Lessons

Lesson Info

Student Image: New York City

right. Okay. We're nearly done. I don't want to tell you anything new. We're kind of done with new content. Kind of. My brains tend to marshal forgetting where things are in menus on, you know, I'm saturated, so you guys certainly must be. So what I want to do now is I want to bring it on up on Daddy's gonna tell us about on image that I should like to look at. What kind of going through the same process here. Although it's not something we shot this weekend, you'll see in a minute. So come and have the okay. Simon Jenkins is tilting back. A cold one. He wanted you to know that. Thank you, Simon. I'm getting there. Give me another hour and 10 minutes, and I will be too. Okay, so we've got this three images, um, just dragged them into Fota Matics. And you can explain why you be interested in taking a look at them. I kind of think the point you made about not being able to get the results you want to this kind of interesting one here. Okay, so let's just set this going. We'll go with exa...

ctly same sentences before. We don't need to explain this again. So right can tell us what we're going to look here. So, essentially, this is a shot I took from the top of the rock 30 Rockefeller in the New York City. I didn't know as much then as I do now, so I only took three shots minus two e v zero and plus two Reavy eso. Those are the three shots were emerging and I tried doing something with this info Automatics didn't get such great results. I ended up turning Teoh Nik hdr FX pro with which I was more successful. So now that I've learned more about photo Matics Pro, I'm quite curious. See what we can accomplish with it. Yeah. What kind of the bases? That conversation. I thought I'd be really interested to come up because you've got a result. You like this mother software, But no. Perhaps when we understand that much better. Well, let's see where we can get on. So we're not worrying about ghosting? Probably assume movement somewhere in amongst here. But this level of detail, we're not going to see it. So let's just click OK on. We can jump straight it So is wait for it to go through a sequence of steps on. There we go. So let's just make sure these the right the right sliders for this image on Not this is the point I was making earlier about sliders that you need to watch out for. Which ones you looking at? Somebody took about two. That and click tone. My confusion. Right now. Biggio, let's shrink that down a bit. So you can see See the image? Um, a little bit smaller than that on Get that from the presets. That's the whole image, isn't it? Yeah. On Let's go to default right before we start. What you aiming for? What do you want this to look like when it's done? What? My intent was not unlike some of your photos where you have that sort of soft glow that you get, you know, at sunset. And so part of my aspiration here was you know, there's quite a few lights all across the landscape there. So I wanted to sort of bring those out. And, of course, the sky was spectacular. Um, and, uh, yeah, I'd like to enhance the sky. Okay. At this stage, kind of back reference sister stuff we did yesterday. So when you're at this stage, what you want to be thinking about two is what can I then doing Photo shops? If you're talking about the color and things like that, you might be talking about on overall tone for the image. You're not gonna be able to get that for automatics. But maybe you're thinking account kind of soft, muted, but a tome so one of the decisions you might make it. This state is turned down a saturation a little bit because the colors are quite strong. But we could get we could go through the changes, but bear in mind kind of the first shop stuff as well, because what we're doing is we're not trying to create finished product here. We're trying to create something that we can send out and refine and hands lights are on. So let's have a look. Then I'm click the default button. So we're kind of at the you know what photomontages considers to be. The English expression would be bog standard, middle of the road kind of results. If we take a look at the presets, we can kind of look at some what some of the wants of the pre defined options would be. So we could do that. Not quite what I had in mind. I would guess. You're gonna say that on we could look it on, enhance a smooth Maybe that's going in the right direction. Enhancer Painterly is one of the quite like, sometimes a starting point for kind of a slightly more surreal look, I'm gonna guess you're going to say that that's one HDR step too far. Oh, I two or three. I do like the way it brings out the lights in the building. I think the sky might be overdone, but I do like the way the the lights of the various building that's shining through. Okay, let's flick back to kind of enhances smooth. So do you like the sky better in this version? Yeah, that seems more more realistic. Case, right? Listen, let's go back to painting and what the benefits of paints list. So it's even know with Scully for a minute. We're kind of getting a lot more detail. Yeah, it's not so much. The lights, I think, is kind of with increased by going to the enhancer painterly. What we're doing is increased the local contrasts in the bottom of the image we go to smooth. Where you kind of see is it kind of looks? It's always like a change in