'the barrage'

[T-Man]

Understand. Thanks!

 

[hark]

I can't honestly remember, but generally if I'm tweaking someone's shot and I adjust something I'll include everything I did, so I suspect all I did was play with the Levels and straighten the horizon. If you've never worked with the Levels Adjustment tool in PS/PSE you'll be astounded to see just how much a photo can change when you limit the light information to just what's in the photo. In flat lighting, where there aren't a lot of dark and bright areas, there's a lot of flat in your histogram to either side of the bump. Moving the left and right endpoints in from 0 & 255 (the 8-bit limits) to where there is actually light will then stretch your available light spectrum out to utilize the full 8-bits of the tool (i.e. first light to the left may be at 35, right may be at 230, meaning you're working with a compressed spectrum of 184 bits instead of 256). Moving the endpoints reinterprets that compressed information across 256 bits, often making the image pop.

Since I am not familiar with the Levels Adjustment tool, what you wrote is Greek to me! That said, I do believe I will enroll in a Greek class because this sounds too tempting! I want to investigate it further and figure out how to make these adjustments! :excitement: Once again, thanks for the detailed information. Not only are you an exceptional photographer, you are a terrific teacher, Jake!

 

[BackdoorArts]

By no means a full tutorial, but...

Scott, I hope you don't mind the use of your photo in the beginning - if you do, I'm happy to delete it (it's currently unlisted and only linked here).

 

[hark]

By no means a full tutorial, but...

Scott, I hope you don't mind the use of your photo in the beginning - if you do, I'm happy to delete it (it's currently unlisted and only linked here).

Wow, that is chock-full of information, Jake! So do you normally adjust the exposure by using the histogram? Since I haven't used the histogram for anything yet, I edit solely by eyeballing and moving the exposure, highlights, and shadows sliders in LR and PSE10. I watched this a couple of times but will go back and take notes so I can apply this to my own photos. Thanks Professor Jake!

 

[BackdoorArts]

So do you normally adjust the exposure by using the histogram?

I don't adjust by the histogram, but the histogram is the central part of the levels adjustments window, and as such I always adjust the left/shadow and right/highlight sliders as the first part of my Photoshop workflow, even if I have eyeballed exposure already in Lightroom. By setting these points correctly, all other light adjustments have greater impact. If I hadn't set the highlight endpoint first in the second photo in the video, any adjustments I made to highlights or the lighter portions of my photo would not necessarily do what I wanted them to do since I had about 50 points of dead air on the right of the histogram. I believe these are critical, if only to make the most of your tools, let alone make the most of your photos.

So you know, clicking on the Auto button in ACR/LR will usually set the left and right points for you in the adjustments it makes, but it also does other work I'm not always fond of. I find this gives you the purest rendering of the image you took before you start with the real post-processing.

 

[Pretzel]

Love the 2nd edit, Scott. Very nice water flow. Love how the greenery stands out, and the fisherman as well. Instead of "lost in shadow", both now feel like a vibrant part of a great shot!

Only other thing that strikes me is where the horizon line falls. I can't place my finger on as to why, though, so take that worth a grain of salt. Kind of feels like it falls slightly higher than that magical "third", but again... can't say for sure. At work, so can't fidget with the photo to see if it would make a difference to my eye changing where it falls in the pic, and it's a very slight move, so may not make any difference at all.

edit: 2nd glance - Didn't even notice the little guy in blue standing in the middle of the greenery until a second look at that second edit. I'd almost say heal him out of the pic and keep just the other fisherman for scale and the "serenity" of the pic.

 

[hark]

I don't adjust by the histogram, but the histogram is the central part of the levels adjustments window, and as such I always adjust the left/shadow and right/highlight sliders as the first part of my Photoshop workflow, even if I have eyeballed exposure already in Lightroom. By setting these points correctly, all other light adjustments have greater impact. If I hadn't set the highlight endpoint first in the second photo in the video, any adjustments I made to highlights or the lighter portions of my photo would not necessarily do what I wanted them to do since I had about 50 points of dead air on the right of the histogram. I believe these are critical, if only to make the most of your tools, let alone make the most of your photos.

So you know, clicking on the Auto button in ACR/LR will usually set the left and right points for you in the adjustments it makes, but it also does other work I'm not always fond of. I find this gives you the purest rendering of the image you took before you start with the real post-processing.

I guess what I meant to say was that you used the little buttons underneath the histogram to make those changes. In all honesty, I have a tendency to not even look at the histogram during editing. I definitely need to change that bad habit! Thanks for the info, Jake!

 

[BackdoorArts]

I guess what I meant to say was that you used the little buttons underneath the histogram to make those changes. In all honesty, I have a tendency to not even look at the histogram during editing. I definitely need to change that bad habit! Thanks for the info, Jake!

Those "little buttons" are what makes the Levels tool a "tool" and not just the histogram.