About that sky...

[JohnC]

I'm not sure if this is the right place or not but I'd like some thoughts.

First let me express that I personally do not like replacing a sky that wasn't there when I captured my image. That's me. For those that do, that's OK, to each his own, but I don't want this to go off on a debate of the relative merits of either approach. I've always like this photo except for the fact that there wasn't a cloud in the sky and I could never figure out how to improve the sky. I've cropped it narrower but didn't like that. I've cropped it shorter and didn't like that either. I've tried different vignettes but none ever satisfied me. The area that most bothers me is mostly the center, above and to the left of El Cap. The trees on the left and right do a fine job of filling the sky. But that area above and around El Cap is just downright annoying.

So, anybody have any ideas?

Oh, and just to show I'm not a total purist, I did intentionally turn it all B&W except for El Cap.

 

[AlanLichty]

I have never been to Yosemite so I have no preconceived ideas about what this scene "should" look like. I spent a lot of years in places where a light frosting of snow with a featureless overcast sky looking a lot like this are a way of life in the winter.

What you have presented looks perfectly natural to me.

 

[Ben Egbert]

First off, this is a gorgeous image, we don't always get fantastic sky's.

Second, this is absolutly the right place to post this and thanks for doing it.

What I think I would do would be to try to increase the contrast between El Cap and the sky. My first thought would be to increase the saturation and any other steps to give it some pop. The move to B&W elswhere was a great idea, so just take it further.

By the way, if you don't mind others downloading it and taking a run, be sure to include that infor here.

 

[JohnC]

I have never been to Yosemite so I have no preconceived ideas about what this scene "should" look like. I spent a lot of years in places where a light frosting of snow with a featureless overcast sky looking a lot like this are a way of life in the winter.

What you have presented looks perfectly natural to me.

Thanks. It is as you say, natural and I'm OK with that except that it just seems to annoy me that the sky there is so bland. I guess my thought is that it could be so much better with a better sky. It's not uncommon to have a bland sky in Yosemite, it just disappoints me that it isn't better.

First off, this is a gorgeous image, we don't always get fantastic sky's.

Second, this is absolutly the right place to post this and thanks for doing it.

What I think I would do would be to try to increase the contrast between El Cap and the sky. My first thought would be to increase the saturation and any other steps to give it some pop. The move to B&W elswhere was a great idea, so just take it further.

By the way, if you don't mind others downloading it and taking a run, be sure to include that infor here.

Feel free to give it a go if you want. I have attempted adding more contrast but ended up with too much noise by the time I thought the contrast was improved. The photo is about 2 1/2 years old so if I get motivated I may try some other things. I've started to dabble in ON1 so maybe it would be worth spending some time there on this one.

 

[JimFox]

Hey John,

This is the perfect place to post this photo with that question.

Can you upload an untouched jpg? And also a jpg that is 1 stop underexposed? I have been to Yosemite in snowy conditions, and like most anyplace when it snows the sky can often just be a blank slate. But it would be interesting to see if when underexposed there might be a little detail that could be coaxed from the sky still.

 

[JohnC]

Not sure what you're looking for Jim. I've made many little edits along the way (as well as cloning out a small car down the road near the photog standing in the street) and have many versions. The original, out of the camera photo would be lacking all of these edits.

But, I did discover my memory isn't what it used to be. lol! It turns out the above image is a color photo. What I did do was go into HSL panel of Lightroom and bump the red, yellow, and orange saturation in order to make El Cap pop more.

 

[Darcy Grizzle]

Not sure what you're looking for Jim. I've made many little edits along the way (as well as cloning out a small car down the road near the photog standing in the street) and have many versions. The original, out of the camera photo would be lacking all of these edits.

But, I did discover my memory isn't what it used to be. lol! It turns out the above image is a color photo. What I did do was go into HSL panel of Lightroom and bump the red, yellow, and orange saturation in order to make El Cap pop more.

I think that is what Jim is asking for, the original unedited image.

 

[Ben Egbert]

Here is the direction I had in mind, I overdid it to show the possibilities. I darkened teh sky slightly, then I added contrast and increaded red/yellow to El Cap.

 

[JimFox]

Not sure what you're looking for Jim. I've made many little edits along the way (as well as cloning out a small car down the road near the photog standing in the street) and have many versions. The original, out of the camera photo would be lacking all of these edits.

But, I did discover my memory isn't what it used to be. lol! It turns out the above image is a color photo. What I did do was go into HSL panel of Lightroom and bump the red, yellow, and orange saturation in order to make El Cap pop more.

Hey John,

Yeah, I can imagine from that location a few cars got zapped.

The reason I was asking about the original was because since you are asking for ideas with the sky, that in snowy conditions like this, it doesn't take much processing on your end (or anyones) to the lose any detail that might have been in the sky. So the reason for asking about the original was simply so that we could have an unedited sky to work with too. It's not a big deal, but it can help when dealing with the sky.

 

[JimFox]

Here is the direction I had in mind, I overdid it to show the possibilities. I darkened teh sky slightly, then I added contrast and increaded red/yellow to El Cap.

View attachment 9622

Hey Ben, that does pop more. The sky seems about the same to me though.

I will look at it closer in a few hours I have to run down to the local fair and drop off my entry this morning first.

 

[Ben Egbert]

Hey Ben, that does pop more. The sky seems about the same to me though.

I will look at it closer in a few hours I have to run down to the local fair and drop off my entry this morning first.

Yes Jim, I had to go gentle on the sky of this jpg before it started to posterize.

For the sake of illustration, the clones and edits John did would not matter. An out of camera 3k jpg would be nice to work on.

 

[JohnC]

OK, here is the straight out of the camera, no adjustments image. Only had to zap one car. ;-)

 

[JimFox]

Thanks John, that will make it easier to work with!

 

[JimFox]

Hey John, first off I had already worked up something from the first shot you posted, so this is an edit based off of that and not the SOOC jpg, that will come later.

 

[JohnC]

Whatever you did to the sky Jim, (more contrast?) has created a visible halo effect around the top of El Cap. My experience with trying to create potential contrast in skies is that you get either the halo effect where the sky meets non-sky and/or excessive noise in the sky. The excessive noise in the sky becomes much more noticeable when printing vs just viewing electronically. I've been down that road before.

 

[JimFox]

Hey John, yeah that's what's bad with working with 8 bit web versions, and I would never recommend printing anything from an edit. The point of this was more of to demonstrate the concept of what this would look like if the sky was darkened. No contrast was added, I only selected the sky and then darkened the white point for it about 15%.

 

[JohnC]

For some reason, instead of going to bed, I was up late last night working on this again. I took my edited version, backed down the exposure about .75 stop and then ran it through Nik Color Effects Pro. Don't remember what I did there because I was trying all kinds of options. But this is what I ended up with when I quit. I think it's better than where I started but I'll need more time to really decide.

 

[JimFox]

Yeah, I think I like this better also John. And I can feel for you with not remembering exactly what you had done with an edit, that has happened to me too.

 

[Ben Egbert]

I like the edit

 

[JohnC]

Yeah, I think I like this better also John. And I can feel for you with not remembering exactly what you had done with an edit, that has happened to me too.

I tend to experiment with Nik as well as ON1 for their effects. Many times I don't like my options with either and am happy to keep my original edits. However, both programs have some very good effects that at times, I like a lot. Additionally, I will many times adjust the opacity of their overall effect or even some of their detail sliders. As such, I almost never have an exact effect to re-use. But I'm fine with that because I don't believe any of my photos should have an exact go to effect applied.