December 1, 2008

Evolution of an Image


I’m thankful that Thanksgiving week is over.  I agreed to take “three portraits”—a family, three girls and my grandchildren.   The family turned into 23 different portraits (14 individual shots and 9 group shots); the three girls turned into eight different shots; and the grandchildren turned into a “one more shot” by grandpa.  At the end of the week, I had shot over 900 photos.  I wanted to give everyone at 6-8 images from which to select (you do the math).  Thanks to Lightroom, I was able to have the “semi-final” portraits and upload them for everyone's review by Sunday evening.

Today’s photograph is one that I took in March 2008.   The photograph was technically good; I liked the design elements.   But, the image lacked the emotional impact that I felt when I was taking the picture.   I was not sure how I wanted to process it.

Sunday evening (after finishing processing my week’s assignments), I started playing with these images.   The image is from Driftwood Beach on Jekyll Island, Georgia.   Looking at the image, I knew I had a very big dynamic range, so I did a spot metering on the various elements of the image and found that I had a 11 EV spread within the image.   I took five photographs of the scene at 1.5 EV intervals.  For all the images presented here, I started with a blending of three photographs shot at different shutter speeds.   Below are how my final three images evolved into the one that I think best capture the mood and feel of the scene that I saw (Image #3).

Camera settings:  Nikon D3, 17-35 f/2.8 at 17mm, shot at ISO 200, f/16 and 1/180, 1/60 and 1/20 of a second, white balance at 7,800K (wanted a warm glow to the image).

Post Processing: 

Lightroom—set white and black point, and added mid-tone contrast, added clarity and vibrance, and cloned some small hot spots out of image.




Image #1:  Photoshop—blended the three images to provide the overall contrast of the sky, the tree and the foreground on separate layers, merged the layers into  a single layer and then used nik Color Efex Pro Glamour Glow filter to give the image more of the early morning glow that I saw.








Image #2:  Photoshop—started with the results obtained in Image #1 and then used nik Color Silver Efex Pro to convert the image to B&W (this filter places the converted B&W is on its own layer).





Image #3:  Photoshop—started with the results obtained in Image #2 and then reduced the opacity of the B&W layer to 20% to mute the colors and provide a little more definition to the image.

I can see interesting aspects within each of the image.  I plan to present the picture at our photo club’s next honor’s night.   Not sure which one I will present.

Which one would you present?

9 comments:

  1. not sure which one.i see what you mean about different things in each.like you telling how you processed the pix.really really nice job.
    Ted

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  2. This is a really cool shot Patrick, undoubtedly another Gold award!

    Not having to be influenced by what you actually saw (reality); I think I would use the first version. It's vivid but not over the top. My second choice would be the third version. The B&W version looses some contrast between part of the driftwood and the background.

    Great shot any way you go!

    Cheers!
    Barry

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  3. I thought it was a tattered up sail and sailboat until I clicked on the image to see it larger. I think the third one is my favorite, I don't know exactly why except the first is too vivid for me and the black and white is too stark. I love the diagonal lines of the rays of the sun and the slanting driftwood and the blur of the sand, I guess from the shallow dof? --- I thought it was blurred water around the wood in the smaller versions. This is a very interesting and mysterious image with a lot of impact.


    And it sounds like you have been extremely busy, I hope you put down the camera long enough to enjoy some turkey with your family!

    Cindi

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  4. Outstanding. I like them all. I also enjoyed how you described both your thought process during the taking of the photographs and the the processing of the final (?) image. Good work
    Anne

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  5. Larry,
    I think I like the third one best also, but the Silver Efex black and white is not far behind. Great shot!

    Steve Schuenke

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  6. Sweet. Good write up telling how you did it. I like #2 the best. It reminds me of the old time b&Ws. I am also interested in the process you used on the portraits. Could you describe that sometime in the future. Keep the blog coming, I enjoy it.
    Jim

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  7. No way for me to choose a favorite out of these three. It’s a winner anyway you’ve processed it here. All have a dreamy surreal quality to them. I almost mistook it for one of mine! :)

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  8. Larry,

    Only you know what you were feeling when you took the picture, but I personally like the third one the best. The muted colors give it a dreamy quality whereas the first one is too "here and now." I like the black and white but I think you lost a lot of shadow detail in the conversion.

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  9. I would be proud to present any of these. The posted comments are all right and all wrong. It's art. You have captured a very wonderful place and a nice sunrise. Go present it how ever you feel like presenting it. Too often we try to look for the "one" and in reality there are "many."
    The Professor

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