Pool of light technique

[Ken Rennie]

This is a similar technique to that used in my "Bonsai Waterfalls".
The image was taken in the Galloway Forest in SW Scotland ( Galloway is where belted Galloway cattle come from)
The original image is quite nice because the waterfall has a nice shape and the patterns in the splash pool are extraordinary. The straggly bleached grasses really annoys me as does the part of the rowan tree on the left.

This is the processing for this image, there were no local edits

Into ACR although almost all of this apart from cloning out the straggly plants could be done in lightroom. I use radial filter and then erase it over the water as I like this and don't want to darken it. NOTE this is an inverse mask ie it is applied outside of the initial oval.

This has darkened the rowan almost out of view and concentrated the eye on the things that I want you to look at.

However some of the rocks look nice and I want to give the impression of weak sunshine just luckily illuminating around the waterfall. So back into ACR and a radial filter with lots of clarity, saturation brightness and warmth

I am fairly happy with this although the straggly grasses are now beautifully glowing in the "sunshine"

So some cloning gets rid of them, not perfect but ok

Back into ACR to paint some more light on the rocks

I would normally leave it at this but decided that I would limit the spread of the patterns of the splash pool by using an inverted radial filter. I have used the eraser to remove the darkening on the top of the waterfall and the artifically brightened rocks around it

I don't know if it is any better than the original, it is different and you are in little doubt about what I want you to look at.

It looks really complex and lengthy but cloning apart it takes approx 5 minutes.

Any questions then just ask Ken

 

[Ben Egbert]

Wow, I had no idea it was this extensive. Even if it is only 5 minutes, it has lots of steps and a lot of judgement for the stuff you excluded and included. This is the ley to a good image, knowing what to keep and what to discard. Watching your work flow, helps a lot for this subject.

I need to find and learn how to use radial filters.

 

[JimFox]

This is very cool Ken. Thanks so much for listing your steps here. We can move this to the Articles later, as this is a great step by step method of processing a waterfall.

And, I need to dig up one of my recent waterfall/cascade image to use these steps on.

 

[Ben Egbert]

Ok, I went looking for an image that might work. This is a huge crop from another image and I was not able to get rid of the bright right hand rocks. I also found radial filter and used it as described. I tried to tone down that rock and this was about as far as I got.

I am going to have to find different places to start with for this technique to work, but knowing the desired end will help me in that effort.

 

[Ken Rennie]

Ok, I went looking for an image that might work. This is a huge crop from another image and I was not able to get rid of the bright right hand rocks. I also found radial filter and used it as described. I tried to tone down that rock and this was about as far as I got.

I am going to have to find different places to start with for this technique to work, but knowing the desired end will help me in that effort.

View attachment 40724

Ben bright sunshine doesn't work, or I can't make it work. Easy to clone it out. I will produce another set of instructions after the weekend as I am off to the seaside for a few days. Ken

 

[Ben Egbert]

Ben bright sunshine doesn't work, or I can't make it work. Easy to clone it out. I will produce another set of instructions after the weekend as I am off to the seaside for a few days. Ken

Right and I don’t always have bright sunshine but I wanted to try your technique and the big problem is not bright sunshine but finding single subject areas

 

[Jameel Hyder]

Ok, I went looking for an image that might work. This is a huge crop from another image and I was not able to get rid of the bright right hand rocks. I also found radial filter and used it as described. I tried to tone down that rock and this was about as far as I got.

I am going to have to find different places to start with for this technique to work, but knowing the desired end will help me in that effort.

View attachment 40724

The bright rocks are blown and so just a luminosity adjustment won't fix it. A simple way to tackle it is to create a solid color layer with the darker colors of the rock. Start with a black mask and paint white over the bright areas. Change the blending mode to darken.

Also the water needs to be much brighter.

I took the liberty to do a quick edit. After dealing with the bright rocks, I went into raw filter to adjust the water luminosity.

 

[Ben Egbert]

Nice Jameel. Thanks for doing this.

 

[AlanLichty]

I was thinking I had some waterfall images that might fit this technique quite well since I shoot a lot of them in dark woods. This is from a December visit to Sweet Creek when darkness and damp rule the woods.

 

[Ben Egbert]

This came out very nice Alan. I don’t expect to find many places that will be simple enough for this technique but I am thinking about using elements of it to come up with my own look for the waterfalls in my area