Yosemite Falls

[Diane Miller]

Made a quick run to Yosemite in mid-February, hoping for the light show on Horsetail Fall. No luck there (not enough water for the "fall" to pop into virtual existence), but some clearing mist after a too-minor snowstorm gave me an excuse for a slightly different composition of Yosemite Falls.

Canon 5D III, 70-200 f/2.8 at 70, ISO 200, f/11, 1/60. Tripod. Too lazy to change to the 24-70, and I love extra pixels, so I shot a vertical pano (one aimed higher, one lower) and stitched in CS6 after basic LR4 raw processing.

[Don Railton]

Hi Diane

What a pity the light did not come in from the right and not from the left. I think that would lift a large portion of the image (center) to another level.. I quite like the image, very impressive fall, and the mist adds. I think you could bump up the sharpening a little more as I would expect to see a little more detail espc given all those pixels you used.

DON

[Diane Miller]

The detail is in the full-res image, but reducing it to a small JPEG of course a lot gets lost. I could try pulling out more detail with something like Nik's Detail Extractor before converting.

I like the spotlight on the falls, but an hour earlier would have been better.

[Steve Kaluski]

Hi Dianne, I think Don is absolutely right, there is truck loads of nice detail you can still extract from the image, without even going near NIK. Just some simple Curves adjustments and some tweaks in Saturation, Selective colour & sharpening and the whole image takes shape, with vibrancy/depth & greater detail. Even just taking the web image you can see what can be achieved. Working on the RAW this image could be awesome. Converting from a 16bitt to an sRGB image, yes you will loose some IQ, but enough to do the image justice.

Just a very quick 5 min edit, hope it helps illustrate things.

cheers
Steve

[Diane Miller]

Your rework does have more pop, Steve. Thanks! I'll revisit the two raw files. Just discovered that somehow in the last few months the camera calibration profile had become set to Neutral instead of the usual Adobe Standard. Should have noticed that I was loosing some color punch right off the bat.

I do freely use things like Saturation or Vibrance, and Selective Color, and masking when needed. Guess I've gotten too leery of overdoing it, and probably lazy, too.

When people so often mention "sharpening" I hit a block, as true sharpening still eludes our level of computer power. If the capture wasn't sharp, you're not going to be able to do much.

You can sharpen somewhat at a 100% view in the full-res file, but that will rarely show after conversion to a small JPEG unless it's overdone enough to look artificial. Sharpening is really just the addition of artifacts that give the appearance of sharper edges. It can be done somewhat during or after resizing (on the JPEG), but on the master file I rarely sharpen beyond the LR/ACR default.

What I think of as "detailing" -- things like Viveza's Structure and Color Efex Pro's Detail Extractor, combined with Pro Contrast -- are the only things with which I have been able to get decent results. Just now starting to use Topaz Detail -- it looks good, too. But there is always the noise / grain tradeoff, and reducing noise is another thing ridden with artifacts.

[Diane Miller]

Clarification -- NR to a smooth BG works for me. Just not to detailed parts of an image.

[Steve Kaluski]

A digital file is never sharp, especially compared to film IMHO.

A digital file needs to have some form of sharpening applied to it, albeit it minimal, generally at the end of the RAW conversion and then after any rework applied in PS once the file has been resized for output, so it's fit for purpose, however some magazines require no sharpening applied at all. Sharpening at the RAW stage and to leave it at that will mean the image will never look sharp at whatever output you choose. Files from the 5D or 1DX rarely need to be viewed at 100%, 50% is more than enough IMHO, but we all have our own preferred routes. Addressing low & high frequency is easily done at the RAW stage to deal with noise and if you shoot ie at ISO200 the need for any NR would be zero, as the IQ is stunning with the 5DMKIII.


NR to a smooth BG works for me. Just not to detailed parts of an image.

Indeed, but why would anyone apply it to detailed parts?

Anyway, must dash, have a good weekend. :S3:

[Morkel Erasmus]

A lovely scene Diane. I agree with Don's assessment on the fall of light. I do wish those trees weren't in the front (or at least were included entirely, but realise this might have meant even more amputated trees below the frame as is). Steve's repost has done wonders (makes me wonder why he's not hanging around here in Landscapes more often :w3).

I second what Steve touched on re sharpening.

[Anette Mossbacher]

HI Diane,

beautiful place to be. Have been there many years ago. Love the composition.
As it looks, I am quite late to this thread. The RP of Steve shows what can be achieved with the image and for sure more from the Raw file.

Have a great weekend

Ciao
Anette