time of day, isn't it? Kind of that's in earlier on in the afternoon, maybe the sun's bank to go doom, and that's maybe half of their 45 minutes after sunset. That was other things going on there as well, but it's because it's increase. The contrast of the bottom there is. It's big in the light saying so, which shall we use as a starting point? That one or that one? Let's let's try painterly. Okay, you guys so painfully strength has gone up to 100. Color saturation is kind of middle middle of the range, but you suggested we might want in Laurette. The color saturation would possibly depends. It kind of depends on what you want to do, what you want to enter it kind of. It's not cold as such, but it is kind of a very neutral sort. Blue what you might want to do those leave that one alone until we've had a look at the saturation highlights and saturation shadows because it may be that it's the saturation of the highlights. That's the issue here. They look a little bit overdone, so maybe we'll come back to that. Okay, so in terms of strength, kind of happy with things kind of overall level? I think so. In terms of you mean tonal range here. Yeah. Yeah, kind of one thinking that the stage is you can kind of start dragging these slides around, provided you do it one time. You're gonna be able to see the change. You don't want to drag three and then look, eso kind of retake strength down a little bit. What? What you see we're doing is what kind of edging back towards enhances smooth. Because kind of one of the big differences between the two presets is in terms of strength. So suspect. You think that looks OK? But I'm gonna guess if I leave you to it, you will end up plunging it back from 100 because it ends up looking a bit more natural. If you get fined that final level with the strength slide where you were, you kind of happier with the results you have to let go before for it to redraw. Oh, yeah, that's right. Yeah, I keep forgetting this. Yeah. Getting used to your little track pad here. I don't know. That looks pretty good to me. It may be also that detailed contrasts we might nudge down a bit too. Let's try that. I'm kind of torn between wanting to limit the effect partially in the sky but wanting it in that middle building in particular, which really stands out to me. Kind of. One of the problems here is I was thinking through is well known for producing two versions and learn together. But what we need to do then, is some quite complicated masking because will have the effect on kind of the lip building on left blue spire in the middle and the other tower. Unless you're quite careful, we'll end up with you'll be able to see the joint that the process again, toppling building, different to learn, damn kind of thing. If we could get close, one exposure is unlikely. Match. You just go overboard here. See? Really? Where did we start? We didn't start with started about here than we. We're not good Yeah, this looks right to me. Let's see. Let's. Even though I know this won't work, I'm gonna go to surreal. Nope. And I'm gonna go to natural both sides of the, uh, actually natural versus, you know, it's a tough call thing Natural. Looks more natural. Yep, Medium was kind of medium is more balance. But this is kind of what we're saying about the lighting adjustments. The more you increase the fact, the more your kind of standardizing the contrast adjustments in different areas. It's about time you get up to surreal. Plus, everything kind of looks the same. Did you need to see that? You're going to see that? Okay, it goes completely flat. So the local contrast everywhere is pretty comparable. So any sense of scale, you kind of lose their to know. You're quite right, us. So I don't think I want to switch these around too much. I don't want it that much darker at this stage. No kind of. One thing here is you have got some highlight clipping bots. A lot of that is, in terms of air is an image that would be naturally very bright. So that kind of these windows. So some of that clipping is not in all three channels. That's gonna have an effect down there. Yeah, So you don't. I agree. You don't return that too far. So what? We're trying to avoid clipping in this case, we don't attack it all unnecessarily. So black point, I think I agree. Uh, gamma. I mean, it's a night scene, so we could could lower it a little bit. You think we should wait for this battle for the shop? You could do either way could low. We could lower the brightness here and then if we wanted to brighten a bit in food shop or vice versa. Could make a bit brighter and make a dark lighter. Doesn't really make a difference. Kind of the output from fota Matics pros. Quite this high quality, 16 bit files, kind of mind changes to brightness in Photoshopped. It's not gonna have a negative impact on the image temperature. Actually, think this is pretty. Uh, yeah, I like it. Yeah, yeah. It might be worth against Dragon about having to look at, but I suspect that it's not gonna improve. It is gonna go kind of purple again if you go that way. You stayed grey. So you see what I mean about the temperature slider? It's kind of a little bit arbitrage on the sky in the shot of the resolution. One human kind of went a pinky purple. Um, on this one has come kind of gray, but no, I kind of think it looks pretty much, actually. Maybe a little. You like cool? No, no. I