Tonal reconciliation

[I Simonius]

I want to do something that is probaly one of the most often requested and obvious things to do but I have tried with not much success.

I have taken a pic where either the sky is properly exposed or the ground is, but due to the huge tonal variations both cannot be properly exposed at the same time, neither can the details be realistically pulled out witH the 'levels' from the same shot

As you can see from the enclosed pics, one has sky well exposed, and one has the ground well exposed with the sky blown out,(unfortunately shot as jpegs not Raw, with no levels adjustments yet at all) The last - if it uploads with my dreadful attempt to merge the two.

What I did was: use the wand tool to select the blown out sky, inverse it, cut it, paste it onto a new layer on the pic with the well exposed sky. then using levels try to get the two to look realistic together. As you can see I have failed.

I wonder if someone can explain how to do this properly?

ps.
Top sky exposure 250@f8
bottom section 40@f8
hand held, braced against one of the huts handrails
Canon 20D
50mm f1.4 lens

[I Simonius]

This is the third pic - my attempt from the previous post

[mrclark321]

Can you make these larger....I would really love to see them!

Dan

[I Simonius]

Can you make these larger....I would really love to see them!

Dan
Is that OK now?

[mrclark321]

Thats better....I am not one to be judged by, but I like it.
Great job!!

Dan

[I Simonius]

Thats better....I am not one to be judged by, but I like it.
Great job!!

Dan

Thanks for the vote of confidence Dan,
BUT
I don't think the bottom section looks right at all!

When I adjusted the levels for the first section, it brought out the sky detail as you see in the thrid combo pic, but if I try to get the bottom section of that shot to look Ok it just will not, the saturation isn't there in comparison to the sky so it looks very odd.

However with the bottom section pasted from the second shot it doesn't look right either, not professional , it looks cutesey. Maybe I just can't visualise it properly.

Part of the problem is that actually the ground IS in shadow, which you can discern sufficient detail from with the eye, but when you lighten it up enough to get the visual acuity in the print representative of the eye, it becomes too light.

Looking at it again, maybe it's the 'contrast' in the ground part that's too high?

Looking at it AGAIN, I think the problem stems from my having made the sky more saturated than it looked IRL, so I guess my question MIGHT need to be - how to reconcile the ground with such a sky?

[pdrow]

This is really rough, and since I Was not there, I dont't really know how it looked. I did this with layers and a layer mask- very rough where the edges joined. Because you were not exactly in the same spot or the crop is a tad different, I had to use free transfomr and make the sky a ilttle bigger. That was my top layer. I erased roughly the too dark beach. Next, I adjusted the levels of each layer. I adjusted the beach layer again using the shadow highlight tool. The trees still didn't look right, so I selected them and Adjusted the contrast.

Is this more what you had in mind?

It was really rushed as I stayed home to clean house today and not play on the computer, but I would sooo much rather do this than clean house. <sigh>

[pdrow]

I guess it is ok to post edits in this section? I didn't think to ask first. If you want me to remove it I will.
pam

[MartyK]

Ok here's my attempt.
I copied the light pic over the dark as a new layer and adjusted to 50% opac.
then Adjusted levels on each layer to get it close to what I wanted. Then flatten the image and play with levels some more.

[I Simonius]

I guess it is ok to post edits in this section? I didn't think to ask first. If you want me to remove it I will.
pam

OF COURSE it's OK Pam!

That wasn't quite trhe effect I was trying for but thanks for trying!

I do like the saturated sky I have done,, that's what I really like, but it's the beach I can't get right
You're right about the crop of the second pic, it might not have been spot on - I took a tree as a reference point and tried to put it in the same place on the second shot, hand held

[I Simonius]

Ok here's my attempt.
I copied the light pic over the dark as a new layer and adjusted to 50% opac.
then Adjusted levels on each layer to get it close to what I wanted. Then flatten the image and play with levels some more.

That looks much more realistic than my attempt but as ~I said to Pam, I did want to try to keep the OTT sky. I think your version is a very accurate representation of how it ACTUALLY looked. I wanted to exaggerate a little but still have it llook realistic

It's complicatyed this Photoshop stuff, to get right isn't it?

[pdrow]

Simon, I ran this one thru virtual photographer. First one is just the sky on the sunset filter and the second is the flattened image thru the sunset filter.
The second one is a little scary looking. I really like playing with those filters.

[pdrow]

Ok, last try :) I like this one a lot. It is the spice filter in the Virtual photgrapher.

[I Simonius]

Ok, last try :) I like this one a lot. It is the spice filter in the Virtual photgrapher.

aye, that's no bad; what is 'virtual photographer' - I don't know about this one?

