DPP-Part 3; Exercise 2

 

Exercise; Managing tone

 

For this exercise, I need to choose one image and manage the tone with post production software, a photo that ideally needs and matches the following adjustments;-

·         Set the black point and white point

·         Adjust the brightness of the mid-tones (If necessary)

·         Adjust the contract (If necessary)

·         Make corrections on localised areas (If necessary)

The above will be done in Jpeg, as I have a camera that shoots in Raw and Jpeg, I have to adjust the image in both formats, to start off with I will do the Jpeg adjustments.

I chose an image that had quite a bit of over exposure and is low dynamic, so to show how different the finished result will be.

 

Original image;-

 

 

1; Set the black point and white point

With this image I actually “set” the black and white points by using a threshold layer, instead a of just using the histogram.

 

2; Brightness of mid-tones

I only had to adjust the mid-tones slightly at this stage as the setting of the white and black points had done quite a good job.

 

 

3; Contrast

 

Again, as before, I only had to adjust this stage slightly. The image is clearly better since the enhancements, hence the reason I didn’t correct the localised areas.

Now on the Raw post processing, I have to do the following ion the raw format;-

·         Set the black and white points by adjusting the exposure and ensure the shadow and highlight clipping warnings are activated

·         Adjust the exposure, brightness and tone curve, I have to experiment with all

·         Experiment with Contrast and tone curve

·         If necessary, make corrections to the localised areas.

 

1; Set the black point and white point but adjusting the exposure

 

 I didn’t use the recovery slider for this as I wanted to follow the directive set out by the manual, so, I had to bring the exposure way down and create quite a dark image to work with, so to eradicate a lot of the over exposed areas as shown on this image, there was a lot more and this is the least clipping I could get the image too without blackening everything out.

2; exposure, brightness and tone curve

This is where I brought the image back and experimented with all three of the elements mentioned, again it was difficult to eradicate fully the over exposed area. But at this point, it was coming together quite nicely.

 

 

3; Experiment with Contrast and tone curve

I tweaked the tonal curve again and then experimented with the contrast to make the image really “Pop”. I couldn’t use the localised editing as I don’t seem to have it on my software.

4; Finished image

I think the Raw post processing is far superior than the Jpeg processing, the image stands out a lot more and everything, especially the clouds are more defined.