was thinking maybe a little bit warmer, because then you kind of get more color back over on the right. Inside, you get more natural tone on the building's new because the buildings wouldn't all the blue kind of nice graphic effects, but they wouldn't look like that. So maybe wrong. The temperature up big shifts the building to a more natural color, but it does a bit of warmth back, you know, from the right side of the image. Okay, So, looking good. I can't remember this one. Micro smoothing is the one that kind of softens off the detail Contrast. That's probably not the effect I'm going for here. No, I kind of see it. Probably gonna leave that one alone. Uh, saturation highlights actually think the highlights are actually fairly saturated as it ISS. So, uh, I'd be curious. I don't think this will work, but I'll try it nonetheless. Yeah, I certainly the sky ah did not benefit from this. Let's go the other way. It's hard to tell. Yeah, I kind of think you don't want extreme effect here. You don't obviously don't want to de saturate the highlights because there's a nice colors and nor do you want to make them look totally implausible, So I would probably agree. And that's good saturation in the shadows. Well, probably want to do this in Photoshopped as well. Um, I'm still hoping to get a better sky, but this probably is not the place to make it happen. Yeah, that didn't give us anything in the in the sky as I'd hoped. The green in the building got carried away like this. Kind of Remember how these work it's on the basis of the brightness in the original scene. So although you've now got locked shadows in the sky, you didn't have in the original okay, because the sky would be uniformly bright and it's a town weapon. Processes increase the density of the plans. So saturation highlights. In fact, we drank it all the way down. We should see even claims on left. Um, not quite. Because you can see the edge There goes gray on. It's not a shadow. So even if we take down, it's no high on either. It's kind of a mid term value. Now, in fact, the only bits that you're trying to effect is the only bit of image that these lines have no effect on. I kind of think maybe just a little boost of that on, OK, the shadow smoothness. Actually, when we didn't do much with the smooth highlights, this one right, here we go. This was the one I was trying to demonstrate with a bushel area shot, you remember, had virtually no effect whatsoever. Um, we turn it right up here. It has a huge effect. Now this turns back to that question, Jim about Do I save presets, folks? Matics pro. This is one of the reasons why it would never work. We've kind of got a similar image here, you know, we got range of tones we've got dark, we've got light. But on this occasion, you know, I could drag the smooth highlights from one side to the other with the previous image, and it was kind of a minimal effect here. It's an absolutely huge difference to kind of you skipped over that slider. Did you did. But that's kind of the what? And probably one of the reasons you skipped over it was because adverse effect before, but trying now, because he kind of the point about sky. Yeah. So if we enhanced it a bit, what did we start out with? 00? Well, yeah. So this is more than a bit. Then I find the sky becomes more realistic rather than the crunch. Here sky, get this way. So maybe something in between. So I think this was kind of your point about the previous version that you couldn't get the sky looking right? Yeah. I mean, it's certainly more dramatic if I keep the smooth highlights down to zero. But given my intent to make things more realistic on also my recollection of the events Now, when impact am I having on the building in the process? Very little, because buildings and not part the highlights again, remember, kind of the highest. The highlight of the original scene. So if you imagine what stood there kind of the lights and the buildings of bright with the buildings and dark, it's kind of the wrong time of day you got you got residual like this guy, but not much like falling onto the buildings. Where is the sun setting kind of over here, Right? So we've got no direct light on the faces of the buildings. Were looking at the kind of backlit, if anything, a tall, probably this Sinclair on the horizons. Everybody's residual spill of line. So it's the sky that's bright. So when you're smoothing the highlights, you know, even return it all the way up Absolutely well. There's probably is some effective buildings, but this resolution I can't tell, kind of go up to. One thing is, Well, is Berryman what I said about using these sliders in conjunction with each other? Because what we have here is a very natural sky. But it kinda looks wrong now because it's a more surreal four grams. So you might say, Well, I shall like that sky. So let's change the foreground. So as with photo shop, concentrate on the better the image looking at don't try and bounce everything at the same time. So get this guy to where you want it. And if we need to do anything with the buildings, we could do that. But they're kind of two separate steps. It's a different set of sliders. So don't Yeah, just go for what you want for the sky on. Then we'll change the buildings to fit somewhere in here. Okay? Right. So how did the buildings look in relation to the sky? Well, maybe they look surreal of