Winter Beach

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I took this on a Long Island beach this weekend. I have another version where I darkened the fence a bit. Would like to know about the general composition and any improvements. Thank you. Daniel

[IMG]_1070718 by pongo now, on Flickr[/IMG]

[Manfred M]

Good strong image Daniel - almost a still look to this shot.

Your choice of a point of view; taking it from close to the ground us what makes this image. Too many shots we see are taken at standing height, but getting down to the level of the ground is often something that works well, like it does in this case.

A couple of minor things; the plant sticking up and out of the top of the frame and a few similar issues along the bottom might be worth cleaning up. I agree that burning down the fence is probably a good idea, as it is a bit of a distracting element.

[Chataignier]

Nice image to start, improved by Manfred's suggestions - I think I would also remove the little shadow crossing the bottom right corner, I find my eye keeps coming back to it.

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Nice image to start, improved by Manfred's suggestions - I think I would also remove the little shadow crossing the bottom right corner, I find my eye keeps coming back to it.

I didn't notice that shadow. I find the top of the fence pole distracting. Don't think it adds anything. Thank you, David.

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Thank you Manfred for your review and sugestions. Will work on darkening the fence when I figure out how to do it with out darkening the spaces between the slats. Next month is my one year photoversery. This is a fantastic site.

[Acorn]

The fence and post are the main villains. I would remove them.

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The fence and post are the main villains. I would remove them.

Good point I can see that.

[DanK]

I wouldn't remove the fence. It provides a nice framing and a leading line toward the center. I think the image would be less interesting without it.

Manfred may well have a better way to darken the fence without the sky behind it, but one approach is to darken that area with the adjustment brush in Lightroom. As soon as you start to darken the area, the "range mask" option at the bottom of the adjustment brush panel will become live. Then set it to "color" and use the eye dropper tool there to sample several spots on the fence. that should do it.

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Hello Dan , I think your instructions were for photoshop. In lightroom I can cover the fence with the brush. Erase between the slats then adjust with sliders to darken. Just started learning photoshop. Everything looks so easy in the tutorias until you try to follow along. Thank you for your input.

[Manfred M]

Daniel - a few comments. First of all, I agree with Dan; the fence is a significant element in the image and I would not recommend removing it. I also find that the post that sticks up adds balance to the image as it give the shot a slightly taller element that complements and balances out the tall plants on the right. The image would be less strong without it.

I also like the little bit of shadow in the right bottom corner, as it balances out the plant on the right. I would have removed it and the pole in my edit, had I thought that this was necessary.

With respect to the sky showing through the fence; before selecting the individual slats, try burning the whole fence down a touch and include the sky / background that pokes through. It's a lot easier than individually selecting the slats and darkening just the.. Just make sure you feather burning things down near the top to get a better blend with the sky; that's what I did in my version and based on the size, I feel it works well enough. My approach is to always try the fastest way and if it is not good enough, then go for a more complex selection method.

My experience suggests that Lightroom is fine for global changes and is okay for area changes; Photoshop is better for fine detailed work. I don't use Lightroom, but rather use Adobe Camera Raw which has the same "engine" as Lightroom, but I find the functionality a bit more flexible.

[DanK]

Daniel,

No, my instructions were for Lightroom, although the same function is available in Photoshop via the Camera Raw filter. I have used the range mask feature so rarely that I did an edit of your photo before posting. Here is a screen shot of the function in LR:



The range masking feature is circled in red. It is grayed out until you make an adjustment. It becomes live when you have made an adjustment. "Off" is the top of a drop-down menu that includes the choice "color". That's what I used. it also allows you to do a luminance mask.

To show the effect, I pulled up the edit I had done, exaggerated it by maxing out the exposure change, and cropping. I'll post the result below. if you look closely at the original, you will see that the gray between the slats is clouds in the original, not the result of the burning. This is a quick-and-dirty edit; one could do it better.



Manfred, you wrote:

I don't use Lightroom, but rather use Adobe Camera Raw which has the same "engine" as Lightroom, but I find the functionality a bit more flexible.

As far as I can tell, the tools in the two interfaces are identical. For example, you can find the same range masking tool I used in LR at the bottom of the adjustment brush panel in ACR as well. The only differences I have found are in where the icons are located. ACR puts the tools along the top and opens a panel on the right for the selected one. LR puts them all on the right, giving you the option of leaving all open or automatically closing all but the one you are using. I haven't found anything that is available in the ACR interface that is not available in the LR interface or that is easier to use or more flexible than one or the other.

