This is another photo from that day on the border of Galicia and Castilla y Leon in western Spain. The flowers on the opposing mountain amazed me, and the white line at the bottom was interesting. This was one of the three most scenic days of my trip to Spain. Again, too bad I didn't use an ND grad filter. Post-processing in photoshop was to darken the whole thing with levels to get the background into a nice zone, and then brighten the foreground with some dodging (I learned how to do that well from an article on this site, now I can't find it anymore, anyone know where it went?). I find that darkening first and then dodging avoids overbrightening small patches, which I have been having problems with.
I'm just working on my masters at the moment, another year and I'll be done (over here a Masters is a 2 year research project). Some day maybe I will apply for a job at Rolls-Royce...I'm sure they could use another CFDer somewhere :-)
About the picture, luckily I do have an SLR, and also a polarizor. It is great. I believe I did have it on for this shot, but sometimes the angle of the light is such that it does almost nothing. And I'm not sure it removes the blue cast from images. In my portfolio, if you look at the shot called Square House you can see its effect in the darkness of the blue sky, although I turned it so that the sky wasn't totally black.
I may have some further questions about RR...may I ask you about them? my email is marc.robin@gmail.com.
Well Marc I had the same problem as you, shooting landscapes and not being able to expose the foreground & the sky correctly at the same time. To be honest it drove me nuts! Then I invested in a Hoya Circular Polariser, and that seems to have fixed 80% of my photos. Well worth the money!! Of course you really need an SLR / TTL camera to really get the most benefit, being able to rotate the filter & see the changing effect, but don't let this stop you!! You can still view the results on your LCD display after each shot & delete if you aren't happy??
Interested to note you have an Aero MSc. I work for Rolls-Royce in Derby...
Hi, thanks for the comments, I like getting feedback! Steve, Your Walla Crag photo is awesome. It's too bad I can't upload at full size, since then it's easier to see the differences. What I mean about the right formula is that my exposure is always off, the sky too bright and the foreground too dark. I haven't used a Neutral-Density graduated filter, which I suppose will help with that, darkening the sky before it hits the film! In the mean time this is what I do to fix the problem post-exposure:
1) Create a new layer 2) Set the layer to be an overlay 3) Fill the layer with 50% gray by going to File-->Fill-->Use: 50% gray 4) Use a brush at opacity 4-20% and with black and white, on the overlay layer, to brighten or darken whichever areas I would like. 5) When done, flatten the image.
It has its problems, such as if something is nearly white, burning it (using a black brush) doesn't do anything, or if it's close to black you can't dodge it. In that case I use a brush very locally on the main layer, which I don't think is a great idea but I haven't thought of something better yet as I still have a lot to learn and no time to learn it.
I also sharpen the images somewhat and play with the levels. And you are right about the blue cast, I played with the levels again and if I darken the blue channel a bit in there it looks much much better!
Hi Marc, just a quick message to say thank you for commenting on my image 'Walla Crag'. I can't understand why you say you 'can't find the right formula' for shooting landscapes - this is just excellent! It is just a little blue-cast, but perhaps that's the film or the scan? Regards Steve
p.s. Forgot to say congratulations on your UF award!!
Hi Marc, just a quick message to say thank you for commenting on my image 'Walla Crag'. I can't understand why you say you 'can't find the right formula' for shooting landscapes - this is just excellent! It is just a little blue-cast, but perhaps that's the film or the scan? Regards Steve
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