Bob,
From what I can see on my monitor, I think that you have a lot to work with. I suspect that the camera was on automatic, as ISO is only 64. I might bring in a blue sky with some nice clouds.
Then I would lighten up the image. A technique just posted here is:
1. Create new levels adjustment layer above the layer that you want modified. Click ok. Don’t tinker with levels, just create the layer
2. Change blending mode to screen
3. On menu go to Image>adjustments>invert (be sure that you do this on image menu, not on layers menu)
4. Select gradient tool
5. Make sure transparency option is checked
6. Select or create gradient that goes from white to transparent
7. Pull gradients across image from different angles to lighten.
Can apply technique to a selection only, if so desired.
Picture may benefit from contrast mask. If you need directions for this, repost. Picture may also benefit from sharpening.
That is how I would get started. I am sure that others will delineate alternate approaches. Ken
It is not that bad at all. Overcast days are usually the best to photograph a garden. Imagine what it would have looke like if the sun had been shining! The lawn would have looked like it hadnot seen any water for weeks! And imagine just only these hard shadows!
To make it more pleasing to the eye, first crop out a lot of that bleak sky; the eye is usually attracted to the brightest part of an image and this isn’t exactly very interesting. An image doesnot have to be in a towel shape, sometimes a letterbox size is better.
On overcast days the light often is a little blueish, so adding just a tiny little bit of yellow and a wee bit of red will probably make it look more appealing.
Use the levels to brighten it up a little and to increase the contrast.
Now you should be in the ballpark.
(right expression?) 😉
Leen
Kenneth, I wouldnot introduce a blue sky with some nice clouds. If so, the lighting would have been quite different. And my mother always told me not to lie if it was too obvious it was a lie. 😉
Leen
Barbara and Ken,
Both of your answers produced much better results than I could get and a combination with unsharp the unsharp mask last really worked well.
Ken, I’m not sure what a contrast mask is. Is that a PE2 only or have I just not found it yet?
Except for setting the WB to cloudy the camera was on auto.
Thanks very much. So many techniques so little time.
Bob
Actually, it doesn’t look that bad, Robert, maybe just needs a little bit of blue sky? Try the light blue to white of these true sky gradients by Christopher Potter: <
http://tinyurl.com/3u4l6>
Have you tried any of the warming filters on your camera? They might help in the future if you want warmer pics. Tiffen’s 812 might help…or you could simulate this with a gradient map adjustment layer or just a solid color layer with Multiply blending mode. I made my own using these RGB #’s: R255, G225, B196.
Patti
Patti,
Unfortunately my browser has been giving me random PC lockups (power down is the only way out) when I click on links and this evening it has picked yours. It will probably work later.
The C-740 doesn’t really lend itself to filter attachments (there is a way but it means adding an adaptor that attaches to the camera body rather than the lens). I’ll experiment with your simulation techniques. I do have Filtersim. Is there a Kodak Wratten equivalent to the 812? Next cloudy day I’m going to experiment with moving WB toward the warm side.
Bob
Bob,
I think I can echo what others have said. On my monitor that shot looks super, I love the saturation and even coloration of the shot. But, try some of the other suggestions to be sure, for your eye.
Dick
I really like the original – it has a lovely soft look; just like an English country garden on a misty damp summer day (its a light we rarely see in South Australia and makes me feel a bit nostalgic for my paren’t garden!)
If it were mine I would crop it as Leen suggests and then perhaps try to increase the midtone contrast a little to give the image some more punch – this is easiest done with a curves adjustment layer set to a gentle s shape, if you have one of the add-ons to Elements that gives curves (this will also tend to intensiify the colours slightly).
My effort (if you don’t mind – I’ll delete it if you have a problem with me reposting an edited version)
<
http://www.users.on.net/~sestewart/Bob‘s%20Picture.jpg> If I had a full size version I might even crop it a bit tighter and then sharpen it up – but with a small version it’s not worth the effort.
Note that I don’t necesarily think that other ideas are poor – and it is possible to make a much brighter jazzier image out of it that looks more sunlit – it’s just that I like the original soft light. It’s a nice image to start with and you could go in different directions with its editing to get very different end results.
Susan S
Yes, even if you don’t have curves, just upping the contrast a tad via brightness/contrast brings out more detail.
Tiffen is the only one I know of that makes the 812 warming filter and I’ll bet they want to keep it that way for awhile. Other brands have orange warming filters, but they are harsh compared to the 812’s pale coral filter.
As for those sky gradients, they are at Adobe Studio exchange if you can get there another way. These are gradients Mr. Potter created by sampling actual sky photos. They are some of the nicest I’ve ever seen.
Patti
Bob –
A contrast mask is a technique for dealing with high contrast images where you have part of the image in deep shadow and part in bright highlight. It’s a superb technique for the right kind of photo – but IMO your photo is not the right kind of photo for this technique.
I was having similar problems on the opposite coast in Vancouver BC on the same day, July 14th. My friend lives near and works at beautiful Queen Elizabeth Park. I was really disappointed in the images with the overcast weather. Also very soft focus. I suppose I could say that I’m going for the impressionistic effect here. I added a slightly gentle S curve here with Susans suggestion. Shutter speed was pretty low so that may account for some of the soft focus. Next time I take a tripod.
