Apr 13, 2007, 16:16
...for those who might find this useful; I've done this as a "pic to submit" but also with Irma and Drake in mind(or anyone else who finds the workflow useful):
Firstly, the subject(oft shot by Zig, as I'm sure you'll remember): tricky lighting: late afternoon, semi- "contrejour", with light just off camera left and forward. My usual landscape combo: vertical format, Tamron 90mm f2.8 macro; here at its sharpest, f5.6.
![[Image: scpyTreeBacklit-Bweb.jpg]](http://www.shuttertalk.com/forums/images/upload/scpyTreeBacklit-Bweb.jpg)
1. Shot in raw at ISO 100 with tripod, focus on tree. I chose f5.6 as it's the sharpest for me; subject is far enough away as to give enough detail given the depth of field.
2. Composition: a compromise really; I sacrificed any idea of "rule of thirds" so that I could get the tree against the opening in the hedgerow and not lost in a background of possibly similar tones. I also liked the strong lead-lines of the hedging on the right; I chose the Tamron over the 50mm to use the telephoto's "stacking effect" on the distance. Though I knew the lighting would be tricky without a neutral grad to hold back the exposure in the background, I was betting that the digital sensor would retain enough highlight detail for me to work with later. I also was counting on there being "halation": the almost diffusing effect of a strong light source behind the subject: in other words, I didn't mind any softening of background....it would contrast pleasingly with the hard lines of the tree.
3. Metering: I didn't want to effectively underexpose, so I metered off the well-lit grass. I knew this would give around 18% reflectivity(ie; just the right "grey" in equivalent terms); I set this exposure manually then recomposed.
4. Processing:
In the Canon conversion software I decided on mono but with mid-low contrast( I can always add later; detail was what I wanted to capture); I also chose a "green filter": this would lighten the grass, as I wanted the final grass tone in mono to be around the same as the background: this would help the tree to stand out and there to be some continuity between the fore- and background.
Thus I had a rather pale("thin") 16-bit RGB tiff...again, I chose these so as to hold onto as much information as possible throughout the processing stage. I could also, if I wished, make "colour" and channel adjustments.
After a bit of cropping to tighten up on the base of the tree, I then set about equalising the tones of the background and foreground: so that if I made any contrast adjustments, these would be more uniform.
Thus, I dodged some highlights underneath the horizon so that the tones were similar to the foreground grass.
I followed this with burning shadow detail on the horizon and distant trees.
Now, as there was far too great a stop-difference to record much in the way of sky texture, I duplicated the pic as a layer.
On the layer, I used the grad tool(making sure the black and white fore and background were the right way round!) to pull a grey grad down from the very top to just below the horizon. A little more dodging and burning below the horizon on the original layer, then I flattened the image.
By the way, my dodge/burn tools were very large and soft, around 1400 pixels; I used percentages of between 3 and 6% so as to retain control of the rate.
I increased contrast a little(the autocontrast would have been too fierce) so as to separate out the background tones a bit, then dodged and burned a little more, so that the distant trees became clearer. I reduced the size of the burning tool to equalise the tones of the midground trees, smart-sharpened a tad, by 0.1 pixel. I then tried Autocontrast; happily it decided to be useful, so i stuck with it.
I converted to greyscale, then resized, then smart-sharpened a bit at a time(I find this retains more detail), then saved as an 8bit jpeg.
Overall, I'm quite pleased with this: OK, some of the tree highlights are overexposed...but I found enough saving grace in everything else to live with this. I found that by evening up the tones, the actual shapes and forms were allowed to become more important; also it has allowed (I think) a pleasing contrast to emerge between the sharp, contrasty lines of the tree and the soft textures of the distance.
Though I was forced to have the tree central in the horizontal plane, I'm reminded that rules don't have to be in tablets of stone: there's a pleasing "trio" of areas and enough leading lines to draw the eye in. I pretty much always use vertical format for landscapes, as I find there is room for the eye to roam and travel along the natural lines, wander around the horizon and back again.
I hope you find this breakdown useful.
