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Home > TME Community > Features > Digital Darkroom > The Great Photo Finish: Chris from Austria (Part 2) - July 14, 2009
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The Great Photo Finish: Chris from Austria (Part 2) - July 14, 2009
Started July 14, 2009 @ 12:38am by otter
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otter
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| The Great Photo Finish: Chris from Austria (Part 2) - July 14, 2009 | July 14, 2009 @ 12:38am | In this second part of a two part episode of The Great Photo Finish Craig looks at a beautiful landscape photograph inside of Adobe Photoshop CS4 and discusses the following:
- workflow ideas connected to cloning and healing
- option bar settings for the clone stamp and spot healing brush
- removing small areas of high contrast as a way to shape the design and flow of energy within the image
- using curves, levels, and color adjustments to continue to unify the design of the image
NOTE: We recommend that you view The Dailly Critique on this image (Chris from Austria) before viewing this tutorial as well as Part 1. Clicking on the links above will open them in a new window.
Click here to view the video.
"You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience by which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.'" -- Eleanor Roosevelt |
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Craig S.
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| July 14, 2009 @ 8:52am | A beautiful image and a great tutorial. Thanks for taking the time to put it together.
It looks like some of the bright clouds are blown out. Did you consider cloning some faint cloud texture into those areas, or did you make a concious decision to leave them completely white? |
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Craig
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| Thank you | July 14, 2009 @ 9:49am |
Hey Craig,
Thank you for being here and great question. Since Chris has shot straight into the sun here and the center of the sun is blown my tendency would be to let some of those cloud highlights near the sun go to pure white. Of course things like that are all subjective and based on feel and balance.
I can definitely see making a case for cloning cloud detail into those areas of the image.....Craig
"Each of us has an inner dream that we can unfold if we will just have the courage to admit what it is. And the faith to trust our own admission." Julia Cameron
PPY
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| July 14, 2009 @ 6:45pm | | Just wanted to say how much I enjoyed the continuation of your tutorial using this beautiful image Craig. I've always had a fear of having the sun in the frame and having to deal with the problems that that can create ... especially when using filters and this has helped me no end. Great image Chris. |
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Craig
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Posts: 471 |
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| thank you | July 14, 2009 @ 8:34pm |
Hey Jim,
Very happy to hear you found this helpful. Thank you for your support of TME!...... Craig
"Each of us has an inner dream that we can unfold if we will just have the courage to admit what it is. And the faith to trust our own admission." Julia Cameron
PPY
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David H
Posts: 8 |
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| Great Photo Finish | July 14, 2009 @ 8:37pm | Terrific job Craig! A combination of basic stuff (I always use the clone stamp on a separate layer but it never occurred to me to add a mask and use the brush to modify it) to your elegant artistic feel for image improvement. Can this latter skill be learned or are we left- brained people just destined for mediocrity? |
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Craig
Administrator
Posts: 471 |
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| Thank you | July 14, 2009 @ 9:47pm | Hey David,
Boy .... the answer to this question touches on the whole reason I teach....I believe we are capable of any transformation we can imagine. If you have not read Myth of Talent now might be a good time. I have learned everything I know about photography since I was 27. Movement on my own learning curve was very, very slow. I still have to work very hard at all of the areas of my art.. photography, music and writing. It never comes easy. But because of that I know what is possible with passion, desire, determination and sheer audacity and tenacity - energies and mind sets that are available to everyone
I believe in people that believe in themselves because I know that once people believe the rest is details. I also know as a teacher I can help people believe in themselves by being very open and transparent about my own process and path. I started at the beginning with very little natural ability. When most people see how bad I was in the beginning they start to get that hard work and practice are the keys.
If you are asking the question can you do it you have won most of the battle. Now all you have to do is say yes to the process. Or in other words..... practice, practice practice ..... Craig
"Each of us has an inner dream that we can unfold if we will just have the courage to admit what it is. And the faith to trust our own admission." Julia Cameron
PPY
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Last Edit: July 14, 2009 @ 9:53pm by Craig | |
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Rick Allen
Posts: 120 |
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| Enjoyed the Comprehensive Version | July 15, 2009 @ 7:11am | Craig,
Great critique and workup of this really beautiful image. As you say, there is no right and wrong in various visions of post. From my perspective, there are a couple of things I probably would have done differently.