[pdrow]

http://www.optikvervelabs.com/ it is a free download. works as a filter. There are a lot of additional filters you can also download to go with it on the site. The extras are not as convenient to use, but still cool.
pam

[I Simonius]

http://www.optikvervelabs.com/ it is a free download. works as a filter. There are a lot of additional filters you can also download to go with it on the site. The extras are not as convenient to use, but still cool.
pam


Bah!PC only! :lol:

[RAitch]

Here's my try in the few minutes I could spare.

[Hellashot]

The images posted here that are a composite of 2 original images look to be blunt - fake. Something out of a special effects movie because we know we don't see things like that in real life. It looks as if it were taken on another planet.

[George7]

Had to have a quick go. Mask for foreground made from chanel - dupicated then levels adjusted. layers palatte shown.

[sykocus]

I had a go. You only supposed to use this technique with 2 identical images so it's use a tripod and/or use raw and convert 2 seaperate images with a couple stops difference in exposure. oh well.

In photoshop: take the darker image and paste it to a new layer on top of the lighter image. create a layer maks on the top layer now copy the background/lighter layer (ctrl-click the layer, ctrl-c). now hold down alt and click the layer mask of the top layer (the actual white square). press ctrl-v to load the background layer into the layer mask (it will appear in b/w). now apply a gaussian blur to it (5-10 pixles, i used 4 :p). Click one of the other layers to see the result. afterwards you can mess around with curves and levels of the bottom layer and the opacity of the top layer to fine tune the image.

[I Simonius]

Here's my try in the few minutes I could spare.


certianly they seem closer

[I Simonius]

The images posted here that are a composite of 2 original images look to be blunt - fake. Something out of a special effects movie because we know we don't see things like that in real life. It looks as if it were taken on another planet.

Thanks for your honesty, but, in the images I personally have posted there has been no post processing apart from adjusting the level. No filters etc.

We do gget amazing sunsets here. The thing I think which makes it look fake (and it is they way it looks in my comp which is what I was asking for advice about) is trying to get the beach illuminated when it is almost dark IRL.

IRL the sky wasn't quite that saturated that evening, but it often is, I only brought tthe levels in slightly, so it's not a LOT more than could be seen with the naked eye

[I Simonius]

Had to have a quick go. Mask for foreground made from chanel - dupicated then levels adjusted. layers palatte shown.

tanks for trying , I can see some of the technioques and ned to play with them myself

[I Simonius]

I had a go. You only supposed to use this technique with 2 identical images so it's use a tripod and/or use raw and convert 2 seaperate images with a couple stops difference in exposure. oh well.

In photoshop: take the darker image and paste it to a new layer on top of the lighter image. create a layer maks on the top layer now copy the background/lighter layer (ctrl-click the layer, ctrl-c). now hold down alt and click the layer mask of the top layer (the actual white square). press ctrl-v to load the background layer into the layer mask (it will appear in b/w). now apply a gaussian blur to it (5-10 pixles, i used 4 :p). Click one of the other layers to see the result. afterwards you can mess around with curves and levels of the bottom layer and the opacity of the top layer to fine tune the image.

WOW- I am going to have to go through that sequence SLOWLY to undestand it
Thanks for your input.

I think what I should do now is just using one exposure show the most accurate representation so y'all can see what info is really the - unfortunately I was shooting jpeg only - won't do that again!

[Baadil]

Hi Simon,


I though I would give it a quick try as well. Tried a quick fix so you may see some joins etc.

[PhotosGuy]

Scottes put a tut here several months ago:
http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=34606

(If you want to learn, you might start looking at the stickys available in other areas of the forum, too.) ;-)

[RAitch]

The images posted here that are a composite of 2 original images look to be blunt - fake. Something out of a special effects movie because we know we don't see things like that in real life. It looks as if it were taken on another planet.

Some have some serious haloing... I'll give you that... but we DO see things like that in real life. Our eyes can focus on a wider spectrum of light then the camera... that, and when we look at a scene, our eyes wander from spot to spot and change the 'exposure' depending on what part of the scene we're looking at... I think they are a perfect representation of what's possible to 'see' or experience in real life on earth.

[RAitch]

certianly they seem closer

Thanks.

To answer your question, I had to apply a slight free transform to rotate the images to the same plain.
I think the best way to make a selection in this case, is to use the channel information. I copied a colour channel of the foreground image to a new channel. Then, I used the burn and dodge tools at a very low flow rate to build the contrast between the sky and foreground making sure to use the dodge tool around the holes in the trees first.

Burn shadows, and dodge highlights.
NOTE: You can also try adjusting the levels to increase the contrast.

From there, use the brush tool to paint in solid white and black in the appropriate areas.

Then, I applied that channel as a layer mask of the foreground image. Since haloing was such an issue (due to the trees) you can shift the background down and left to hide the sky image treeline behind the foreground.

If there are haloing issues at the edge, you can use the burn tool to burn the highlights.