Dec 22, 2010, 22:52
This is a disused water tower in the land of my youth in the north of Nottinghamshire, from Queen Victoria's reign.
I shot this handheld as follows: 50mm f1.4 at f6.3; 1/40s; ISO200...too cold to be messin' about with a tripod!
![[Image: 1614colWeb_c.jpg]](http://www.shuttertalk.com/forums/images/upload/1614colWeb_c.jpg)
As some of you found my modus operandi helpful, I'll include a bit of detail...especially for Toad in view of his enquiry about dodge/burn.
Firstly, the subject: the landscape itself is now denuded of the many coalmines that stood astride it. One of our most loathed prime ministers, Thatcher, closed them all down, singlehandedly reducing a myriad of communities to abject poverty from which they still have not recovered. Progress.
The fact that this grand old structure remains, struck me as both poignant and a testimony to some of our past glories of the industrial revolution...a sort of defiant memorial, in a sense. Therefore, I felt it fitting to merely place it in the compositionally "stock" position in a full and uncropped frame, allowing its dereliction and the overgrown flora to suggest any symbolic "comment" of its own.
Now, whereas I was blessed to have a touch of bleak but welcome sun, the light of course is helpful: at these latitudes in winter, the sun is very low. This means a much higher colour temperature, heightening staturation, colour warmth and contrast.
Therefore, it might strike you as odd when I show you the "base", unprocessed shot.
Here it is, and I'll tell you why:
![[Image: 1614base.jpg]](http://www.shuttertalk.com/forums/images/upload/1614base.jpg)
Well, I always shoot to raw..and I always have my default output settings as low everything: lo-saturation, lo-contrast. I do this so as to have control over shadow and highlights, and to maximise the retention of detail, particularly in the sky. Thus, unless I purposefully set out otherwise, if I shot straight to jpeg, they'd all come out like this!.
However, please note that what I have in my mind as I take the shot is the completed image and never that which is empirically "there" in front of me: whether it is colour or monochrome, I always "see" the end product as I take the shot...thus pressing the shutter is only ever the first step of externalising the image that is in my head.
Now, though the "base" image appears lacklustre, its low contrast ensures I have maximised detail over as wide a dynamic range as I can without, say, a graduated ND filter. Notice that exposure is skewed slightly towards the sky so as to retain its texture later.
The rest is hardly rocket science: you may rightly guess that with careful decision of my white point(which saves me much messing about with white balance: I just decide what bit I want to represent as 255RGB white, and set my white point using the curves dialogue), a little careful adjustment of contrast and saturation, and we're almost there.
Well, yes, but even contrast and saturation can be fickle bedfellows, and an over-tweak of one can seriously affect the other. Therefore I am careful to either do major adjustments to a duplicate layer or to go to the Edit tab and use the Fade slider to exercise more precise control over the amount of each.
BUT: how do we get from "normal" saturation of colours to the stage of the finished image? You can see many colours are not just "more"..there's a certain zing or irridescence in some of the colours; besides, if one juts blats up the saturation, another colour can become ghastly: who has wanted to bring up the blue in a sky, only to find that the clouds have muddied too? Or added a bit of warm filtration...only to find that grass has become monstrously yellow?
Answer(or a possible workaround!)= the dodge and the burn tools.
[Actually, here is another way to get really irridescent colours, but be careful(!): Generally Im assuming that you work in a RGB space, yes? Well: try converting to CMYK and do individual colour saturation/lightening adjustments, before moving back to RGB: you can get some quite electrifying and wondrous blues and skies]
Dodge: Can you see in the base shot how the whites of the frost/snow look dirty and limp? Now, if we just went ahead and lightened or added contrast, we would start to white-out the sky, so we need to able to selectively lighten just the light bits...the dodge tool. Right-click on the palette that also has Burn and Sponge; in your brushes settings, choose a wide brush with maximum softness; in the "Range" box choose "highlights", and in the "Exposure" box set the slider to between 3 and 6%. I used 3%, preferring to extensively work on an area slowly...because if your History states are as few as mine, they'll soon stack up!