<
http://upload.pbase.com/image/31550188/original>
Im overwhelmed.
And a bit discouraged that I couldnt see what appealed to most of you. My wife loved that shot and I was disappointed. But then she is the artist and Im the realist. (Her paintings will be posted when I can do them justice.)
Leen, for some reason I never saw your posts. If Susan hadnt referenced them I wouldnt have gone back to get your always welcome advice. Cropping is done and it works, still working on the rest. In the ballpark is exactly the right expression (at least in English).
Susan, I would happily send you all 60 shots and gratefully accept your results for my albums. Your post will be my hallmark for the rest.
Dick, Perhaps the problem is really with my eye. My monitor is calibrated so we should be seeing the same thing even if I didnt appreciate it.
Barbara, Youre going to convince me to go to PE2. What the heck are curves? (And , of course, that will cause the immediate release of PE3.)
Patti, Youre home grown layer did the trick. Hopefully Ill have my PC problems cured soon and can get to Studio Exchange. Im sure theres a lot more there that I should try.
Stu and Ken, Whether or not a contrast mask applies here I would still like to know how to do one.
Mark, It appears that you solved your problem well. I think Ill follow your lead and carry a tripod. I only have 4 plus a monopod from videography. That tiny Olympus does look pretty silly on one, though.
Ive been exposed to a lot more than technical solutions today. I hope the eye can overcome the technician.
What a forum.
Bob
I had a go at your photo too, Bob…couldn’t resist. I cropped just a little to center things, added a blue sky and used my "virtual" warming filter. I didn’t perfect the sky selection, so it may look a little surreal at the tree line, but it will give you another option to look at. And as Susan said, I will take it off the page at your request.
<
http://www.pbase.com/image/31570166>
Bob,
When I was up in Vancouver I gave to my friend a Canon A75 that was mispriced and honored for $150 from circuit city. I was telling him about how important the tripod is to many photographers when just a few yards away a guy walked by us with a nifty small tripod slung over his shoulder with the very small Canon Elph attached. Point made.
Patti, that looks really nice!
Robert
I couldn’t sleep so I decided to read the forum and saw your image. I decided to have a go at it and cropped it a bit close then slightly jack it to give it a bit more idealistic impression. It fits my ideal of a restful garden.
http://www.cavesofice.org/~grant/index.html Grant
Grant – that’s a different crop to mine, and I really like it . I like Patti’s too – the replacement sky is very subtle and not over the top. Different approaches to the same image. Very interesting.
Susan S
This has been a great exchange of pragmatic ideas, and we’re all pretty much on the same wave length.
Bob,
1. On the Olympus c-740, you can set the white balance to a particular parameter. However, when you then go to "auto", does that not override the manual setting so that the camera can do its own thing?
2. Here is what I have for steps in contrast mask. I think that it was originally posted by Chuck, although I am not 100% certain. Anyway, I did not invent it.
a. Duplicate background, name it contr. mask
b. With contr. mask active, go to Image>adjustments>invert
c. Go to Enhance>color>remove color
d. Filter>Gaussian blur – approx. 3.0 radius
e. Change to overlay mode & adjust opacity
f. May need Hue/Sat. adjustment layer to fine tune.
Ken
Whether or not a contrast mask applies here I would still like to know how to do one
Stu Bloom "Fill Flash" 7/13/04 10:35am </cgi-bin/webx?14/4>
IE seems to be cooperating for a while. Hard drive format and Windows install coming shortly. How I love Microsoft but it’s what I know.
Patti and Grant, Thanks for the examples. I’ve played with it some more and now can pretty closely match both of your results. I’ve downloaded both of yours and Susan’s so that I can compare them all in the same viewer to my own. What a learning tool! No need to remove anything except to save server space.
Ken, I used the wrong term. I was using one of "My Modes" (spot focus, ESP metering, but leaving exposure on automatic) with WB temporarily changed to Cloudy and Reset turned off. Thanks for the instructions on Contrast Mask. One more for my growing book.
Mark, If you find any more deals like that keep me in mind. You wouldn’t know the make of that tripod would you? I’m not really happy with either of my light weight ones and the video type’s quick release plates are way to big not to mention the tripods.
Once again, to everyone, thank you so much for the time spent and the knowledge shared.
Bob
Edit: The answers are rolling in so fast I can’t keep up! Thanks, Stu.
Bob, my suggestion about upping the contrast would work in PE 1 as well, if you want to try it.
Oh, forgot–curves. If you’ve used levels you know how levels lets you adjust the color across the entire range of a color channel (e.g., red, green blue).
Curves lets you increase or decrease just a particular range of color. In other words you can decrease the values just for the deepest greens and deepen the lighter reds, or whatever. It’s a very powerful tool.
If you have a scanner, you might have a curves adjustment in the advanced features on your driver, although these are pretty much worthless for actual use because the scanner preview is usually too low-res to be much use for color correction. But the dialog box looks pretty much like the real thing in PS, usually, so you can see how it’s supposed to work.
