Discussion
Last week I was in a location that I thought would give a rather interesting picture.
I don't have an 'advanced' camera nor did I have any lighting or reflective devices for assistance.
If I concentrated on the car, the background was over exposed, concentrating on the background left the car a shadow. This was the best I managed and I think I could have done better.
Not sure if it's a good attempt or amateur rubbish - so am inviting comments
I would be interested how you more seasoned photographers would attempt to produce a better picture (Remember - no clever tools.. Canon S70 and nothing else!). Alternatively would I be able to improve it using PhotoShop
Cheers,
Ben
(Reduced to 1024 & compressed 60% www.pikeynet.com/06/08/24/06werfen016.jpg )
I don't have an 'advanced' camera nor did I have any lighting or reflective devices for assistance.
If I concentrated on the car, the background was over exposed, concentrating on the background left the car a shadow. This was the best I managed and I think I could have done better.
Not sure if it's a good attempt or amateur rubbish - so am inviting comments
I would be interested how you more seasoned photographers would attempt to produce a better picture (Remember - no clever tools.. Canon S70 and nothing else!). Alternatively would I be able to improve it using PhotoShop Cheers,
Ben
(Reduced to 1024 & compressed 60% www.pikeynet.com/06/08/24/06werfen016.jpg )
take a few shots of various exposures using a tripod and timer function to reduce camera shake. then what you can do is either use the HDR function in photoshop of creat a layer and remove area in order to give a nice well balance pic. or you could hold a grand ND filter at the lens so that it goes along the wall
Edited by poah on Monday 4th September 12:28
I did 2 things.
firstly made the image brighter and darker then put it through CS2 HDR function and then equalized the histogram (gives you this oiption when you change from 32 to 8bit image. I then selected the bright areas of the mountians, inversed the selection and brightened up the layer. its not done much but broght out some of the shadow detail in teh side of the car. you could always bounce a flash.
firstly made the image brighter and darker then put it through CS2 HDR function and then equalized the histogram (gives you this oiption when you change from 32 to 8bit image. I then selected the bright areas of the mountians, inversed the selection and brightened up the layer. its not done much but broght out some of the shadow detail in teh side of the car. you could always bounce a flash.
Edited by poah on Monday 4th September 12:44
If you can't do what Poah mentions above, a quick and dirty way that might work would be to use the flash - however it might result in some nasty reflections.
Poah's ND Grad suggestion is probably the best I'd say, followed by merging 2 or more shots in photoshop.
You could also either select the car only (remember to feather the selection) and make a copied layer, change the layer blend mode to "screen" - this will bring out the car a bit, but ultimately it's so dark there is very little detail left to recover.
Poah's ND Grad suggestion is probably the best I'd say, followed by merging 2 or more shots in photoshop.
You could also either select the car only (remember to feather the selection) and make a copied layer, change the layer blend mode to "screen" - this will bring out the car a bit, but ultimately it's so dark there is very little detail left to recover.
This might help too...a little tutorial by Joust
www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?t=302963&f=109&h=0
Martin.
www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?t=302963&f=109&h=0
Martin.
_dobbo_ said:
You could also either select the car only (remember to feather the selection) and make a copied layer, change the layer blend mode to "screen" - this will bring out the car a bit, but ultimately it's so dark there is very little detail left to recover.
yeah its nasty if you do too much. goes all posterised.
IIRC the S70 has a hotshoe so you can fit a ex speedlight to it
_dobbo_ said:
If you can't do what Poah mentions above, a quick and dirty way that might work would be to use the flash - however it might result in some nasty reflections.
The ceiling looks low enough to bounce the flash, then there'll be no nasty reflections. Just use Manual exposure against the BG (or meter off the BG and lock the exposure), then use the flash. It should work.
V6GTO said:
This might help too...a little tutorial by Joust
www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.
www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.
took the words right out of my mouth - a question I'd have been able to answer now!
DH2
Thanks Martin. It really is that easy. As you mentioned, if you exposed for the sky the car was shagged, and visa versa.
If you still have those two shots, then you have all you need. In fact, it generally helps if the sky is "blown out" on the car one as then it's just a question of putting the 'good sky' one as the bottom later, the 'good car one' as the top layer, selecting the sky with the magic wand, feathering the selection and deleting it to be transparent to show through the sky.
If the sky one isn't aligned you can skew/stretch it until it is.
J
If you still have those two shots, then you have all you need. In fact, it generally helps if the sky is "blown out" on the car one as then it's just a question of putting the 'good sky' one as the bottom later, the 'good car one' as the top layer, selecting the sky with the magic wand, feathering the selection and deleting it to be transparent to show through the sky.
