Posted by Matthew Cromer on November 29, 2007 at 6:29 PM
While a few vestiges of autumn hang on, this image portrays for me the feel of the change in season I see around me here in the triangle area of North Carolina.
Posted by Leann Greene on November 29, 2007 at 9:57 PM
Oh I like I like!!!
Posted by Bill Stice on November 30, 2007 at 8:51 AM
Matthew, this is really nice. I love the great detail in it. This looks like part of the Haw River. Is it?
Posted by Lance Warley on November 30, 2007 at 9:18 AM
Nice shot, Matt.
Did you do anything special with exposure to capture the fog so well? Like bracket/blend?
I've always had trouble with getting fog right and then still having other parts of the pic still be "not-fog".
Posted by Matthew Cromer on November 30, 2007 at 9:52 AM
Thanks for the comments, everyone!
Bill -- yes, this is the Haw, from the Old Greensboro bridge west of Chapel Hill. I've been expanding my explorations of the Haw, and have now photographed from most of the bridges over the Haw in Chatham and Orange counties.
Lance, my camera has a live histogram, so I generally bring the histo about as far right as I can while still having a small gap at the right edge to avoid blowing out any highlights.
In photoshop I tend to apply local contrast enhancements to all or or selected areas of the image (or both) using selected area feathering (100-200 radius usually) before applying LCE.
You can apply LCE using a USM with a very low amount and high radius (I usually use something around (20, 50, 0) to start with.
I also do selected area curve adjustment (basically applying an "S" curve to low contrast areas of the image, while leaving alone foggy areas) instead of or in addition to the USM technique, depending on the exact nature of tonalities in the areas I am targetting.
For example, in this image, I used a lot of LCE selected in the areas of tree branches, and pretty much left the river, fog and sky alone. To do this I used the irregular area selection lasso to get the tree branchy areas (you don't need to be at all precise!) and then feathered probably 150 pixels (on a 10MP image, this will vary somewhat depending on your file resolution). Then applied USM (probably 30, 50,0 on this image if I remember correctly) and also probably some selected S curve to the same area as well.
It's a very useful technique for balancing contrast in an image, and also leaving along things like fog that look very artificial if you crank up contrast across the whole image.
Posted by Lance Warley on November 30, 2007 at 4:22 PM
Thanks for the LCE tutorial, Matt!!!
Posted by Matthew Cromer on November 30, 2007 at 4:35 PM
The other thing to watch out for with LCE is that it can produce haloes.
My friend Tony Kuyper on a mailing list suggested a modification of this technique by "painting it on". I think that is an even better idea than selecting areas with the selection lasso.
Basically you just duplicate the background, apply a TON of LCE to the duplicate layer (say an unsharp mask in photoshop with (120, 50, 0). Then add a layer mask to "hide all" on the LCE layer.
Then you gradually paint in areas of the layer mask with a soft brush at 5%, 10% or whatever where you want more contrast. More brush strokes will add more and more contrast. I haven't tried this yet, but I like the idea!
In any event, I think LCE is one of the most important photoshop techniques out there. . . Play around, have fun! Here is a good tutorial.
Posted by Wade Hardy on November 30, 2007 at 8:08 PM
Fantastic image Matthew and you captured the scene perfectly.
Discussion
8 repliesBigger image here if you like
Did you do anything special with exposure to capture the fog so well? Like bracket/blend?
I've always had trouble with getting fog right and then still having other parts of the pic still be "not-fog".
Bill -- yes, this is the Haw, from the Old Greensboro bridge west of Chapel Hill. I've been expanding my explorations of the Haw, and have now photographed from most of the bridges over the Haw in Chatham and Orange counties.
Lance, my camera has a live histogram, so I generally bring the histo about as far right as I can while still having a small gap at the right edge to avoid blowing out any highlights.
In photoshop I tend to apply local contrast enhancements to all or or selected areas of the image (or both) using selected area feathering (100-200 radius usually) before applying LCE.
You can apply LCE using a USM with a very low amount and high radius (I usually use something around (20, 50, 0) to start with.
I also do selected area curve adjustment (basically applying an "S" curve to low contrast areas of the image, while leaving alone foggy areas) instead of or in addition to the USM technique, depending on the exact nature of tonalities in the areas I am targetting.
For example, in this image, I used a lot of LCE selected in the areas of tree branches, and pretty much left the river, fog and sky alone. To do this I used the irregular area selection lasso to get the tree branchy areas (you don't need to be at all precise!) and then feathered probably 150 pixels (on a 10MP image, this will vary somewhat depending on your file resolution). Then applied USM (probably 30, 50,0 on this image if I remember correctly) and also probably some selected S curve to the same area as well.
It's a very useful technique for balancing contrast in an image, and also leaving along things like fog that look very artificial if you crank up contrast across the whole image.
My friend Tony Kuyper on a mailing list suggested a modification of this technique by "painting it on". I think that is an even better idea than selecting areas with the selection lasso.
Basically you just duplicate the background, apply a TON of LCE to the duplicate layer (say an unsharp mask in photoshop with (120, 50, 0). Then add a layer mask to "hide all" on the LCE layer.
Then you gradually paint in areas of the layer mask with a soft brush at 5%, 10% or whatever where you want more contrast. More brush strokes will add more and more contrast. I haven't tried this yet, but I like the idea!
In any event, I think LCE is one of the most important photoshop techniques out there. . . Play around, have fun! Here is a good tutorial.