Experiment_626
Stealth Geek
- Joined
- Jul 8, 2008
- Messages
- 1,652
Okay, here's another One More Disney Day image. I had placed it as a reply in the previous thread, but I think that one has more-or-less run its course.
A Dream in Gauzy Pink by Scott S. Baxter, on Flickr
I struggled with naming this image. Still not crazy about THAT part.
As this was my second castle image from the Magic Kingdom's "One More Disney Day" Leap Day shooting session, I pondered what I wanted to do with it for a few days before I started working on it. This image is a combination of an HDR and an exposure fusion, both made from the same five exposures with two stops between each. After I combined the two files I had generated with Photomatix Pro, I reopened the result in Adobe Camera Raw and made further adjustments.
We all know that the visual diffusion effect associated with fog increases with distance. I really wanted to preserve and even accentuate that effect in this image. To that end, in ACR I created two versions of the file. In one, I actually turned DOWN the Clarity slider somewhat to reduce the mid-tone contrast a bit. The other left Clarity at the baseline setting. The two versions were combined as layers in Photoshop. I used a layer mask to reveal the "baseline" version only on the foreground vegetation; for the ground cover on the left, closest to the camera, I painted on the layer mask in black, and I did the same for the tree branches at mid and upper right. For the river bank at right and the taller tree on the left, I painted on the mask at 50 percent gray so as to limit the effect but not eliminate it entirely. Everything else visible is the version with the reduced Clarity setting. I then copied the same layer mask and created a Curves adjustment to increase the contrast a bit on the same areas that had the baseline Clarity. Finally, I added a relatively subtle High-Pass sharpen layer, and this is the result.
One thing I really enjoy about this image, beyond its dreamy quality, is its ambiguity. I think that if you didn't know the circumstances under which it was shot, it would be difficult to pin down exactly what time of day it was. I could believe it was night, morning or evening -- and I have the fog to thank for that.
SSB
A Dream in Gauzy Pink by Scott S. Baxter, on Flickr
I struggled with naming this image. Still not crazy about THAT part.
As this was my second castle image from the Magic Kingdom's "One More Disney Day" Leap Day shooting session, I pondered what I wanted to do with it for a few days before I started working on it. This image is a combination of an HDR and an exposure fusion, both made from the same five exposures with two stops between each. After I combined the two files I had generated with Photomatix Pro, I reopened the result in Adobe Camera Raw and made further adjustments.
We all know that the visual diffusion effect associated with fog increases with distance. I really wanted to preserve and even accentuate that effect in this image. To that end, in ACR I created two versions of the file. In one, I actually turned DOWN the Clarity slider somewhat to reduce the mid-tone contrast a bit. The other left Clarity at the baseline setting. The two versions were combined as layers in Photoshop. I used a layer mask to reveal the "baseline" version only on the foreground vegetation; for the ground cover on the left, closest to the camera, I painted on the layer mask in black, and I did the same for the tree branches at mid and upper right. For the river bank at right and the taller tree on the left, I painted on the mask at 50 percent gray so as to limit the effect but not eliminate it entirely. Everything else visible is the version with the reduced Clarity setting. I then copied the same layer mask and created a Curves adjustment to increase the contrast a bit on the same areas that had the baseline Clarity. Finally, I added a relatively subtle High-Pass sharpen layer, and this is the result.
One thing I really enjoy about this image, beyond its dreamy quality, is its ambiguity. I think that if you didn't know the circumstances under which it was shot, it would be difficult to pin down exactly what time of day it was. I could believe it was night, morning or evening -- and I have the fog to thank for that.
SSB
