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Blacktop.....here's the forum we all asked for....can you tell me how you achieved your latest few shots and what software you used? Thanks!
Hi Chris, I'll be glad to.
First I did what I usually do. I'll import the image into LR with CA and profile corrections enabled automatically at import.
On the barn shot I took 3 exposures, not because I wanted to do an HDR thing, but to make sure that if I needed to do a little blending it was there for me.
I ended up blending the 0EV and the -1Ev in PS. I really liked the way the sky was in the -1EV shot.
After this, I exported the blended shot to Color FX Pro, which is part of Nik Tools.
When I'm in Color Efex Pro, the first thing I do is go to the "Graduated Neutral Density filter. With this filter you can adjust the upper and lower tonalities of the image. You can blend them ,shift them and rotate them to your hearts content.
Once I got the exposure to my liking I added a little glamour glow filter. I used it on the sky, and the large grassy area in the front of the image.
The thing about this filter is, that it is very easy to over do it, then your image will come out way too soft and not very pleasant looking..
I also used the reflector FX filter. This filter allows you to basically have the sun shine on any part of the image.
If you look at my barn shot, you'll see that the sun is shining mostly on the right side of the image, especially on those 2 trees and the hay bale on the right.
One thing about using these effects, is that old adage. "less is more" You really want to be very subtle. A touch here or a touch there will make a huge difference. Too much, and you'll have a very unnatural looking image.
After I was satisfied with the way the image was looking, I saved it back to PS, where I did some selective sharpening.
When I first got PS a few months ago and discovered unsharp mask, I was going crazy, and a lot of my shots were over sharpened. Especially shots with a lot of detail, like trees and twigs and such.
One thing I never sharpen is the sky. I prefer a more softer natural looking sky to some of those harsh dramatic looking skies, but that's just my taste.
After I was satisfied with the sharpening, I saved the image back to LR, where I did a few minor tweaking on the overall exposure, adjust the whites and the blacks, then I saved it on my HD as a Jpeg.
That is pretty much it in a nutshell. I probably forgot to mention a few things, but there you have it.
If you have any particular questions about a certain part of the image, feel free to ask.