As The Storm Passes

[hopmedic]

I've been watching some of this board for a few weeks now, and it seems to be a very informative and professional board. This is my first time posting, and would like to share this picture I took about an hour ago. There was a heckuva storm that passed through here, knocked down a tree that I know of, let alone countless branches. The storm only lasted really 15-20 minutes, and it happened while I was away from home, camera in the car but I wasn't. I was driving home and saw this scene, and thought I had to grab it. The clouds are the tail end of an anvil cloud, with mamantus, though the mamantus was more well defined to the north of where I aimed for this shot. I thought the farm made this shot more interesting, even without the mamantus being so well-defined. Please let me know what you think of it!

Rich

Oh, and the settings were:
EOS 10D, 18-50 Sigma @18mm, f/22, 1/60, no exposure compensation, evaluative metering, ISO 200.

[jopfin]

Really cool pic, I just wish the farmhouse wasn't so dark. Nice shootin'...............Joe

[sparker1]

I agree it would be better if the foreground were lighter, but it is a very dramatic scene.

[hopmedic]

Good point - I have not touched it with Photoshop yet - just got home and uploaded it... I'm new to PS, so tell me - I'm thinking I could use layers and brighten up the foreground, right? I'll have time to play with it a little later, so will check back for advise before I get started.

[Stearmandriver]

Hey Rich,


I was driving from Bolingbrook back to Plainfield when that first line rolled through. There was a nice shelf cloud down by me; I was wishing I had my camera. The backsheared anvil and mammatus were nice too, I liked the circular sweeping look of the whole thing with the clear blue behind. Nice capture!

You didn't happen to see the mammatus under the anvil of that storm that spawned the tornado down south last year, the one that destroyed the Parson's manufacturing plant? That was a phenomenal storm...

Joe

[Leorooster]

Agree that it would be better if the farmhouse wasn't so dark. Welcome to the forum btw.

[sixshot]

I usually don't like this much sky, but with this shot it works really well.

[martin-images]

Hi Rich
Nice but yes more light is needed in the forground, this is a good way to do it in PS

Go to the layers pallet and open a new layer, go to mode drop down and select Overlay, then tick the box which says fill with Overlay-neutral color 50%grey, then click ok, go to tools pallete and pick a soft brush set opacity to around 40% and set forground colour to white, paint over the dark area till it starts to lighten, dont worry if you make it to light as you can adjust to opacity in the layers pallet slider.

Martin



Good point - I have not touched it with Photoshop yet - just got home and uploaded it... I'm new to PS, so tell me - I'm thinking I could use layers and brighten up the foreground, right? I'll have time to play with it a little later, so will check back for advise before I get started.

[sdommin]

There are many ways to brighten up the foreground. If you have PhotoShop CS or CS2, you can use the "shadow/highlight" command to quickly correct the photo. This took about 10 seconds to do:

http://home.att.net/~sdommin/storm.jpg

(Sorry if you didn't want people "correcting" your image - some folks don't like it when that happens.)

[amitnike]

love the dark clouds... i jus freak over em ....welcome to the forum

[hopmedic]

Hey Rich,


I was driving from Bolingbrook back to Plainfield when that first line rolled through. There was a nice shelf cloud down by me; I was wishing I had my camera. The backsheared anvil and mammatus were nice too, I liked the circular sweeping look of the whole thing with the clear blue behind. Nice capture!

You didn't happen to see the mammatus under the anvil of that storm that spawned the tornado down south last year, the one that destroyed the Parson's manufacturing plant? That was a phenomenal storm...

Joe

Joe,

Yes, I did see the mammatus last year that you speak of. My wife took pics of it with our point/shoot digital, so here are a couple. She did it just for the clouds, as she is a long time storm spotter (I just took the training this year), so it is not framed or anything that the discerning photog would look for, but neat to look at.

sdommin,

No, I don't mind people editing - what better way to learn. I have CS2, but have not learned very much about it at all, so I sure wouldn't have been able to do this in 10 seconds. I tried making a duplicate layer, selecting and deleting the bottom part, then lightening it up, but it just looked bad. I really like the look you achieved in a mere fraction of the time I put into my very bad result. BTW - the last time I really did much with any graphics program it was PSP 4. I also have PSP 7, which is much different from what I used way back when, but I haven't had much need to use it, either. Now that I have a GOOD digital camera (the p/s we have is essentially junk, but it does take pics and you don't have to pay for processing), and I have CS2, I'll definitely be doing what I can to learn how to get the most out of it.

Thanks to all for comments, and the welcome!

Rich

[KenE]

That's just scary looking, and very cool!

[Beeclose]

Hi Rich, We don't get storms like that over here, mainly cyclones that blow You away,I like both shots , would like to see the original a little lighter or the correction a little darker to make the sky a bit more threatening. EW.

[MTalley]

Having lived in Indiana for a few years, those last two pics make my skin crawl. We used to call them "boiling clouds". Never got to see a funnel, though. My wife is glad for that last fact.

[am_pitbull_terrier]

AMAZING. I love the last 2 I've never seen anything like it

[EOSAddict]

So that's what a Mammatus is - I was wondering! Amazing, you don't get that in England!

sdommin I personally think your version is now too bright - loses the dramatic storm effect. Be nice to see the clouds kept exactly the same and the farm just a bit lighter.

[mkh]

Great shot. I love storms.

The corrected image is too light and looses some of it's menacing effect. The original could use some lightening of the foreground though only a little. The clouds are great.

[hopmedic]

Was driving home from the next town over and saw this shot - had to run home and grab the camera really quick. This is some of the most fertile soil in the nation - DeKalb County, Illinois.

[hopmedic]

Joe, by the way - when I took that pic this afternoon, was thinking of the advanced spotter class my wife and I were at this year.... One of the presenters brought up what the sky looked like that day, and said that when he saw it, he said to himself, "there's gonna be a tornado somewhere here today." He was right....

[hopmedic]

OK - I've played with the original image several times in CS2, and finally got the restults I was looking for, I think. I tried with layers and always ended up with what looked like a cut-out on the lower part of the image, so not sure what I really needed to do. Finally, I tried the dodge tool to increase the brightness at the bottom of the image, and I think I like it.

[Titus213]

I know nothing about storm clouds but enjoy photographing them. We are headed out to Wisconsin in two weeks and I hope to get some lightning at least. Fascinating capture of the clouds and farm. I tried my hand at editing in PS 7 and came up with this. It's about a 10 second job too...

[Stearmandriver]

Joe, by the way - when I took that pic this afternoon, was thinking of the advanced spotter class my wife and I were at this year.... One of the presenters brought up what the sky looked like that day, and said that when he saw it, he said to himself, "there's gonna be a tornado somewhere here today." He was right....

LOL I said the same thing... I was on a nocturnal schedule, so I was just getting going around 2pm. Got dressed, opened the blinds, and about fell down the stairs rushing to the computer. I couldn't believe how far away the storm was on radar; I really thought we were in for something bad real soon. Those're the kinds of things I see pretty often working down in TX, but we don't get 'em much up here. I suppose that's a good thing...

Glad to hear you took the advanced spotter course. I always thought the basic was maybe a little "too" basic, ya know? :) They do a great job with the advanced, though...

Joe