Basin sunset

[D. Robert Franz]

Out working on my Bighorn Basin book again. Here some interesting rock formations on Chapman Bench are captured after sunset. Smoke from a wildfire is drifting across sky.

Canon 1d3, EF16-35mmF2.8L, 2 stop GND, ISO 200, 1/5th @ F18

[Douglas Bolt]

Beautiful, well composed image. I like the angles, which give a nice feeling of depth to the scene. Thanks Robert.

PP: Added a Soft Light blending mode at 40% opacity. Increased the Saturation of the yellows to brighten the greens and give a little more setting sun look. Increased S of reds, blues and cyans in sky.

[D. Robert Franz]

I have no idea what you did but it sure looks great!!

[Douglas Bolt]

I'm not sure if I know either, but I'm having lots of fun learning, and this is a great place to learn.

First, the addition of soft light blending mode (which caused the most noticeable change in this image), with the background layer active (click on the layer that shows the image, not an adjustment layer that you may have created), hold down the Ctrl key and click J. That will create a copy of the background layer. Towards the top of the Layers pallet, there is a pull down window that will initially say Normal. Click the arrow to the right and slide down to where it says Soft Light. You should immediately see a big, over-the-top change in the appearance of the image.

To tone down the effects of adding the blending layer, hold your cursor over the word Opacity to the right of the window that now says Soft Light. You will notice (CS3, at least) your cursor now has little arrows on each side. Hold down the left mouse and slide the cursor to the left to reduce the opacity (I used 40%) and thus reduce the effect of the soft light blending mode.

You might want to play around with other blending modes on other images. In general and in my opinion (hopefully more knowledgeable folks will help where needed), Soft Light is useful to increase contrast and intensify colors, Multiply tends to cause more intense, but similar changes to Soft Light. Screen is useful to brighten an image that is too dark. Robert has a very good description of the use of Linear Burn.

Because all of the changes imposed by blending modes are on a separate layer (made by Ctrl-J), it is easy to mask the effects of blending modes that your do not want by clicking at the bottom of the Layers pallet on the dark square with the hole in the center. This will add a mask to the layer. Then with the mask highlighted, paint with black on the image where you wish to remove/mask the effects you don't like. If you remove an effect that you want, switch to the white brush (hit the X key) and paint with white to reveal the initial effect.

When making black/white changes to a mask, I find it desirable to set the opacity of the brush to something less than 100%. To change the opacity of the Brush (the brush will be active after making a mask, or hit B), put the cursor on the word Opacity at the top of the screen and slide it to the left or right to change the opacity of the brush.

Hope this is helpful.

[D. Robert Franz]

I'm not sure if I know either, but I'm having lots of fun learning, and this is a great place to learn.

First, the addition of soft light blending mode (which caused the most noticeable change in this image), with the background layer active (click on the layer that shows the image, not an adjustment layer that you may have created), hold down the Ctrl key and click J. That will create a copy of the background layer. Towards the top of the Layers pallet, there is a pull down window that will initially say Normal. Click the arrow to the right and slide down to where it says Soft Light. You should immediately see a big, over-the-top change in the appearance of the image.

To tone down the effects of adding the blending layer, hold your cursor over the word Opacity to the right of the window that now says Soft Light. You will notice (CS3, at least) your cursor now has little arrows on each side. Hold down the left mouse and slide the cursor to the left to reduce the opacity (I used 40%) and thus reduce the effect of the soft light blending mode.

You might want to play around with other blending modes on other images. In general and in my opinion (hopefully more knowledgeable folks will help where needed), Soft Light is useful to increase contrast and intensify colors, Multiply tends to cause more intense, but similar changes to Soft Light. Screen is useful to brighten an image that is too dark. Robert has a very good description of the use of Linear Burn.

Because all of the changes imposed by blending modes are on a separate layer (made by Ctrl-J), it is easy to mask the effects of blending modes that your do not want by clicking at the bottom of the Layers pallet on the dark square with the hole in the center. This will add a mask to the layer. Then with the mask highlighted, paint with black on the image where you wish to remove/mask the effects you don't like. If you remove an effect that you want, switch to the white brush (hit the X key) and paint with white to reveal the initial effect.

When making black/white changes to a mask, I find it desirable to set the opacity of the brush to something less than 100%. To change the opacity of the Brush (the brush will be active after making a mask, or hit B), put the cursor on the word Opacity at the top of the screen and slide it to the left or right to change the opacity of the brush.

Hope this is helpful.

Thanks for all the info. I get all messed up working inl layers. I'll mess around and see if I can repeat what you did with the image...

[Douglas Bolt]

You can do it. The first time is confusing, but the second time easy. To simplify, open image, Ctrl-J, click at the top of the Layers pallet where it says Normal and slide down to Soft Light, click on Opacity and slide the cursor to the left.

Oh, I should have mentioned, to make the Layers pallet visible, click on Windows at the very top of the PS screen and check Layers. I have Layers, Options, Info, Actions and History checked.

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hi Robert,
I think Douglas's re-post is right on and adds a very nice touch to a very well coposed and exposed image. Here's a link from a previous post where a few people discuss layer corrections and Robert even gives a bit of a demo (scroll through all the replies)...http://www.birdphotographers.net/forums/showthread.php?t=14994

[Paul Marcellini]

A very cool scene. I love open expanses like this. Doug gave some great advice.

[Robert Amoruso]

An exceptionally strong composition Robert. The large rock on the FG, balanced with the one in the middle ground right and then the sliver of mountains and sunset in the BG.

Doug, thanks for all the detail on the workflow. That is a big help.