Stu stop … this is really off topic
Seeing Patti’s manipulation of the sky drove made me chuckle today as it drove home a point about manipulation and photography. It is a very old and honoured practice. I was looking at some photographs taken on George
N. Barnard. Barnard started out as one of Mathew B. Brady’s civil war
photographers and he later branched out on his own. Barnard was the official photographer fro Sherman when he marched through George. He was hired to record things like bridges and rail yards. His photographs were excellent and one of his eye catching trade marks was clouds. He was the only photographer during the civil war to show scenes with clouds in them. It turns out that clouds were beyond the reach of the equipment he was using and they were all added during a double printing of each image. So you see there is nothing new under the sun.
http://www.wildwestweb.net/cwp/cwp89.jpg http://www.getty.edu/art/collections/objects/oz66266.html Barnard’s photograph of Peachtree St. in Atlanta that was used to recreate that city in the movie "Gone with the Wind"
http://www.archives.gov/research_room/research_topics/civil_ war/images/civil_war_104.jpg
Stu stop … this is really off topic
Whatever are you talking about? How to do a contrast mask is off-topic in the Photoshop Elements forum?
Stu,
I think Grant was referring to the story about Barnard.
Dick
Grant’s story of George Barnard inspired me to experiment some with this picture, taken on a rather drab day. So, it is ok to do a little cheating? I’ve done it before, have stayed away from it lately, though. I’ve posted the before and after, it’s about 225k, so it will be a bit slow for dial-up. Sorry.
http://www.concentric.net/~jdirrigl/misc/BlueSkies.jpg Juergen
Jeurgen,
That is great … it really looks as though the sun was shining.
Wendy
Juergen
I think you have hit the nail on the head with that image. It is much more complex than just adding clouds, you must adjust the whole image to reflect the new lighting. Well done now if both you and Patti were around in 1860 you could have worked for Sherman, fin’s you don’t mind working with wet colloidal amid body parts.
Grant
Wendy, James, Grant,
Thanks for your comments. I really liked the outcome, too. I played with some of the suggestions in this thread, worked with light effects. I put a few extra clouds in the sky, so one would not start wondering about shadows too much. 😉
Juergen
Stu, the contrast mask – which probably isn’t needed for this photo – is done in the following manner:
1. Make a duplicate of the background layer.
2. Invert the duplicate layer (Image>Adjustments>Invert)
3. Remove all color from the duplicate layer(Enhance>Adjust Color>Remove
Color
4. Apply a Gaussian blur of 4-6 to the duplicate layer
5. Change the blending mode of the duplicate layer to Overlay or Soft Light
6. Adjust the opacity of duplicate layer to taste
7. Bake at 350 degrees F for one hour….oh, wait, that’s a different recipe…!
🙂
Chuck
I think the credit for this one goes to Scott Kelby, but I’m sure I’ve seen it elsewhere. My apologies to the originator
Re contrast masking – You may need to adjust the size of the gaussian blur to avoid halos around dark objects in the image – it depends on the size (in pixel terms) and the contrast of the original. I think this is one of those things that were adapted from wet darkroom techniques and so can’t really be given an originator – a lot of digitial retouching books use variants.
Susan, which direction causes the halos – blurrier or sharper? I guess I could experiment, but if you’ve already done the research…
🙂
Chuck
My recollection is that you can either use very low blur levels (2-5 pixel) (and drop the layer opacity) – or much higher ones (so that the image is unrecognisable – up to 50 or 60 depending on resolution) – it’s the in between ones that may give problems. Using the larger amounts of blurring you get a combination of bringing up large area shdow detail and improving edge contrast (it’s the darkroom unsharp mask trick iirc), but the edge cotrast effect may give halos.
These days I’m using the shadow highlight tool in CS to do this – but it seems to work in a similar way, as if the radius is off you can get the haloing effect too.
Wow, what a difference, Juergen. Kinda reminds me of an old time postcard, but that may just be due to seeing them both on the same screen.
You will post your workflow, yes?
Dick
Thank you, Dick. I wound up merging some layers and don’t recall all the details, but this is essentially what I did:
I applied a curves adjustment layer with a slight s-curve. It remains the very top layer. Next I placed a new layer between the curves and the background which I filled with solid red color. Changed the blending mode to Multiply and reduced the opacity to 16%. Then I selected the sky, inversed the selection and made a layer via copy. On that layer I used one of the CSP True Sky Blue gradients and reduced this layer’s opacity to about 50%. I duplicated the bottom part (no sky) and applied a lighting effect (Default, Omni) with a large radius, covering the whole image. That layer’s opacity is also greatly reduced, I think it was to 18%. The two layers were merged with a background copy. Then I increased the contrast by +10 and applied a USM (190%, 0.3 px, 0 levels) to allow for SFW. Last I created two new transparent layers underneath the curves and solid color layers and painted the clouds in (Nagel Series 11 brushes). This could probably have been done on just one layer, but I ended up with different opacities (48%, 43%) for these two. I may have used the Omni lighting effect a second time, don’t quite recall were. And that’s the story. I hope I didn’t miss too much.
Juergen
Thank you, Jodi. 🙂
Juergen