IMHO, it's just a matter of the workflow one prefers. I much prefer LR because I make some use of its cataloging and like having the ability to line up different edits in one place. For example, it's not uncommon to see in my catalog the original raw file, with edits (and with the history so that I can easily go back), alongside virtual copies with different parametric edits and anywhere from one to 3 externally edited TIFFs (Zerene, Photoshop, and NIK). I also print from LR, which you don't, giving me another reason to prefer it. But it makes zero difference, as far as I can tell, in the parametric editing capabilities. I suspect you can work much faster in ACR for the same reason I can work much faster in LR: we know where things are in the interface we most often use.

Dan

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Dan, Sorry about that. My vision is poor. Have to use a magnifying glass to read the screen in lightroom. It makes everything a little bet more time consuming but I love the challange. Thank you for taking the extra step pointing me in the right direction. Daniel

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Manfred. Your reasons for leaving the fence pole and the lower corner shadow was very interesting and surprising. I would never have viewed the image from that perspective. Thank you very much.

[DanK]

PS: I agree with Manfred about the tall fence post (I'd leave it) and with David about the shadow at the bottom right (I would try cloning it out and see if that's a help).

[Wavelength]

Very nice image ; i too was thinking about the branch that touched the ceiling of the image and the corner shadow on the right bottom; both have been pointed out; congrats

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Dan, I figured it out. You're using Lightroom Classic. I'm using Lightroom CC. It's not on my pannel. The online tutorials for range mask are for the classic version. Go figure. I have found it in camera raw PS. I'm going to explore that avenue. Mystery solved.

[DanK]

Dan, I figured it out. You're using Lightroom Classic. I'm using Lightroom CC. It's not on my pannel. The online tutorials for range mask are for the classic version. Go figure. I have found it in camera raw PS. I'm going to explore that avenue. Mystery solved.

Makes sense. I had read that a bunch of features in Classic haven't been migrated to the cloud version, but I have never tried the cloud version.

[Manfred M]

Daniel - My understanding is that the target audience of Lightroom CC is people who primarily do quick edits of images on portable devices like phones and tablets for display on social media / small screen viewing. It is certainly available on Windows and Mac platforms as well, but the design implies that it is driven by using it on lower processing power devices.

Lightroom Classic requires devices with more processing power but has more sophisticated tools. To go a step further, Photoshop offers even more power to make creative changes to an image. As Dan has pointed out, our experience and practice has us favour specific tools. To darken the fence without impacting the sky behind the fence, I use Photoshop's Select Color Range tool and edited the resulting mask to isolate the sky behind the fence from the slat in the fence. I've also removed the shadow in the bottom right hand corner, to show what that looks like. I will stick with my original position in saying that the shadow there adds, rather than detracts from the image. In the overall scheme of things, it is a very minor part of the image and would score the image the same, regardless of which version was shown.

[DanK]

A postscript to Manfred's last post:

If you select by color using any software, you have to deal with the fact that the fence shares colors with the sand, which you would not want to burn. Therefore, one way or the other, you need more than selecting and masking by color. In Lightroom, you do that automatically: the color range is applied to the area you have already selected or are in the process of selecting. In Photoshop, you would have to add a mask and paint over the areas where you want adjusted (or not adjusted, if you use a white mask).

[Manfred M]

A postscript to Manfred's last post:

If you select by color using any software, you have to deal with the fact that the fence shares colors with the sand, which you would not want to burn. Therefore, one way or the other, you need more than selecting and masking by color. In Lightroom, you do that automatically: the color range is applied to the area you have already selected or are in the process of selecting. In Photoshop, you would have to add a mask and paint over the areas where you want adjusted (or not adjusted, if you use a white mask).

Correct Dan, with a couple small additions:

1. The Photoshop Select Color tool not only lets the user select a colour range but also lets the user select by luminosity range; with three large grouping; highlights, mid-tones and shadows. The tolerances of the luminosity levels can be varied in the tool, but in general one has to restrict the mask to the areas in question. The nice thing about layer masks is that they can be edited, so that is what done here. More importantly, selections can be saved and reused, as required.

2. Masks can be edited with all of the Photoshop tools, so one can manipulate them with the brush tool, the dodge and burn tools, the paint bucket tool, etc. One can apply filters to the mask, copy them to new layers, etc. In other words they are much more powerful than the Lightroom tools and can be much more accurate too.

3. The most important aspect of them in my workflow is that I can and do tweak them as I build the final image. I can make them larger, more accurate, less accurate, etc. In the case of this edit, I found that i wanted to tweak the sky behind the fence slats without impacting the fence, so I just added a new adjustment layer, copied the layer mask and inverted it and was able to tweak the sky behind the fence to make it look more natural.

Overall once one learns to use this tool, it can be applied almost as quickly as the LR selections with a lot more flexibility.