Firstly, the subject(oft shot by Zig, as I'm sure you'll remember): tricky lighting: late afternoon, semi- "contrejour", with light just off camera left and forward. My usual landscape combo: vertical format, Tamron 90mm f2.8 macro; here at its sharpest, f5.6.
1. Shot in raw at ISO 100 with tripod, focus on tree. I chose f5.6 as it's the sharpest for me; subject is far enough away as to give enough detail given the depth of field.
2. Composition: a compromise really; I sacrificed any idea of "rule of thirds" so that I could get the tree against the opening in the hedgerow and not lost in a background of possibly similar tones. I also liked the strong lead-lines of the hedging on the right; I chose the Tamron over the 50mm to use the telephoto's "stacking effect" on the distance. Though I knew the lighting would be tricky without a neutral grad to hold back the exposure in the background, I was betting that the digital sensor would retain enough highlight detail for me to work with later. I also was counting on there being "halation": the almost diffusing effect of a strong light source behind the subject: in other words, I didn't mind any softening of background....it would contrast pleasingly with the hard lines of the tree.
3. Metering: I didn't want to effectively underexpose, so I metered off the well-lit grass. I knew this would give around 18% reflectivity(ie; just the right "grey" in equivalent terms); I set this exposure manually then recomposed.
4. Processing:
In the Canon conversion software I decided on mono but with mid-low contrast( I can always add later; detail was what I wanted to capture); I also chose a "green filter": this would lighten the grass, as I wanted the final grass tone in mono to be around the same as the background: this would help the tree to stand out and there to be some continuity between the fore- and background.
Thus I had a rather pale("thin") 16-bit RGB tiff...again, I chose these so as to hold onto as much information as possible throughout the processing stage. I could also, if I wished, make "colour" and channel adjustments.
After a bit of cropping to tighten up on the base of the tree, I then set about equalising the tones of the background and foreground: so that if I made any contrast adjustments, these would be more uniform.
Thus, I dodged some highlights underneath the horizon so that the tones were similar to the foreground grass.
I followed this with burning shadow detail on the horizon and distant trees.
Now, as there was far too great a stop-difference to record much in the way of sky texture, I duplicated the pic as a layer.
On the layer, I used the grad tool(making sure the black and white fore and background were the right way round!) to pull a grey grad down from the very top to just below the horizon. A little more dodging and burning below the horizon on the original layer, then I flattened the image.
By the way, my dodge/burn tools were very large and soft, around 1400 pixels; I used percentages of between 3 and 6% so as to retain control of the rate.
I increased contrast a little(the autocontrast would have been too fierce) so as to separate out the background tones a bit, then dodged and burned a little more, so that the distant trees became clearer. I reduced the size of the burning tool to equalise the tones of the midground trees, smart-sharpened a tad, by 0.1 pixel. I then tried Autocontrast; happily it decided to be useful, so i stuck with it.
I converted to greyscale, then resized, then smart-sharpened a bit at a time(I find this retains more detail), then saved as an 8bit jpeg.
Overall, I'm quite pleased with this: OK, some of the tree highlights are overexposed...but I found enough saving grace in everything else to live with this. I found that by evening up the tones, the actual shapes and forms were allowed to become more important; also it has allowed (I think) a pleasing contrast to emerge between the sharp, contrasty lines of the tree and the soft textures of the distance.
Though I was forced to have the tree central in the horizontal plane, I'm reminded that rules don't have to be in tablets of stone: there's a pleasing "trio" of areas and enough leading lines to draw the eye in. I pretty much always use vertical format for landscapes, as I find there is room for the eye to roam and travel along the natural lines, wander around the horizon and back again.
I hope you find this breakdown useful.
All my stuff is here: www.doverow.com
(Just click on the TOP RIGHT buttons to take you to my Image Galleries or Music Rooms!)
My band TRASHVILLE, in which I'm lead guitarist: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6mU6qaNx08
...hey, my Tamron's not as sharp as I thought! I confess, I don't think all the processing through beforehand and am only as analytical as I appear in retrospect, as it were. Thanks, great feedback.