First Light Mammoth Terraces - How to optimize landscape photos?

[pat lillich]

Alan, our daughter Melina and I got to spend some time in Yellowstone a week or so ago. It was a great opportunity to try to learn something new - tried some landscapes, and especially the bacterial mats, geysers and such. and of course, there seems to be a brand new set of issues, aren't there?

so none of them came out the way I saw them in my head, all are duller, washed out, less jewel like than I see them in my memory. I always seem to have this problem with colors in my photos - somehow they are rarely as rich as i thought they were when i took them...

So since i'm stuck home today with a bum foot, I thought I would experiment with one in photoshop a little. I had read a bit about LAB color, so thought I would try to experiment with this one in curves both with LAB and RGB.

I'm hoping you guys might offer suggestions on what I should be doing when i try to process these - I know I missed on the exposure and am fumbling with the composition. also was experimenting with bracketing and hadn't turned it off (though I thought I had)

d300, nikon 18-200 f3.5, 1/320 sec at f7.1 +1 ev, handheld

in LR, brought exposure down 1/2 stop, added a little recovery, bumped up clarity and vibrance, and just slightly upped saturation of blue and yellow. cropped for composition.

In PS, cloned out a small branch at the bottom.
for the first one, converted to LAB and pulled in each of the L, A, B, added a little unsharp mask to a few spots
for the second one, left it RGB, in curves added white point, gave it more of an s-curve, added a little unsharp mask.

will really appreciate any suggestions you can offer.
thanks

[pat lillich]

and this is the RGB version

would really appreciate thoughts on which one is even slightly better? (or slightly less bad?)

[Desmond Chan]

To me, both look good ! Apparently, the first one (with the processing) looks more beautiful. Looks like it's a colorful place to begin with. Post-processing is fine and is part of the digital photography process these days. Take a look at his photos:

http://www.marcadamus.com/gallery.php

All enhanced. And he's not the only one. Nothing's wrong with processing your photograph to make it the way you see it. Depending on what you use it for, you may not even need to tell anybody about it ;):D

[Bob Miller]

Hi Pat....I prefer the first one but theyre both nicely done. .....Suggestion.....You might read up on the use of selective color and apply

[Lance Peters]

Hi Pat - this has a other worldy feel about it - could easily be some alien planet - like it a lot.
Prefer the first one myself - as to the PP - this is your artistic vision and I would PP to whatever point you feel comfortable with, at the end of the day - all that really matters is....

Do you like it and did you have fun!!!

I like it a lot!!!!!

[pat lillich]

thanks for the input!

Desmond, Marc's colors are what I would like to achieve - his pictures are more dramatic than mine, but I would love to get that richness - thank you so much for the link!

hi Bob, can you tell me a little more about selective color? I've started looking and found some info about applying selective color adjustment layer in PS, and you are right - it looks like that could be part of what I need - I'll search the forum for references to it too - thank you!

hey Lance, Yellowstone thermal things really do look like they come from some different planet, don't they? I wasn't at all successful trying to do photos of the beautiful mountains there and in the Teton's but when I focused in on some of the surreal, beautiful jewel like thermal pools and geysers - I got a couple of photos that i like, if I can just make them look more rich and complete within themselves.

thanks again

[pat lillich]

oh wow - dreadfully easy to go overboard, isn't it! Selective color is really cool.

now how in the world to develop "judgement" so as not to over do it.

[Michael Gerald-Yamasaki]

Pat,

Greetings. Great colors in this image with a lot of room to interpret them in a variety of ways. One thing you might consider is working the detail. The mist in this scene has a tendency to soften the detail at the far end, as well as the relatively open aperture for this type of shot). Additional contrast (as in the last repost) will add detail that can be merged through layer masks to selectively detail various parts of this image. This type of detailing can also be had automatically by such programs as Topaz Detail 2.

Most of the photos that I briefly looked at at the link Desmond posted have a very sharp detailed look (not much softness, anywhere). As well as rich color.

If your looking in that general direction... think sharp detail...

Just some thoughts.

Oh, one more thing... Your images are not posted with the color profile attached. For images such as in this thread the color rendition chosen by the various browsers is somewhat different than what sRGB might present (assuming that is what you are posting with). Rich colors are particularly diverse in their representation, unless color managed. For others to see the colors as you intend them I'd recommend posting with the color profile attached (usually a check box in the save image dialogs).

Cheers,

-Michael-

[pat lillich]

thanks Michael,

I really appreciate the info - will look for the check box on the color profile, that would make a real difference, wouldn't it! (sometimes it feels like there is such a lot to learn, other times i just feel inept.....)

In Desmond's link - it is the rich color that appealed to me. I've just been working on some pics of bacterial mats, and realized that i preferred a softer look in these - so am less interested (at this moment) in sharp detail. Its interesting - its rather like hummingbirds. when they land on your hand and you look close - they look like velvet. but when you get sharp detail in photos, they look sharp and metallic. i'm would love to figure out how to get the detail and the sense of softness at the same time. on this terrace there was a feel of alabaster that i would have loved to be able to show...

thanks again
pat