Right then, I used a large brush: and up the highlights come: the whites of the frost become crisp and contrasty...also, light reds and yellows develop an irridescent, almost metallic glow, so you can add some local saturation as a pleasing by-product.
Similarly, can you also see where I've dodged the highlights in the sky too? I stayed away from the clouds, but dodged over the sky which lightens the blue and brings out cyans a bit more, also adding a bit of a diffuse-looking glow too.
Burn: Do you notice there is more depth, crispness and contrast in the finished shot compared to the base shot? Yes, I was able to increase universal contrast...but the danger is then that shadows block up and again clouds blow out. This is time for the burn tool, used in exactly the same way as the dodge: right-click to choose..use the same soft large round brush...BUT in the Range box this time choose Shadows..or else you'll see your lovely white snow go all dirty grey! Again, work with a percentage of 3% in the exposure box(slider).
I swept over the sky a few times to darken the blues, being careful to avoid getting the chimney too black(if you're clever at feathered masks you can mask it off...I don't). Can you also see that I darkened the foliage and the shadow-spaces in the final image? I reduced the size of the brush, burning more locally this time. Notice it also darkened the actual colours as well as adding its dark contrast: if I overdid it at this stage I again went to re-dodge the highlights.
Finally, you might be aware by now that the Adobe versions of dodge and burn are not really all that close to real darkroom tools: they are, in effect, finely-tuned tools to add local contrast without fear of blocking out whole swathes of darker colours or sending clouds into whiteout. With a little practice, you can really add a sense of depth and colour that can render a scene almost painterly.
I find dodging and burning invaluable for landscapes but very useful for portraits too: imagine your prtrait is fine but you just want to lift the light in the hair: dodge tool! Also: no catchlights in the eyes?? Set a very small brush to dodge shadows at 12% right on the pupil of the eye...just a pinpoint; then dodge the highlight that is left=instant catchlight. Is there a small hot spot on the face because of an oily nose/forehead? Either use the clone brush of course..or set the burn tool to midtones at 8%..with care!
I've already turned the showcase into more of "tips" section than I wished. Your forbearance, please...I'll post such stuff in a more appropriate area next time.
I shot this handheld as follows: 50mm f1.4 at f6.3; 1/40s; ISO200...too cold to be messin' about with a tripod!
As some of you found my modus operandi helpful, I'll include a bit of detail...especially for Toad in view of his enquiry about dodge/burn.
Firstly, the subject: the landscape itself is now denuded of the many coalmines that stood astride it. One of our most loathed prime ministers, Thatcher, closed them all down, singlehandedly reducing a myriad of communities to abject poverty from which they still have not recovered. Progress.
The fact that this grand old structure remains, struck me as both poignant and a testimony to some of our past glories of the industrial revolution...a sort of defiant memorial, in a sense. Therefore, I felt it fitting to merely place it in the compositionally "stock" position in a full and uncropped frame, allowing its dereliction and the overgrown flora to suggest any symbolic "comment" of its own.
Now, whereas I was blessed to have a touch of bleak but welcome sun, the light of course is helpful: at these latitudes in winter, the sun is very low. This means a much higher colour temperature, heightening staturation, colour warmth and contrast.
Therefore, it might strike you as odd when I show you the "base", unprocessed shot.
Here it is, and I'll tell you why:
Well, I always shoot to raw..and I always have my default output settings as low everything: lo-saturation, lo-contrast. I do this so as to have control over shadow and highlights, and to maximise the retention of detail, particularly in the sky. Thus, unless I purposefully set out otherwise, if I shot straight to jpeg, they'd all come out like this!.
However, please note that what I have in my mind as I take the shot is the completed image and never that which is empirically "there" in front of me: whether it is colour or monochrome, I always "see" the end product as I take the shot...thus pressing the shutter is only ever the first step of externalising the image that is in my head.
Now, though the "base" image appears lacklustre, its low contrast ensures I have maximised detail over as wide a dynamic range as I can without, say, a graduated ND filter. Notice that exposure is skewed slightly towards the sky so as to retain its texture later.
