This morning I was going to hike up to Lake Haiyaha but as I neared Dream Lake I realized that there wasn't going to be any nice light on the mountains due to heavy clouds but there was a chance of catching a little light right on the horizon. This is what I captured. I like it, but think that it still isn't quite right and I can't put my finger on it. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. (Remember, I only have Lightroom and PS Elements 3.0 and am not very savvy with post-processing so please keep it simple. )
If you could adjust the curves on the shadow end and bring out the mountain layers, that might help enhance it a bit. Also see if you can bring out the cloud colors a bit (that could be a bit more difficult...)
I love the sunburst, though there's a definite white/yellow ring effect associated that happens a lot with DSLRs.
I posted this from my laptop and now I see it on my main monitor. Yuck! You are most certainly right Les. I'll work on it and then upload it again to see if that improves things.
I've now messed with it, but it just seems to make it worse, both flat and enhancing that terrible ring. It looks quite good on my laptop. Now I just need to get everyone else's monitor adjusted.
Posted by David Svilar on May 23, 2007 at 12:26 PM
I saw the same sunrise and wish I was in a better place to capture it. I'm probably not the one to be giving advice, but you could try in Lightroom:
1. Increasing - slightly - the "Darks" slider to bring out some of the layers in the hills. I found if I went much beyond 10 or 15 I'd get some weird halos, so go easy.
2. Increase the " Brightness" slider, but beware of noise.
3. Go to the Curve and mess with the lower left portion to see if you can bring out detail in the clouds, hills.
4. Increase the "Exposure" while increasing the "Brights" slider (keep the sun from getting too bright).
This may all be obvious, but that's the best I can think of without using Photoshop. In the next few weeks, if you'd be willing to show me your gallery in Estes I'd be willing to let you use some of my fancy software on my laptop....
If so, I'd expose in ACR to split the image into two. On one, I'd bring the exposure down .5 stops or so to keep some sun detail. In the other, I'd expose up 1 stop to bring the rest out of the shadows. I'd keep color temp/tint and all the other settings the same on both shots. Save each shot as its own file. If you want to do any saturation adjustments I'd do the conversion in 16 bit and make the adjustments first. You will need to be in 8-bit mode for the next step.
Once each image is saturated and leveled the way you want do the following:
1) Open the lighter file in the editor first.
2) Then choose Layer -> new adjustment layer -> threshold. Then Slide the threshold slider until just the "sun" is white.
3) Select -> All
4) Edit -> Copy Merged
5) Then click on the Background Layer so that it is highlighted.
6) Layer -> new adjustment layer -> levels
7) Alt + Click on the Levels Mask. The screen should now be white.
8 ) Ctrl + V to paste into the mask.
9) Delete the threshold layer. Highlight the threshold Layer. Layer -> Delete Layer
10) Create a new blank layer. Layer -> New -> Layer...
11) Open the darker version of the image, the one exposed for the sun.
12) Select -> All
13) Edit -> Copy
14) Go back to the lighter version (the one with the masking applied)
Thanks Mel, I think that was very helpful! I've updated the image above. It's still not as I would like it, but I guess I blew out the sun completely when I shot it. I suppose I should have shot for the sun first and then for the rest of the scene.
The new version does what I was looking for, pretty much. Sky color and mountain details are much better.
Your Sun is about as good as can be expected. If you shot for the Sun first, you wouldn't have had enough data to pull back from the rest of the image. This is definitely a situation for a multiple-exposure shot.
Glad I could help. PSE3 can be a pain sometimes, but I've usually figured out a way to get most things to work. I adapted the threshold maks things from some things I'd seen Guy Tal do, and combined it with a Layer Mask tip Todd gave me a whole back.
Discussion
7 repliesI love the sunburst, though there's a definite white/yellow ring effect associated that happens a lot with DSLRs.
I've now messed with it, but it just seems to make it worse, both flat and enhancing that terrible ring. It looks quite good on my laptop. Now I just need to get everyone else's monitor adjusted.
1. Increasing - slightly - the "Darks" slider to bring out some of the layers in the hills. I found if I went much beyond 10 or 15 I'd get some weird halos, so go easy.
2. Increase the " Brightness" slider, but beware of noise.
3. Go to the Curve and mess with the lower left portion to see if you can bring out detail in the clouds, hills.
4. Increase the "Exposure" while increasing the "Brights" slider (keep the sun from getting too bright).
This may all be obvious, but that's the best I can think of without using Photoshop. In the next few weeks, if you'd be willing to show me your gallery in Estes I'd be willing to let you use some of my fancy software on my laptop....
I'm a PSE3 user too.
Did you shoot this in Raw to start with?
If so, I'd expose in ACR to split the image into two. On one, I'd bring the exposure down .5 stops or so to keep some sun detail. In the other, I'd expose up 1 stop to bring the rest out of the shadows. I'd keep color temp/tint and all the other settings the same on both shots. Save each shot as its own file. If you want to do any saturation adjustments I'd do the conversion in 16 bit and make the adjustments first. You will need to be in 8-bit mode for the next step.
Once each image is saturated and leveled the way you want do the following:
1) Open the lighter file in the editor first.
2) Then choose Layer -> new adjustment layer -> threshold. Then Slide the threshold slider until just the "sun" is white.
3) Select -> All
4) Edit -> Copy Merged
5) Then click on the Background Layer so that it is highlighted.
6) Layer -> new adjustment layer -> levels
7) Alt + Click on the Levels Mask. The screen should now be white.
8 ) Ctrl + V to paste into the mask.
9) Delete the threshold layer. Highlight the threshold Layer. Layer -> Delete Layer
10) Create a new blank layer. Layer -> New -> Layer...
11) Open the darker version of the image, the one exposed for the sun.
12) Select -> All
13) Edit -> Copy
14) Go back to the lighter version (the one with the masking applied)
15) click on "Layer 1" so that it is highlighted.
16) Edit -> Paste
17) Layer -> Group with Previous
18) Done!
Mel-
Here is the image before using Mel's process: http://morninglight.us/forum/07/0523x.jpg
Your Sun is about as good as can be expected. If you shot for the Sun first, you wouldn't have had enough data to pull back from the rest of the image. This is definitely a situation for a multiple-exposure shot.