Fog in the Valley
Smoky Mountains, near Hyatt Lane. This image is a bit 'busier' than I like, and I had some questions about depth in the image, so I'm posting here for some feedback! Initially the mountains in the background were too bright, so I darkened that area some.
Last edited by Barbara Kile; 11-19-2009 at 11:14 PM. Reason: attach image
Sorry, image didn't upload. Someone tell me how to delete the post and I'll start over!
Barbara, it would be useful if you share the EXIF to comment on the DOF. As such, the DOF looks fine to me. The colors in the FG look very rich. A bit of desaturation would help as it hogs all the attention. I believe fog is the main theme here. Further darkening the far mountains and reducing the blue haze would give some more separation for the fog. Image can take some sharpening too. TFS.
regards,
ramesh
Visual depth in the image itself is what I'm seeking, not depth of field, but it was shot at 0.4 s at f/16.
Hi Barbara, I don't think the image is overly busy but I would suggest a crop down to the top of the clouds. I like the layers in the image but feel it's a bit oversaturated. It looks like it was shot in Cades Cove which has alot of photographic interest. In the future it would be appreciated if you state the shooting specs since it would help us to further analyze the image.
Yes, I can see how a crop down from the top would help. I did use some Topaz Detail, but at a reduced opacity. I can tone that down some more. Thanks.
Hi Barbara,
Welcome to the forum! Spec posting mentioned alreay but I do want to stress that this helps us greatly when evaluating an image.
OK....I agree with the visual depth issue (that is mostly PP'ing) but let me address one other first....the image appears over sharpened. That may be because you were trying to pull out more depth but just keep that in mind when re-working this.
First thing I did was do a reverse s-curve on the image (Robert has a tutorial here; http://www.birdphotographers.net/for...ad.php?t=20434 ) you will immediately see that it bring the contrast down and adds more depth to the image. I then went into Shadow/Highlights and brought down the highlights even further with very little brought up on the shadows. I did desaturate a bit as it was slightly too much for my tastes and finally added some black in selective color to both the neutral and black channel. These corrections added much more depth to the entire scene and playing around with some of the PP'ing techniques on the original will help greatly. Let me know what you think.
PS I do agree with the top crop but left it in to show the entire image.
Last edited by Roman Kurywczak; 11-20-2009 at 01:11 PM.
Thanks, Roman. I will walk through these steps in PS to be sure I'm following along. HDR &/or Topaz creates it's own set of issues - especially with visual depth - and I often use the USM 20/50/0 for contrast with good results, so there's more than one way to skin the proverbial cat.... I will review the tutorial and see how it applies when I perform the actions firsthand. I like your result and will let you know if I have further questions. Again, thanks!
Well, here's a re-post, but I can't say I'm happy with the image. In reality, it was a damp foggy morning and the hills should be a bit hazy, right? I ended up running Topaz Detail again just to give the image some pop, without going too far, I hope. I even ran the USM 20/50/0 just to add more contrast. Could I not have just done a USM contrast instead of removing the contrast and adding it back with the Selective Color?
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