. Very nice scene, I loved it.

Thanks Grahame, I did use the shadows slider, but for some reason stopped at 89%. Moving it up to 100% lightens the trees even more. I will repost this shot with that adjustment.



I also adjusted the 'highlights' slider and applied a filter to the sky. Is this better?

[jcuknz]

Thanks Jim. I have not used the AE lock in this manner. Very interesting application! I must try it!

You can also use 'half trigger' with a possible drawback that it will result in a wrong focus point. Another feature these days is AF lock on many cameras.