to me. I mean, did the they really stand out when you're there in person, they they're actually quite sharp, quite crisp, and so that that's that cut. It seems to fit my recollection while the skies actually more ethereal. You know, it's so kind of in terms of creativity. Then things kind of works that the building is looking a little bit more surreal. It's garlic. Unnatural, actually. Enhances what you're trying to get across. Okay. You guys are over a client. You're tweeting working. I was working with Okay. Where do you think we're up to? Has it looking? I'm actually you were mentioning regarding the buildings being very sharp and crisp I'm actually very much liking was coming out here, and I think the sky does have a bit of an ethereal effect that you're mentioning as well. Um, you know, I'm liking what? You're what you're generating. Cool. It scared me. So it looks over processed to you. To me. Yeah, but for my taste, it's a little strong. The building's air Little to brighten gray. Yeah, yeah. No, not for me. But again, I think we're into the This is not criticism. It is. I'm trying to just point out that there is a degree off judgment here. So your image, I would have pushed a little bit harder. You wanted to break off a little bit further. What we don't have is we don't have halos. We don't have any obvious HDR artifacts kind of thing. We need to see when we get into fat shoppers walks. It needs a little bit more overall contrast. But I think in right lines. Any other thoughts? I hear your point, though I have not published this image on my blog's so far because I felt a little thorn because most of things I published are more realistic. And this one you know, seemed to go over the edge. So I've been have been on the fans about it, right? Celeste? You were waving. Look, a bit like my name is Kenna. And yes, I was waving. I know it is. I don't I knew what you went. Uh, Claire of r a. Has asked when he refers to the original image. Which image does he mean? Since there were multiple exposures? When did I say original image? More than I say. When you in room. When I was talking about the original scene, I think what kind of original scene is kind of what's there? So it was in the context of talking about the smooth highlights. The original is the fact that the brightest bit of the scene is the sky. So kind of that will come out in the original exposures as well. But I think maybe the confusion knows what I meant was the original scene itself. Not any of the particular exposures. A couple of people who were commenting on works. Um, we're commenting on the the effect in the buildings and wondering how you would could you selectively tone that down? Yeah. I think in this case, if we're kind of going back to the top record protected strength down a little bit, Um and what that would do is kind of change. The balance of the light of it has become in lunch that damn, what we're doing is lighting the sky and decreasing the amount of local contrast in the buildings. Alternatively, put that back office about 93 wasn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. The other thing we could do is take down the detail contrast, because that's kind of really bringing out on the detail in the buildings. That's what we're doing. There is a kind of lightening up the buildings rather than the sky. So we're changing the balance again as well. We could take down luminosity kind of that expends the tonal range against the kind of the darker areas have been pulled apart from the highlight areas. So again, the buildings will look a little bit less crunchy. So I suspect, actually getting nearer. So what, you would like their with the buildings? Yes. So we knew, I think probably got rid of surreal edge. But we've retained enough of the detail and enough of the color from pop Austin name. If you wanted to make this a black and white image, would you have started out the entire HDR process using one of the black and white presets, for instance, you so created in color and then turn it black and white in photo shop. But I would take it into photo shop because what you've got is you've got some contrast in color You've kind of got blue in the sky You've got the red here you've got the red and lights If I d saturated now it's like when we don't yesterday with you Saturation It just goes black and white from using the black and white All you know, I can selectively change the density of this area of the image because it's orangy yellow We read If I want a dark in the blues Aiken do so so no, Never convert to black and white this point. I think the point I made earlier is it. Sometimes if we're going back to saturation slider, you kind of want an idea about how it's gonna look. I kind of pull it down, and that will give you a sense of hair. It might looking black and white. It's in black and white is gonna need a lot more contrast on with the color you kind of got. You've got the color contracts and again, this is what we're talking about. Estates. So one of the flicker images to remember the one of the apple on the floor kind of the contrast of the image didn't change, but because the background went sound, which is exactly the opposite on the color wheel from the apple, which is red, you get a much greater sense of separation between the two. So here you've got the separation because you kind of blew officer against