If the sky one isn't aligned you can skew/stretch it until it is.
J
As the original was taken with a compact camera I'd recommend using the Image->Adjustments->Shadow/Highlight... facility in Photoshop CS2 (it can be found in Enhance->Adjust Lighting->Shadows/Highlights in Photoshop Elements 3 and above). You can recover a lot of detail without much effort:
What I would advise is to use a smaller aperture than F2.8, as the shutter speed was 1/640th second you wouldn't have to worry about camera shake even if you closed down to F5.6 and 1/160th - then you would have had less colour fringing e.g. along the edge of the wall at the back. Oh, and set the camera to the highest/finest quality jpeg that it'll do so that you don't get so many artefacts such as those on the driver's door.
Full size version (I don't think I cropped this one down, but I've just checked it and I may be wrong !)
What I would advise is to use a smaller aperture than F2.8, as the shutter speed was 1/640th second you wouldn't have to worry about camera shake even if you closed down to F5.6 and 1/160th - then you would have had less colour fringing e.g. along the edge of the wall at the back. Oh, and set the camera to the highest/finest quality jpeg that it'll do so that you don't get so many artefacts such as those on the driver's door.
Full size version (I don't think I cropped this one down, but I've just checked it and I may be wrong !)
Edited by te51cle on Tuesday 5th September 10:47
te51cle said:
As the original was taken with a compact camera I'd recommend using the Image->Adjustments->Shadow/Highlight... facility in Photoshop CS2 (it can be found in Enhance->Adjust Lighting->Shadows/Highlights in Photoshop Elements 3 and above). You can recover a lot of detail without much effort
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Thanks for that - very interesting. I had no idea that was possible.
le gravy noire said:
expose for the car and blow the highlights in need be. IMO a HDR merge wont work here. Also, go back and shoot it from 3 feet to the right with the wheels straightened at about 40% front and 60% side 
Matt - firstly I like the wheels like that! I don't know why, but I've always angled the wheels before taking a picture
Look - here's an example from 6 years ago - I've always done it! Are you saying that they all look better with the wheels straight and I should change my ways? Secondly - you said "go back"... Well, that was taken in the GrossGlockner in Austria. When I left to drive up the weather was like this, once up the weather quickly changed and I came down (25 miles of the windiest roads I've ever seen) in this. The outside temp dropped to -2 and the melted snow (from the earlier sun) turned to ice making me reaise how good the car's stability system was! IMust say I found TomTom extremely useful in telling me where the road went clicky. So, as for "GO BACK".... yeah I think I will some time
Also got one of these and one of these whilst there. Sadly not as dramatic as the scenery should have allowed it to be and how I was expecting the results. You will note the angled wheels in the second one
pikey said:
le gravy noire said:
expose for the car and blow the highlights in need be. IMO a HDR merge wont work here. Also, go back and shoot it from 3 feet to the right with the wheels straightened at about 40% front and 60% side
Matt - firstly I like the wheels like that! I don't know why, but I've always angled the wheels before taking a picture
Look - here's an example from 6 years ago - I've always done it! Are you saying that they all look better with the wheels straight and I should change my ways? Secondly - you said "go back"... Well, that was taken in the GrossGlockner in Austria. When I left to drive up the weather was like this, once up the weather quickly changed and I came down (25 miles of the windiest roads I've ever seen) in this. The outside temp dropped to -2 and the melted snow (from the earlier sun) turned to ice making me reaise how good the car's stability system was! IMust say I found TomTom extremely useful in telling me where the road went clicky. So, as for "GO BACK".... yeah I think I will some time
Also got one of these and one of these whilst there. Sadly not as dramatic as the scenery should have allowed it to be and how I was expecting the results. You will note the angled wheels in the second one
I was only kidding about going back old bean! Although there are no rules, I usually put a bit of lock on too, but sometimes having the wheels straight can be nice.
Mattio
The problem here is too much contrast between the bright background, and the darker foreground. Frankly, I simply dont think this will work without artificially lighting the car. What can be done to improve? Well others have already posted some PS retouches, but the shot is fundamentally compromised at source.
If you really want to use this location (or similar) it may be worth taking later in the day when the hills outside are less bright and perhaps there will be some lighting within the car park to try and balance the contrast between the two portions of the scene.
If you really want to use this location (or similar) it may be worth taking later in the day when the hills outside are less bright and perhaps there will be some lighting within the car park to try and balance the contrast between the two portions of the scene.
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