Outdoor Photography Post Processing

Category:

Outdoor Photography

Camera:

Nikon D200

Exposure:

F5.6

Flash:

None

Speed:

1/100

Lens:

Telephoto: 50-200mm

Time of day:

Afternoon

Tripod:

ISO Speed:

Select

Comment:

The photo was taken in Berkshires in Western MA. I liked the trees in the foreground with the little shed in the back. I also liked the shadows.

Before

Pro Post
Processing

After

Post processing improvements

Using Photoshop CS5, I first adjusted the exposure levels to change the black point to a higher level and increase the contrast of the image in the shadow areas. The highlights were clipped in the histogram and so tried to compensate by adjusting the middle tones, greys, down a bit. This helped the sky to a small degree, but much detail was simply missing.

Normally I would adjust the curve levels to selectively bring out the highlights while darkening the shadow area but found that the levels adjustment didn't give me enough latitude so instead used the dodge tool to paint in highlights in the foreground and in the small grove near the house, the house and the far grove in the distance. Then I used the burn tool to darken the shadow areas in the background to give the image some pop.

Finally I increased both color vibrancy and saturation by about 10 percent and gave the image a small amount of sharpening using the unsharp mask tool.

Pro's Comments:

This image is a compelling one and presents, surprisingly, a rather difficult exposure to work with on a global basis. Due to the overall underexposure of deep shadow area including the foreground and house, as well as the overexposure of the sky and subsequent blowing out of cloud detail I decided it best to make isolated adjustments to individual problem areas as opposed to using simple global exposure, levels and color adjustments to the image as a whole.

Software Used:

Photoshop CS5