Yeah, I know it's the NW forum, but I'm still working through tons of SW images and would like to get some feedback. I spent a day scouting around the popular Lone Pine/Whitney area above the Alabama Hills looking for ways to compliment the dramatic peaks. I found this small clump of flowers (the name of which escapes me at the moment) and stopped down to F20 with a 17mm to maximize their impact on the landscape. Sunrise didn't work out but I did capture a nice showing of light near sunset and the strong wind died down just long enough to allow a brief capture or two. Canon 5D, 17mm, ISO 100, 1/2 second at F20, 2-stop hard and 2-stop soft grads.
Marc,
If you were to crop off the dark part of the sky, I think this would be alot better. IMHO, this is far from your best work but, it's not a bad shot either. BTW, it doesn't matter where you took the image. I even posted a shot of a giant canyon from Mars. And look, I made it back in one piece.
OK Guys, here it is, step by step, everyone asks all the time, my ultra-top-secret-web-sharpen-process. Well, not really. It gets out often enough. I don't mind sharing. It's very unconventional and beats anything for sharpening web-size images.
- Take full res image and reduce size to between 1000 and 1300 pixels. As much as 1300 for detailed forest scenes and such, 1000 for rock and more simple images. Apply "Sharpen" filter (easy enough right?) twice.
- This will create a very oversharpened, noisy, mid-size image.
- Futher reduce image size to your web preference, such as 600 or 700 pixels.
- When reduced, this "tricks" Photoshop into applying an ultra-fine USM that you simply cannot acheive through other methods and all with maybe a 5-10% increase in file size vs. traditional methods - which is rarely a problem (I saved this one on 10)
- Play around with this technique and make it work for you. Every image is different. Sometimes I'll apply a sharpen filter 3 times at 1500 pixels and then reduce for an even finer sharpness (this is what I did for "winter dream"), but other times it has too much of an adverse effect on color. Sometimes I'll just lasso an area (here the middleground) and apply the filter 3-times and 2 to the rest of the image before reducing. Just experiment.
- Last, keep in mind not to sharpen skies too much as this will unecessarily increase file size. Do local touch-ups with 'sharp brush' to improve textures/definition in sky and water.
Marc shared this with me a little while ago and this is by far the best sharpening technique I've ever used for web presentation - From my time working with this process, I've concluded to NOT apply any sharpening to your photos - even in RAW for the best results.
I have an action that does this technique but on the second passof "Sharpen", I have selected "Fade" and made it a user editible step in the process so that fade can be at 100% if you need more detail or 0% if you only want one pass of sharpen for a softer look.
Marc, that is a very dynamic scene - did you also get a little closer to the red flowers ? They are awesome to offset the greens but I would like them a little bigger... maybe in a large print this would be perfect but I like this (with the crop and maybe even lighten the top a bit more) a lot.
I have experienced very few problems using this technique in conjunction with a previously sharpened full res. RAW image (in Adobe RAW). I suppose this could vary depending on your RAW sharpening preferences.
Posted by Ned Fenimore on May 31, 2006 at 10:38 PM
Hey, thanks Marc for sharing the technique.. I appreciate it!
Posted by Mearle Gates on May 31, 2006 at 10:59 PM
The flowers appear to be Scarlet Gilia, a.k.a Sky Rocket, a.k.a. Gilia aggregata. They like those pretty dry conditions in sagebrush country.
I like the top half, and I like the bottom half but I don't know if I like the two together. The red flowers are such a feature that I'm having a hard time appreciating the comp as a whole.
Yep. My thoughts exactly Mark. I kept searching for a better comp. but without much luck (I only had one day to spend there). I REALLY wanted to find more of those flowers! Some middle-ground interest to tie it all together would have been perfect, but nature dosen't seem to provide enough perfect compositions. Mearle, thanks for the tip on the flowers.
and even if it were flowering it would be too in line with the red flowers and the mountains. You needed something red over there on the right just past that second bump.
Posted by Mearle Gates on May 31, 2006 at 11:53 PM
I played with this a tad in PhotoShop. If you select all except the sky and boost contrast +27 it makes a huge difference. That will add greatly to the life and sparkle in this image, in my opinion.
I found +27 to be too much - but pop up a brightness/contrast layer at +7/+14 and a saturation layer at +10 and the image sings a lot more vividly..... I masked out the sky and probably would use something other than Brightness/Contrast to do that edit. But I personally love this shot - THIS is what the Eastern Sierra feels like when I'm there.
I found +27 to be too much - but pop up a brightness/contrast layer at +7/+14 and a saturation layer at +10 and the image sings a lot more vividly..... I masked out the sky and probably would use something other than Brightness/Contrast to do that edit. But I personally love this shot - THIS is what the Eastern Sierra feels like when I'm there.
Discussion
16 repliesIf you were to crop off the dark part of the sky, I think this would be alot better. IMHO, this is far from your best work but, it's not a bad shot either. BTW, it doesn't matter where you took the image. I even posted a shot of a giant canyon from Mars. And look, I made it back in one piece.
- Take full res image and reduce size to between 1000 and 1300 pixels. As much as 1300 for detailed forest scenes and such, 1000 for rock and more simple images. Apply "Sharpen" filter (easy enough right?) twice.
- This will create a very oversharpened, noisy, mid-size image.
- Futher reduce image size to your web preference, such as 600 or 700 pixels.
- When reduced, this "tricks" Photoshop into applying an ultra-fine USM that you simply cannot acheive through other methods and all with maybe a 5-10% increase in file size vs. traditional methods - which is rarely a problem (I saved this one on 10)
- Play around with this technique and make it work for you. Every image is different. Sometimes I'll apply a sharpen filter 3 times at 1500 pixels and then reduce for an even finer sharpness (this is what I did for "winter dream"), but other times it has too much of an adverse effect on color. Sometimes I'll just lasso an area (here the middleground) and apply the filter 3-times and 2 to the rest of the image before reducing. Just experiment.
- Last, keep in mind not to sharpen skies too much as this will unecessarily increase file size. Do local touch-ups with 'sharp brush' to improve textures/definition in sky and water.
I have an action that does this technique but on the second passof "Sharpen", I have selected "Fade" and made it a user editible step in the process so that fade can be at 100% if you need more detail or 0% if you only want one pass of sharpen for a softer look.
Marc, that is a very dynamic scene - did you also get a little closer to the red flowers ? They are awesome to offset the greens but I would like them a little bigger... maybe in a large print this would be perfect but I like this (with the crop and maybe even lighten the top a bit more) a lot.