Thunderstorm

[Egil Droge]

A lone wildebeest watches an approaching thunderstorm over the Liuwa Plain.
Liuwa Plain NP, Zambia.
Canon Eos 5D MKII, ISO 400
Canon 24-105mm F4 @50mm F16
1/640 sec.

In photoshop I adjusted levels a bit and straightened the horizon.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8191/8348561797_198e4d0c62_b.jpg
(http://www.flickr.com/photos/egilio/8348561797/)


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[Steve Canuel]

Nice cloud formation. Would've liked watching this develop myself while sitting in a comfortable chair and enjoying a brew. The animal's just a bit to small for me.

[Roman Kurywczak]

I do think this is more of a landscape.....but that being said it is quite dramatic! The animal does show scale but like Steve.....I wish it was a touch larger in the frame.

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Egil,
quite like the dramatic sky and the colors .Composition is working as well for me.

But for a wildebeest scape , i personally think the animal is too small in the frame. I would post it in the landscape forum , if it was mine.

TFS Andreas

[Marina Scarr]

Love the idea you were going for here with the wildebeestscape!!! Andreas' tweaks really kicked it up a notch. I too wish your subject were a tad larger in the frame...easier to depict. That said, it's still quite a striking image and good for you for not letting it pass you by.

[Roger Clark]

Hello Egil,

Beautiful and very dramatic. I love the contrast in the cloud and the rich blue sky above. I like Andreas' repost, except there seems to be a halo near ground level. I like the size of the wildebeest as it shows the enormity of the storm. The size of the wildebeest will work well in a large print. If you have it, a little more land at the bottom would be good in my opinion, perhaps 50% more than the narrow strip as shown.

Roger

[Morkel Erasmus]

Very nice Egil. Yes the WB is a tad small - doesn't bother me too much if this were to be a large print...so maybe it's just the size of posting here which is not flattering to the picture as presented. Having the animal stand a bit more 'side-on' ito profile would also have helped. I agree it needs a tad more at the bottom, and Andreas' repost has added nice punch (the OP seemed a bit 'dull' to me).

Liuwa is on my bucket-list of destinations - please post more! :5

[Egil Droge]

Thanks all for the comments! Never really considered the landscape forum...Never been there (yet). I like the punch in Andreas version too, how did you accomplish that?

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Egil,

all i did was as follows : in PS added a curves layer in Overlay blend mode; set the mask layer to black , blurred that mask by 20 px , load the green channel as selection , hide the selection ; take the brush set to white ; nice soft brush set to 20 % opacity and paint over the mask et voila you get the boost in contrast , colors and tonality.

Sorry foreground , slightly lightened with a selective curves layer set to screen blend mode , think at 30% opacity.

Hope that helps

Cheers Andreas

[Egil Droge]

Thanks Andreas,

I don't fully understand this, I'm not very familiar with photoshop.

I can add a curves layer in Overlay blend mode.

But then I'm not so clear on what you're doing.

Set the mask layer to black? Is that the same layer? Or a new layer? Or do I click in the new layer and set it to black in the white box? And then feather it with 20 pixels.
And maybe more important than how to do it, I wonder why you do some things like this.

I can see the imidiate effect of the curves layer in overlay blend mode, and that you would want to adjust it.
But why blurred the mask by 20 px? What effect does the blurring of the mask have?
And why loading the green channel as selection? Why not all channels? Or the blue channel?

In general I don't feel comfortable using brushes as I'm always anxious not exactly painting the right areas, or otherwise it would be too visible.

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Egil,
first of all , this one way to get the desired effect, there are tons of others.

Sorry for being not more detailed, for me it is clear what i am doing , sometimes forget that others cannot follow my steps.But i had /have same problems with new steps in image editing ....... learning curve .

Back to business.

Step one. add a curves layer in overlay blend mode above your composite image and invert the layer mask (comes automatically when you add the new adjustment layer.

Step two feather the mask by 15 - 20 pixel ( same window in PS CS6, go to mask icon, you have options for feather , opacity)

Step three go to channels palette and select ( normally) the green channel. gives the best contrast, but you can choose all the other ones, but only one at a time . ctrl or cmd click on the channel thumbnail to load as a selection.you should see the marching ants of the selection

Step four back to the layers palette, and activate the mask of the curves layer by clicking on the mask.

Step five now you can hide the marching by ctrl or cmd H, the selection is still active !!!!

Step six select the brush tool and set the FG color to white , set the brush to 20 % opacity and hardness of the brush to 10 %.

Step seven now you can paint on the mask of your curves layer and you will see the effect straight away, if you gone too far , set the FG color to black and paint again over the areas .

Step eight when your happy, ctrl / cmd D to deselect your seletion of the green ( or whatever channel).

Ps : blurring the mask is for smooth transitions where you have painted.

Hope it is more clear now.

Think you should , if you are interested , go deeper into some tutorials about masking and tonality, lots of stuff on the net.

Cheers Andreas

[Egil Droge]

Many thanks Andreas! I'm aware of all the tutorials around. But I only have good internet access for about 2 months each year, and then also have to work. But I'll download some good masking and tonality tutorials in the next few weeks.