How would you have shot this?

[flameop]

Ok I took this early one morning on holiday. No ND grads to darken sky, though a line through the house would have looked funny I think.

I read "Understanding Exposure" the day before.. so took a reading off "mr blue sky" oh how I laughed.. house totally dark. to hell with the book.. back to finding something 50%grey (seeing as the camera only see's in BW)

So metering off the house... blown sky.. think I was on matrix mode.

So ended up underexposing as hoping to rescue in CS.(raw)

Question.. how would you have shot it ? not bothered and waited till sun was infront (late eve) ?

All my narrow street shots are the same..

here's the shot.. after working on it I should add...

Edited by flameop on Thursday 3rd August 14:58

Edited by flameop on Thursday 3rd August 15:13

[crmcatee]

Just out of curiosity - who says that Grad filters have to be straight across the frame ? An angle of 30 deg running from the middle to the top right would have given you a nice sky..

[TonyHetherington]

Could you not have made the shot twice; once with exposure correct for the sky, once with exposure correct for the foreground, then merged in Photoshop?

[flameop]

thats the thing.. it would still have blown to the right... top left.. above the house.. I know you can angle them.

[flameop]

Tony yes I could.. if I had a tripod.... or bracketed.. but I didn't want to. The compact took a fine photo.

I underexposed.. developed 2 shots and put them together in CS2.

Just want to know if there's another way ? Lighting looked pretty even when there.. and like I said the compact got a pretty decent exposure

[TonyHetherington]

Ah sorry I see.

I too am interested to see the respones from the more seasoned photographers

[dcw@pr]

should have gone with an angled soft edge 0.6 grad, no way you would notice the line. the shot could do with another stop of exposure anyway imo.

[flameop]

agree.. but that blows the sky.. was just seeing what I could achive.. not that fussed if it blows but looks right..
cheers for tip on soft grad...

Si

[imperialism2024]

16:9 crop aligned with the top edge
Used curves to increase contrast and saturation.
In color balance: Red +20
Resize to 750 pixels wide...

Since the foliage under the building seemed too underexposed, my instinct was to draw attention away from it. Since you had a nicely exposed building and the left side of the sky was nicely exposed, I moved those to be vertically centered in the photo.

Though to answer the question in the thread title, with my D70 I would have shot it with +/-1 exposure bracketing, and then merged all three photos in PS, as there are parts correctly exposed, overexposed, and underexposed. If I didn't have a tripod handy, maybe I just would have shoved my 55-200mm f/4-5.6 hood-first into the ground and used the remote (always carried with the camera.. it's tiny) to fire off the 3 shots. It probably would have been the only good shot I ever got with that lens...

Edited to add: IMO, when you have already taken a shot like this with some very good parts but also some undesirable areas, you need to use cropping and other tools to focus on the good areas and away from the bad areas.

Edited by imperialism2024 on Thursday 3rd August 16:22

[Gemm]

I would've shot exactly the way you did (if shooting 2 images wasn't an option), then just bring out the shadow details. I just added a slight warm tone as well.

[te51cle]

Like what Gemm said, plus I'd burn in the highlights of the sky above the villa using a soft brush at 3% opacity, then select a couple of the grey areas and use Selective Colour on the neutrals and whites to subtract some yellow and add a little cyan to match up the areas of the sky on the left side of the picture.

You can always select the side of the building, copy it to another layer and then use the Render->Lighting Effects->Spotlight tool. I had to gently erase some of the building layer and reduce the opacity to get this, the light still looks a little flat though. Shame I overdid the sharpening...



In answer to your original question, if I couldn't get back there when the sun was on the correct side I'd have done exactly what you did !

[dcw@pr]

te51cle said:

Like what Gemm said, plus I'd burn in the highlights of the sky above the villa using a soft brush at 3% opacity, then select a couple of the grey areas and use Selective Colour on the neutrals and whites to subtract some yellow and add a little cyan to match up the areas of the sky on the left side of the picture.

You can always select the side of the building, copy it to another layer and then use the Render->Lighting Effects->Spotlight tool. I had to gently erase some of the building layer and reduce the opacity to get this, the light still looks a little flat though. Shame I overdid the sharpening...



In answer to your original question, if I couldn't get back there when the sun was on the correct side I'd have done exactly what you did !

talk about polishing a turd (not being rude, it's just a phrase )

it's starting to look like a hand coloured postcard now

[flameop]

oi there's no turd polishing going on here!!! lol... considering you only have the jpg that's come up pretty well..

[EmmaP]

You could try selectively altering the density using adjustment layers in Photoshop. I used to do multiple exposures using a tripod. Now I choose the optimum shot for the mid-tones then create new adjustment layers (curves) together with a graduation (black to transparent) in quick mask mode. I find this a far better solution as you can exert more control and achieve exactly the look that you desire. I also use adjustment layers to selectively adjust colour.

Lovely shot by the way. It reminds me of a place I visited on Lake Como a few years ago.

Edited by EmmaP on Thursday 3rd August 17:55

[joust]

TonyHetherington said:

Could you not have made the shot twice; once with exposure correct for the sky, once with exposure correct for the foreground, then merged in Photoshop?

[joust]

flameop said:

Tony yes I could.. if I had a tripod.... or bracketed.. but I didn't want to.

You don't need to have a tripod. Use the focusing points in the viewfinder to return to the same place.

This was done by 'hand'





Full story here
www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?t=172685

[EmmaP]

joust said:

You don't need to have a tripod. Use the focusing points in the viewfinder to return to the same place.

To achieve something that is pixel perfect you would need to have a hand as steady as a sniper's.

[le gravy noire]

Although it is way over used due to it being the "in thing" at the moment, in this situation i would do an HDR merge (this is available in photoshop cs2) which is perfect for these situations. Do a google search for it (there is also a tutorial on luminous landscape).

Please no wacky, hideous over hdr'ed images here. I'm only just recovering from the recent spot colour epidemic!

Matt

[joust]

EmmaP said:

To achieve something that is pixel perfect you would need to have a hand as steady as a sniper's.

Nope, because you can always 'align' them in PS if it's out, but the blending means all that happens is that the sky might move by a very small amount unoticable to the eye.

J

[EmmaP]

joust said:

...you can always 'align' them in PS if it's out, but the blending means all that happens is that the sky might move by a very small amount unoticable to the eye.

J

I guess it depends on the subject. Last year I used a tripod to make two exposures. Even though I lined up the layers and double checked with reduced opacity, they were not quite spot on in the foreground, so I have now abandoned this method. I must be heavy handed I quite enjoy working with layer masks and adjustment layers though