First, the end state of the strong vignette does not appear to my eye as being consistent what would happen in reality ... meaning that the sun's brightness could not be that low at the upper part of the frame. I fully appreciate your intention, and perhaps a lot more work would be required to alter the image to strengthen the composition in the part of the image. But you know I am a broken record when it comes to the direction of light. Parts of the immediate foreground also seem too dark, meaning the light wouldn't shadow in quite that way. Don't mean to nit-pick, but I believe directionality of light is key to grounding an image.
Rick
www.RickAllenPhoto.com |
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Craig
Administrator
Posts: 471 |
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| Thank you | July 15, 2009 @ 9:46am |
Hey Rick,
Always appreciate your feedback. The interesting thing to me (and I'm being sincere here) is that you don't mention the sun star which is not grounded in any reality that we ever see.
In fact to my way of thinking about light and reality its the wackiest thing in the image - and its the sunstar and how it creates such a strong feeling of a circle - both literal (the middle) and implied ( the outer edges of the spokes) that I based all of my editing on in the image in terms of creating visual unity. Or in other words the sunstar is the main subject and its totally unreal.
As far as the direction of the light goes what I do seriously try to avoid is the feeling of shadows moving in different directions. But to my eye just adding the shadow in the foreground starts to create the illusion that the foreground is physically lower. Would light fall off that much - of course not. But vignetting is definitely a part of my style used as a tool to contain the eye. It also has a pretty big place in the lexicon of photography because of how heavily it has been used as a visual design container in printing, because of the natural vignetting of many lenses and because there is a perception that our vision fades at the edge of our own field of view.
That I may have gone too far with it here (or always go too far with it) to the point of creating a visual distraction for some or a lot of viewers is definitely possible Ultimately I would want to find a foreground in the field (in camera) that moved the eye in a circle at the lower part of the image but Chris may have been in an area where the foreground was just grasses with nothing else to break it up.....Craig
"Each of us has an inner dream that we can unfold if we will just have the courage to admit what it is. And the faith to trust our own admission." Julia Cameron
PPY
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Rick Allen
Posts: 120 |
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| Reality vs Not | July 15, 2009 @ 11:34am | Craig,
Neither of us will likely ever win an award for best photo-journalist image of the year, because we both thoroughly enjoy image manipulation for the greater(?) purposes of composition and design. I appreciate your vision of the star-burst and the circle of light it might create around it.
I could have chosen my words better in my previous Comment. I rarely concern myself about reality, but I do try very hard not to have my retouching be visible.
I eagerly await the posting of the 2010 composition class, if for no other reason than it will be most enjoyable to sit side by side and in real time work through one or more images together, explaining our respective post production philosophies.
Another parameter regulating post is, of course, the amount of time we are willing to sit in front of the computer. Eg, Moose has his 5 min rule, whereas I routinely spend 2+ hrs on any good image, and have spent >10 hrs on my best. I acknowledge that most retouching will be somewhere between Moose and myself, and as such our approaches will accordingly differ.
I hope you will get a chance to browse Gorman's newest book (as I retouched all of the images in the book). Speaking of Gorman, Sylvia just finished a weekend seminar with Greg, where he showed several iamges before and after retouching. I know from his retoucher that most of those took a week to retouch. Imagine how refined one can make an image in 40 hrs of post.
Rick
www.RickAllenPhoto.com |
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Last Edit: July 15, 2009 @ 11:37am by Rick Allen | |
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| Great Photo Finish | August 3, 2009 @ 11:04am | Finally got to view the original DC on this image and both of the Photo Finishes - very helpful. I love the way you blend lessons on technique with those on composition. It almost doesn't matter whether one agrees with the personal taste decisions because you'e imparting so much on how both to develop a personal style and how to make it happen. Thanks - please keep 'em comin'
Adam |
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assignment
Community Assignment #33
RGB
Due Date: September 17, 2010
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