Tuesday, July 2, 2013

Week 3 Part 1: Extreme Makeover : Sunset in Montana and Stable in Saratoga

This picture was shot by one of my friend in montana:


As the assignment states "all I want you to do is find one photo that needs correcting ", I think this image fits the description. So I asked for the RAW image and I corrected it. On an image that is so extreme what I begin to do is some kind of tone-mapping using a technique I call auto HDR. instead of doing HDR with multiple pictures with different exposure, I create multiple Jpeg copies of the same image after changing the exposure in the RAW editor. for this image I did not want the HDR to be an "effect" but just a rescue tool so I tried not to over do it. before doing the color and contrast correction I had to reduce the color noise in the picture to remove those random colored pixels. I then used a combination of curves, hue/saturation, on selected area some time on a separate layer with a mask to reach the interpretation I had in mind. I then made sure that the color system was consistent for example the color of the snow compared to the maximum light of the sky or the purple haze on the mountain as a complementary color of the sky color ( as the shadow is not black but the complementary of the light ). Finally few small touches like boosting the red boat or adding some sharpness. It was more work than expected, but the result shows that even when we think that a picture is lost there is still a lot of information left in the pixels. Here is the finished product.




I found another one (from the same photographer) but this time completely overexposed:



I did the same but pushed more the HDR on the "effect" side because I think it works well with the old wood and the spot light inside of the stable. I had to correct the perspective and crop a little on this one.



I spent more time on the color and the halo of the light inside as I wanted it to become a stronger part of the composition


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