the orange on you. But all the lights are set. It's the blue there. You kind of lose the color separation. So the image looks as though he's got less contrast in terms of actual contrasts into the brightness. It's much the same, you know. Look at this time, it's not changing, but we kind of retain the color saturation sounds that looking now in comparison to the version you had, what software did you say? It isn't Knick? The Knicks self. Where was this looking comparison version? That's difficult. You can't see it from you. Well, and it's also I whether remember, is the final image, which I also did process later in life room. In my case. Well, what type of sound is it looking better now that at this stage it's definitely great start. Yeah. Yeah. So you don't want to bring back? Took quite a bit of detail and you did it. Does it work? Yeah, because I think we'll do other things to it in influence as well. It's just, uh have a go on again. As I was saying at this stage, you take take a look at how it looks because sometimes it would look quite different. I'm on this occasion. I think that's fairly close to the thing we have on the screen. So let's save that on And student files. It's been in your folder various time. So, like in photo shop. Okay, so what does it need name? Well, I certainly did the disk. I think I has a lot of details, but there was almost more of a sort of a purple tinge to it, at least in my recollection. Okay, let's leave color for now. You run from yesterday kind of record out the color now. But if we also the contrast in the saturation and the way in which we call is gonna change, let's think about contrast for a minute. What is it? But there's something bothering about the sky apart from the color. Are you happy with Sky? Not happy with this guy? It certainly could have more tonal range, but it might be at the expense of realism. Would you think of that one? David? Is this, uh, this more realistic to you? So I kind of think the same contrast. It's little bit flags. Does that look to you? No, it's verging into 22 Surreal for me. Okay, change. Just try changing the blend. Naturally, Minister, That's great suggestion. I never do this, but that was a great tip. You taught us. Now does that look better? That does look interesting. It's probably a little to the dark spots of Probably a little too dark for me. Okay, right. One thing we might think about this stage, and then we start looking. This image is if we go back into Votomatics Pro, we only do the tone mapping and we jumped back to town making settings what we did. Waas were skipped over this thing here, which is the black point. If we take that back, we're gonna open up the emission of it. Kind of. This is the point I was making back. It wasn't clips, but you were reading some quite dent shutters there. Um, so no. Yeah. Okay, so this process go ahead and start from that new version. Yeah. So let's save this one. Uh, let's just call this one on the skull, be It's this one. That's a 13. I don't dining, sir. Yeah, right. So you can see immediately. The shadows aren't quite tense, So let's create a car. If you don't want increase in situations of this time, I'll switch into luminosity first. Andi, how's that look? That looks interesting. It's actually reminiscent of my other show at the Times Square shut that that you saw earlier and which was partially the saturated. And so I was a set. I think they work better together as well. But what we're seeing in one thing that might work here is on optimistically, every image states That's kind of getting a bit boring. One of the things about HDR is it it does open up the image right to the edge, sometimes adding a vignette. Ah, and again I'm using value off 250 which is the maximum you can use for vignette because I want this effect to be kind of a subtle is possible. It also needs to be levelled. Yeah, yeah, What? It needs to be levels and kind of touching up to do down here that bright blue, but needs to go. But let's kind of concentrate on no one knows what is. I'm going to load this selection on just use because everything yet go back to the other adjustment. There are used on kind of block off the edge. So kind of that layer just the middle on the next one up does the vignette Mrs De Select that Bring the edges down a little bit And there's Purcell flow with Father. Now if we look again the original so that kind of looks quite flat Now How is that looking? It might still be a hair to dark in the shadows for me that we're better. Yeah, right. Let's leave it left new because there's less to the color. What were you saying? about color. Well, did the sky had this kind of crazy purple tinge to it certainly has. I mean, this sunset took 15 minutes. So it evolves. This is just a moment in time, and I'm not sure which in the sequence I pick, So definitely it turned. Not just magenta. Turn purple. Okay, well, I'm gonna use my favorite tool again. And Andi, I'm actually gonna go magenta first. So what we're gonna do with this green curve to go Magenta? Where's this curve gonna go? It will go up nearly. Okay, down. Oh, yeah. You know, that's a very, very small change. But if it kind of talking about their on off, that's having quite a big effect now, Is that kind of the color? Yes. Yeah, I thought it might be so. That is magenta because it's interacting with blue. We've kind of gone to this kind