Chincoteague Fantasy

[Dennis Bishop]

I was looking through some unprocessed shots from October 2008 the same day I saw a reference to the use of luminosity masks in Photoshop. It was a great coincidence. If you don't know about luminosity masking, here's a good reference -- http://goodlight.us/writing/tutorials.html (Tony Kuyper Photography)

Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge, VA, 11:35am

100 ISO, 1/400 sec, f/8, 34mm

single exposure saved as-shot, -1EV, and-2EV in Adobe Camera Raw and processed in Photomatix
Topaz Simplify -- preset based on BuzSim but with less saturation and other modifications (layer visibility later turned off)
Snap Art -- Color, Pencil Portrait, 100% opacity. This is the source of many of the colors in the ocean.
Snap Art -- Stylize, Line Art, Small Features, based on Topaz layer, used at low opacity. This is the source of the gray partial outlines in most of the image.
Levels
Photo Filter (Underwater) -- lowered opacity and masked to affect only the water
Gradient Vignette -- very low opacity

When all that was done, there were distracting dark areas in the clouds in the upper right corner. (I'm going to post an image, below.) Before allowing myself nearly enough time to really learn about the fine points of luminosity masking, I used it to lighten those areas. There are two keys -- a layer filled with 50% gray and blended with Soft Light, and a luminosity mask based on the brightness levels in the RGB channel. Once those things were in place, I simply painted over the dark areas I wanted to lighten with a reduced-opacity white brush. Using Soft Light prevented it from lightening anything already less than 50% gray, so it wasn't at all tedious. Tony Kuyper explains it much better than I am.

[Dennis Bishop]

This is how the image looked before the use of the luminosity mask to reduce the darkness in the clouds in the upper right.

[Andrew McLachlan]

Very nice Dennis. love the effect. If it were mine I think I would crop from the top to eliminate the clouds in the upper left corner...but that's just me. I could see this printed large.

[Dennis Bishop]

Very nice Dennis. love the effect. If it were mine I think I would crop from the top to eliminate the clouds in the upper left corner...but that's just me. I could see this printed large.

Andrew, thanks for your comments. I'd appreciate it if you expounded a bit on why you'd want to eliminate the clouds in the upper left. If I were going to get rid of them, I'd not do it by cropping. When I looked at cropping from the top as a remedy for the dark clouds in the upper right, I rejected the idea because it would've brought the horizon too close to halfway between top and bottom. Compromises ...

Actually, I'd already cropped from the bottom to bring the horizon down. I'm not obsessive (I hope) about composing around divine proportions, but -- when I did that crop -- I superimposed the lines from a golden rectangle program to use as a guide. After cropping, not only did the image height and width make a golden rectangle but the horizon divides the height according to the divine proportion. Soooo, if I get rid of the cloud in the upper left I'll do it by some way other than cropping.

[Indranil Sircar]

This is beautiful, Dennis. I love how you have processed and the overall effect. The breaking waves, the clouds and a small patch of the sand, all adds to the image. Personally, I would have preferred a bit of contrast and so I played around with it by bumping up the neutral in selective colors. That also brought out the vignetting just a bit more and taking the focus away from the cloud Andrew mentions. Hope you don't mind. I agree with Andrew - this can be a large print

[Dennis Bishop]

This is beautiful, Dennis. I love how you have processed and the overall effect. The breaking waves, the clouds and a small patch of the sand, all adds to the image. Personally, I would have preferred a bit of contrast and so I played around with it by bumping up the neutral in selective colors. That also brought out the vignetting just a bit more and taking the focus away from the cloud Andrew mentions. Hope you don't mind. I agree with Andrew - this can be a large print

I don't mind at all, Indranil. It's good to actually see how others would envision an image. This particular image is one I think works well with both high and low contrast. At one point -- actually, maybe more than one -- during the processing, I'd ramped up the contrast, but I felt more like having it softer by the time I was done. Thanks for your comments.

[Brendan Dozier]

I like this composition you created, Dennis. Like the pastel colors, and the color pencil drawing look to it. My personal pref is to add a little more contrast as Indranil did, and also maybe use Topaz Detail - cranking up the fine detail slider to bring out the pencil strokes more if possible.

[Cheryl Slechta]

Dennis, I believe I like the OP the best. I tend to favor pastels so I imagine that's why. Thanks for the link - I've read it before but will revisit it.

[Julie Kenward]

I'm with Cheryl on this one...that high key/washed out effect is really nice in this case! I also like Indranil's take on it but the first post gets my vote here. I especially like that one lone bird at the base of the image...wish he was more to one side or the other but still like that he's there. This image really did make me feel the sun on my face so you accomplished your goal of recreating what you originally saw!

[Maureen Allen]

I also prefer the OP. This is warm and lovely. Nice, Dennis!

[Andrew McLachlan]

Hi Dennis, I vote for the softer version in the original post. Cropping a little off the top for me is simply a personal preference...I just like the little clouds in the center a little more towards the upper edge of the comp.

[denise ippolito]

Dennis, I like the OP too. I do think that Indranil has presented us with another take which is nice too. I also see Andrew's point about the clouds in the ULC. It comes down to what you like. For me I would evict the bird. Nice job with the filtering and this has a nice peaceful painterly look that I like.

[Steve Adkins]

Very cool image, Dennis! Neat spray off the rollers. The colors of the surf/comp/painterly look of the OP put this over the top for me. Thanks a bunch for sharing your work flow.

[Bob Miller]

HI Dennis....very impressive image! I too prefer the softer OP.....I do think the bird should be evicted....its so small it just acts as a distraction rather than add to the image.