The rest is hardly rocket science: you may rightly guess that with careful decision of my white point(which saves me much messing about with white balance: I just decide what bit I want to represent as 255RGB white, and set my white point using the curves dialogue), a little careful adjustment of contrast and saturation, and we're almost there.
Well, yes, but even contrast and saturation can be fickle bedfellows, and an over-tweak of one can seriously affect the other. Therefore I am careful to either do major adjustments to a duplicate layer or to go to the Edit tab and use the Fade slider to exercise more precise control over the amount of each.
BUT: how do we get from "normal" saturation of colours to the stage of the finished image? You can see many colours are not just "more"..there's a certain zing or irridescence in some of the colours; besides, if one juts blats up the saturation, another colour can become ghastly: who has wanted to bring up the blue in a sky, only to find that the clouds have muddied too? Or added a bit of warm filtration...only to find that grass has become monstrously yellow?
Answer(or a possible workaround!)= the dodge and the burn tools.
[Actually, here is another way to get really irridescent colours, but be careful(!): Generally Im assuming that you work in a RGB space, yes? Well: try converting to CMYK and do individual colour saturation/lightening adjustments, before moving back to RGB: you can get some quite electrifying and wondrous blues and skies]
Dodge: Can you see in the base shot how the whites of the frost/snow look dirty and limp? Now, if we just went ahead and lightened or added contrast, we would start to white-out the sky, so we need to able to selectively lighten just the light bits...the dodge tool. Right-click on the palette that also has Burn and Sponge; in your brushes settings, choose a wide brush with maximum softness; in the "Range" box choose "highlights", and in the "Exposure" box set the slider to between 3 and 6%. I used 3%, preferring to extensively work on an area slowly...because if your History states are as few as mine, they'll soon stack up!
Right then, I used a large brush: and up the highlights come: the whites of the frost become crisp and contrasty...also, light reds and yellows develop an irridescent, almost metallic glow, so you can add some local saturation as a pleasing by-product.
Similarly, can you also see where I've dodged the highlights in the sky too? I stayed away from the clouds, but dodged over the sky which lightens the blue and brings out cyans a bit more, also adding a bit of a diffuse-looking glow too.
Burn: Do you notice there is more depth, crispness and contrast in the finished shot compared to the base shot? Yes, I was able to increase universal contrast...but the danger is then that shadows block up and again clouds blow out. This is time for the burn tool, used in exactly the same way as the dodge: right-click to choose..use the same soft large round brush...BUT in the Range box this time choose Shadows..or else you'll see your lovely white snow go all dirty grey! Again, work with a percentage of 3% in the exposure box(slider).
I swept over the sky a few times to darken the blues, being careful to avoid getting the chimney too black(if you're clever at feathered masks you can mask it off...I don't). Can you also see that I darkened the foliage and the shadow-spaces in the final image? I reduced the size of the brush, burning more locally this time. Notice it also darkened the actual colours as well as adding its dark contrast: if I overdid it at this stage I again went to re-dodge the highlights.
Finally, you might be aware by now that the Adobe versions of dodge and burn are not really all that close to real darkroom tools: they are, in effect, finely-tuned tools to add local contrast without fear of blocking out whole swathes of darker colours or sending clouds into whiteout. With a little practice, you can really add a sense of depth and colour that can render a scene almost painterly.
I find dodging and burning invaluable for landscapes but very useful for portraits too: imagine your prtrait is fine but you just want to lift the light in the hair: dodge tool! Also: no catchlights in the eyes?? Set a very small brush to dodge shadows at 12% right on the pupil of the eye...just a pinpoint; then dodge the highlight that is left=instant catchlight. Is there a small hot spot on the face because of an oily nose/forehead? Either use the clone brush of course..or set the burn tool to midtones at 8%..with care!
I've already turned the showcase into more of "tips" section than I wished. Your forbearance, please...I'll post such stuff in a more appropriate area next time.
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
( so modern they are pulling them down and rebuilding the modern bits again) <<<