of purple shade on. It's not really affecting the reds over there too much. Kind of going a little bit. A little bit redder than they were Orange kind of has that looking there Definitely better. Yeah, Yeah, I don't know. I off the cuff. I don't know. Besides straightening it and cropping it more carefully fixing the blown out spots. I don't know what else I would do to it from a Tony or color standpoint. You have other suggestions? I'm not quite like that. Faults? Yeah, lights. Does it look less surreal to you now? Oh, is that so? Still bothered by the buildings like that? Gray is standing out to me pretty strongly different. No, no, not just the front. All of the little we're getting I think it comes back to again. Creative intention. So for me, this kind of I get more of a sense of kind of all here, Andi sparkly nous and interesting and visual run. I kind of rather it had a slightly surreal edge. I love standing in places like this, looking at buildings. So if you can get that across in the processing, I think kind of that works. What we could do as well is maybe just kind of warm up the highlights. A little, not a bit of yelling. I'm just bring that back up. Why should use the purple? That might be tough, green down touch. It's a kind of it's not a huge change with curve in terms of where the lines physically are, but it makes kind of a big difference. The image Can you try changing Do opacity on that layer? Maybe just bounced. Say, I don't know, 80%. Yeah, just kind of get together. Fact. Yeah, get a little bit more subtle. Wallpaper online saying they like the image. Yeah. They were also commenting about I think, what we're saying here about the face, this side of the buildings feeling to light because of the way it's lit they still think they look a bit Let with two lights just a bit. Okay. What we could Dio is just chucking in the curve sensibilities. Little like that. Maybe that looking actually, it was kind of interesting leaving home. I was talking the whole thing. Damn gorgeous love this the most. I love that picture. Iraq's I like It looks great. Now they're liking it. So does it look better when we're making out with dark like this? Our way Good on my left. Yeah, it's kind of dark in the whole thing. Damn! And it kind of looks more like nighttime. Now that that kind of looks too bright Assumes we did that what I was going to do was kind of fade this across the foreground. Really? The sky alone, um, like, kind of thing, bringing all down to that level. What's quite well, So much bigger? Yeah. You know, I find it a bit distracted, but with an easy target that Yeah, it was very difficult shooting conditions at the top truck. Much were not allowed. Thing was shut without a tripod. You're verticals. Nice. A strike that kind of rises a bit wonky. What I suggest for this image is wrong. The raw files through the lens correction filter with little during light. Remarkable do shop on that kind of straightening out horizon, get them all straightened up on, then save them on a 16 tiffs and take those into Votomatics because you can't do You can't correct that rise at this stage when I should have a line. You can. There is a wide doing it which will quickly show you. Um, it's been like pallets back. So if I duplicate this latest we've got let's work on, we're gonna break anything on a, uh, a guide. It's a human you guide horizontal. I'm doing now. Is this kind of adding a line that I can use to measure against the horizon. This is not part the image is kind of an over life. So is stepping down quite a bit, but it's also it's also dipping. It was kind of his curving off, isn't it? So, um right, weaken Dio is Let's leave guide. Um, let's leave it there. If I select entire emission and it's transformed on skew I'm gonna do now is pull up that side of the image. So I kind of haven't compromised. I could have pulled the other side down. If I did that, I'd lose him. The buildings here I've lost live with this kind of kind of pulled out resume in, see how much distortion with created and no way straightened it that way. There's no there's not actually a huge man distortion. It's kind of slightly slightly higher. At nine sewing Pulis comes top. It was probably a tunnel that further. I know that it looks like it was curving. I don't think it is. It's kind of a cane hit return. Um, some dust to remove as well. Yeah, views. Clear the guy. No, I don't need that so they were kind of fixed it. The problem with rotating this image is if you rotate it, you have to crop back in and you kind of losing stuff. So you would loosen these deep the building details. The other problem with rotating is your buildings are actually straight. Yeah, you can kind of see the spine here is completely straight. This sign is fractionally off my pulling out a little bit, but this one looks restraint as well. Kind of lined up. So you might use a skew again just before you just a little bit. It's kind of innocents that it would rotate. It would have certainly lost the spire over here on you would have lost from the building detail. So this time all we've done is kind of just put up a little bit to level off. Yeah, I kind of think we're right. Almost jungle. So that does that work as well as your previous version? Well, no, I ended up doing some of that, but it, uh, it works differently, but yes, it's certainly, you know, a great result