Reflective

[Rachel Hollander]

Lake Louise taken before sunrise in August 2011.

Canon 7D
16-35 @ 16mm
1/6
f16
ISO 400
EC -2/3
Tripod, CP and 2 stop GND. Some selective dodging and burning, s/h, levels, curves, LCE and sharpened in CS5. Full frame except for leveling the horizon.

C&C welcome and appreciated. Thanks,

Rachel

[Don Lacy]

Nice foreground leading the viewer into the frame and I find the red canoe a nice added touch. As presented their seems to be a lot of noise in the image not sure if thats from the jpeg compression are not and I would take some off the top to move the horizon line into the uppet 1/3 of the frame.

[Rachel Hollander]

Thanks Don. I'm pretty sure it is from compression as it is not there in the tiff or jpeg and it compressed to about 40 percent.

Rachel

[mikedewitt]

Love the reflection. I agree with Don - the image as presented shows noise. Also think a crop from the top would improve this.

[Morkel Erasmus]

Rachel, it looks like a lovely scene and comp with the reflections adding a lot.
I too see a lot of noise (more than usual) and also some JPG artifacts. Did you bring up shadow detail excessively here? Would love to be able to see a RAW file and 'work it up' - if you don't mind you can email me a link via something like DropBox or YouSendit?
:bg3:

[Rachel Hollander]

Thanks Mike and Morkel. Morkel - you should have an email.

Rachel

[Andrew McLachlan]

Hi Rachel, a lovely scene, but a little noisy as the others mention. Let's see what Morkel can do with it.

[Morkel Erasmus]

Okay - here is my rework from the RAW file.

In raw conversion - brought up fill light a bit and recovered highlights so that nothing was blown. Warmed up WB very slightly.
Ran LCE on the high res image once.
Ran Robert's luminosity multiplied mask once - 30% opacity then flattened.
Burned highlights 5% on the sky.
Resized to 800px using the sharpening action I posted as a sticky - the one titled "advanced web sharpening + glow" on the 800px setting. Left sharpening masks as is.
Ran another action by Hougaard Malan (www.hougaardmalan.com) for increasing midtone contrast across the range.
Ran the "Digital Saturation" action for advanced saturation by Alex Nail (www.alexnail.com), adjusted mask opacity to 50%.
Burned shadows and dodged highlights on the FG rocks and BG mountains (5%).
What do you guys think? Rachel? :bg3:

[Rachel Hollander]

Morkel - looks much better. Thanks

[Robert Amoruso]

Morkel,

Great tutorial. I think I woould like to see this processing on the OP as I like that composition.

Rachel,

Please run the above on the OP and repost. I like the strong V-inverted V composition framing in the vertical. I also like all the detail in the FG rocks. Morkel's rework did it justice.

[Rachel Hollander]

Robert - no need to run it on the op as Morkel had the raw although I don't remember cropping it. Also I don't have all the tools that Morkel refers to so cannnot replicate it.

Thanks,
Rachel

[Morkel Erasmus]

Thanks Robert and Rachel.



Robert - no need to run it on the op as Morkel had the raw although I don't remember cropping it. Also I don't have all the tools that Morkel refers to so cannnot replicate it.

I cropped for rotation as the horizon was skew in the RAW capture.
Rachel - you can easily replicate the steps using normal saturation, midtone contrast boost slider in the "shadows/highlights" section of PS and the sharpening actions I posted as a sticky on top of the thread. The actions I used are just 'better ways' of applying standard processing steps. :w3


Nevertheless - here are links to these actions that these amazing photographers have put up on their websites for free...:cheers:


In raw conversion - brought up fill light a bit and recovered highlights so that nothing was blown. Warmed up WB very slightly.

Ran LCE on the high res image once.
Ran Robert's luminosity multiplied mask once - 30% opacity then flattened.
Burned highlights 5% on the sky.
Resized to 800px using the sharpening action I posted as a sticky - the one titled "advanced web sharpening + glow" on the 800px setting. Left sharpening masks as is.
Ran another action by Hougaard Malan (www.hougaardmalan.com (http://www.hougaardmalan.com/)) for increasing midtone contrast across the range.
Ran the "Digital Saturation" action for advanced saturation by Alex Nail (www.alexnail.com (http://www.alexnail.com/)), adjusted mask opacity to 50%.
Burned shadows and dodged highlights on the FG rocks and BG mountains (5%).


Hougaard Malan's midtone contrast tutorial plus link to download the free action:
http://www.hougaardmalan.com/blog/advanced-contrast-application/

Alex Nail's saturation tutorial plus link to download the free action:
http://www.alexnail.com/blog/tutorials/digital-saturation/

And - for good measure - here is a link to Hougaard's sharpening tutorial and free actions...this is very similar to the one I posted in the sticky from Philip Perold, so either one works. I've used both with good success.
http://www.hougaardmalan.com/blog/sharpening-with-highlight-diffusion/

Hope this helps?
:bg3:

[Rachel Hollander]

Thanks Morkel, much appreciated. I'll have to play around a bit when I have more time.:cheers:

[Andrew McLachlan]

Very nice repost Morkel, and thanks for the links :S3:

[Andrew Aveley]

Great tutorial Morks , this looks a little oversharp??? Rachel , great scene and capture

[Morkel Erasmus]

Thanks guys.


this looks a little oversharp???

Perhaps I overcooked it on the mountains, but upfront is just fine for my tastes - also a personal choice this sharpening thing, eh? :e3

[Andrew Aveley]

Yeah , it is and with my eyes , eish :Whoa!: :bg3: