I was in Newport Rhode Island the other week when they had the snowfall. Second Beach in Middleton is one of my favorite spots to hang out for relaxation, walking, etc. Anyway, the morning of the snowfall I went down to the beach and was surprised to see surfers - yes, in mid winter. So anyway, the sky was fairly dark, snow was still falling, everything was cold and gray and white. So the pic below is one of the few captures that I like, but for the darkness of everything. So my request is: can someone suggest some editing techniques to bring this image up to par?
What I don't like about it as is: in order to bring the surfer to greater light I end up with halos all over the place; the sky appears noisy when it really is mostly snow falling over the ocean; the surfer seems small in the overall but when cropped to make him more prominent, a lot of grain/noise appears.
Thanks in advance.
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ETA: I have tried tone mapping, masking, Neat Image selectively, levels and curves selectively. Any of these applied too strongly causes loss of wave detail, halos, ghosting with the mist around the rocks.
I'm not at my home computer to give this a try but what about a duplicate layer set to overlay or lighten blending modes? Adjust the the opacity starting at 20% and play with it a bit. You can cycle through all the blending modes and see what they do for the image and flucuate the oppactity to see what you can come up with. IF you like what it does to one par t of the image but not others then adda layer mask and paint the parts you don't want black, just a thought. Trevor~
ETA: I didn't realize you do not have PS, so I not sure you have these methods.
Big part of me says that I really like the feel of the dark image.
Duplicate the layer, hit with Gaussian blur at a really wide radius. Set to color and ALT/Mask it. Then paint in just the sky to blur out the noise. Some selective dodge to bring out the surfer and leave the rest dark. (JMO).
Mostly done in color balance layers, erasing back what I didn't want changed, then some selective color adjustments in the white drop-down, sliding the black to the left to make certain parts of the white in the surf brighter. A light pass of selective Neat Image too.
What I don't like about it as is: in order to bring the surfer to greater light I end up with halos all over the place...
Chris, in the image you have posted the surfer has no detail whatsoever..he's just a black silhouette. Does your original have more detail at that point? If not, that could explain why you just can't pull anything more from that part of the image.
the surfer has no detail whatsoever..he's just a black silhouette.
That is what I found very interesting with ALL of the surfers. All of them were wearing almost identical suits - winter surfing suits I guess since up close they appeared to have a lot of padding/insulation - with hoods and masks and you could not see anything until they were up close and they took their face pieces and goggles off.
the surfer has no detail whatsoever..he's just a black silhouette.
That is what I found very interesting with ALL of the surfers. All of them were wearing almost identical suits - winter surfing suits I guess since up close they appeared to have a lot of padding/insulation - with hoods and masks and you could not see anything until they were up close and they took their face pieces and goggles off.
That explains it! I wondered why even the face wasn't lighter.
Like that second shot, too. I think in both there is a lot of lovely detail in the waves. Stormy sea and it shows. :)
As for bringing up the light on the surfer, then, you can't really. If there's nothing there, it's not there. Use gentle methods to bring out the contrast in the water. In PS I'd use "levels" and adjust the individual RGB channels. Don't know what your equivalent would be.
By far the best of the edits IMO. You make the surfer pop out and the water white (as it should be). If you had the original file you could have made an even better job. But as it is, you capture the essence of the surfer on a cold winter day.
Mostly done in color balance layers, erasing back what I didn't want changed, then some selective color adjustments in the white drop-down, sliding the black to the left to make certain parts of the white in the surf brighter. A light pass of selective Neat Image too.
Originally posted by hihosilver:
Here's my boring two cents...for a very fun and action packed capture!
BTW, Chris, you might consider submitting this to PPChallenge.
(And if you're not Chris and you like this sort of thing, you might consider signing up over there.)
Thank you for the responses. Thank you Sandy for the comment - like gold in a silver mine - wasn't that Elton John? I like all the edits and I appreciate the efforts. There are elements of each I am going to try and incorporate into my final. I like to see other's take on a shot. Which leads me to an idea...
Again, thank you.
ETA: Kadi - what did I miss along the way? You are not where I thought you were. I noticed this some time ago but failed to mention it.
