Muskoka River

[joebranko]

Part of the River Muskoka, in Bracebridge Ontario.






And from just outside Bracebridge the river goes over 'High Falls'.





This shot is taken from top of the falls as river Muskoka goes over the edge. A better shot could have been had from the beach seen across the water but I could not get there on this trip. Next time!

[lovelife65]

Very nice scene sir.
The lighting is a bit harsh, especially in the first one.
Thanks for sharing!

[Manfred M]

I agree with Sharon - the images seem a little too "hot". Just pull down the mid-point a bit and they will be stronger.

[Wavelength]

Beautiful pair of images

[Geoff F]

Although some areas are a bit on the bright side the foreground foliage is rather dark, so I would be careful with any brightness adjustments. Maybe a bit of masking will be required.

[DanK]

Nice shots. The first certainly looks hot to me, and the histogram is consistent with that:



But for the reason Geoff gave, I wouldn't pull the midpoint down. There are already traces of crushed blacks, so I would want to protect the shadows from further darkening.. Here's a first step that starts doing what I would do. First, I used a camera raw filter and pulled down highlights and whites (whites less). Then I applied the following curve, which is anchored at the left hand side to avoid darkening the shadows. It's sort of a quick and dirty luminosity mask, darkening only the top 2/3, and mostly the top 1/3.



The changes are not large and are probably not enough, but I think they are in the right direction:

[joebranko]

Very nice scene sir.
The lighting is a bit harsh, especially in the first one.
Thanks for sharing!

Thanks Sharon.

[joebranko]

I agree with Sharon - the images seem a little too "hot". Just pull down the mid-point a bit and they will be stronger.

Thanks Manfred. Does 'hot' mean the same as over exposed? Or is it over exposed in some parts and not others?

[joebranko]

Beautiful pair of images

Thanks Nandakumar.

[joebranko]

Thanks Dan, especially for the analysis. Would 'burning' the top half of the scene produce a similar result?

[pschlute]

Beautiful scenery.

[DanK]

Joe,

No, it wouldn't. I apologize; my post was a little ambiguous.

What I did was to pull down the top of the histogram, not the top of the image. The histogram shows how many pixels there are at each of 256 levels of brightness, regardless of where they are located in the image. So what I did by pulling down the top end of the histogram was to darken the brightest areas of the image, regardless of where they were located. Some where located in the bottom of the image, e.g., some of the reflections.

When you burn an area, you are doing much the same thing, but to an area selected by its location in the image, not by its brightness.

"Hot" is used rather loosely by many people (I'm not speaking for Manfred) to mean that the image or substantial parts of it are unappealingly bright. none of your image is overexposed in the sense of clipping--you don't hit the right end of the histogram--and parts of it are not too bright at all.

[Manfred M]

Thanks Manfred. Does 'hot' mean the same as over exposed? Or is it over exposed in some parts and not others?

No, it suggests that some of the mid-tones need to come down.

Overexposure suggests too many highlights and a lack of shadow detail, but this image has a good histogram distribution; you have a full tonal range. The image just seems to be too bright. It's almost as if the scene needs to be viewed through sun glasses to bring down the brightness.

In terms of addressing what Greg and Dan suggest, I agree with what they are saying, but not the recommended solution. It's a bright sunny day, so opening up the shadows would bring out those dark details, but the highlights need to calm down as well.

[joebranko]

Beautiful scenery.

Thanks Peter.

[joebranko]

I have not been using the tone curve for any adjustments; I used only sliders. So I guess its time to try using that technique. Here is my first trial using the tone curve.




I have pulled down the midpoint.

Comments?

[Manfred M]

I have not been using the tone curve for any adjustments; I used only sliders. So I guess its time to try using that technique. Here is my first trial using the tone curve.

I have pulled down the midpoint.

Comments?

That looks a lot better.

The slider is effectively a subset of what the curves can do. This is a tool that takes some time to master, but once you do, you will find it very powerful and very useful.

[joebranko]

Thanks Manfred.