Why are my images "flat"?

[coyoteboy]

I took the 20D up on a walk at the weekend and, despite spending half the day buried in 50mph clouds, I got a few shots in but they've not turned out with the sort of depth and interest I'd like.




Any advice appreciated. I think the EXIF is all in-tact. I'm at ISO 400 in most of the shots but seem to get HEAPS of noise in the darker areas and can't bring up the darker areas without mashing the detail and even when I tried HDRing two shots together with CS3 I seemed to get awful noise problems. Rather under-whelmed and would like to improve my skills here!

Thanks in advance.

[kook44]

Both very interesting shots! Where from?

(i'm a beginner too, so take this only for what it's worth)

#1 has that 'flat, hazy' look to it. My shots often suffer from the same. I haven't been able to cure it 100%, but it seems that adjusting contrast usually helps (any pros out there want to weigh in here?). Are you shooting in RAW? If not, you should.
Don't forget also - you were shooting in flat, hazy light there's only so much that can be done.

#1 looks like it can be a great image, it just needs some adjustment. I would open in your RAW editor and play with the curves until it looks as good as possible, and add a hint of vibrance and/or saturation. Then open in CS and selectively adjust areas that need more contrast using adjustment layers w/masks and dodge/burn.

#2 is exposed correctly (or close to it) for the sky, but not for the foreground. A very common situation. The correction here is indeed HDR; but not necessarily the "Merge to HDR" function in PS. If you shot in raw, you have 1 (or more) stops of compensation to play with. Open the file in your raw editor and adjust the exposure until the sky looks correct, then open that conversion in PS. Do the same with the foreground. You may have to do a 3rd conversion for the mountains on the other side of the lake near the horizon. You should now have 2 or three images open in PS. Copy one as a layer on top of the other and begin masking. Don't forget that you can use techniques to smooth the transitions of the mask, such as using lighter shades of gray in addition to B&W, using gradient fills, refining the edge of a selection before you fill it, and controlling the flow and opacity of the airbrush tool.

As far as noise is concerned - you can use PS's noise filter, as well as applying slight Gaussian blurs to areas that lack detail anyway. There are also stand alone tools made by other companies specifically for noise reduction.

hope that helps...

[FlyingPhotog]

Light/Shadow give dimension to photographs...

You have very little if any of either. Not a knock on you, just stating an obvious fact about the conditions.

Two Choices:
1) Reshoot it on a sunnier day
2) Induce light and shadow in processing through the use of Dodge and Burn techniques.

[johnnyboy5]

had a quick play in GIMP for you
increased ground exposure
decreased sky exposure
green filter on sky

looks a bit better imo [ could be better if i started with a RAW file ]

[coyoteboy]

Wow, some cracking tips there - thanks everyone, I'll have a play with some more detail in PS and follow a few tutorials. I'm especially taken with the last one there, it's almost not a photo anymore, yet doesn't look horrifically faked. Thanks for the tips, I'll try a few and post them back in a day or so and see if I've improved them at all!

Definitely no chance of getting it in better sunlight, apart from wanting to get the stormy darkness and clouds (I suppose I could chop them in but it would take a lot of work), it's now winter here - it's probably the last time I'll see the blue skies for 4 months

Location - Loch Lomond, Scotland, from the slopes of Ben Lomond.

[rw2]

Both shots would benefit from a graduated neutral density filter. It would help keep the sky darker and the ground lighter.

Otherwise dodge and burn in PP.

[coyoteboy]

rw2 - fair points.

[wem]

I was about to post some caveats, but everything I have to say has already been said.

[griptape]

If you raise the fill light (in ACR), and then raise the blacks to match, a little bump in exposure, and you have a great starting point. A little more work, and here's my take on it:

[juskonig]

Yea, just seems to be a poorly exposed shot....most software will allow one to compensate for badly lit images, by boosting fill light/exposure/or brightening with a little caution can avoid clipping...

[Flo]

I would try a retake, all the edits aren't doing you any favors to bring this one back....

[AlexMoPhotography]

If you have the money get some L series lenses and do away with the kit.

[coyoteboy]

Hehe I'd kill for some L lenses but my body and a few extras has wiped me out for now, especially needing to buy a house in the near future!

I tried a few other exposures while I was there but all blew out the sky completely and the rain-haze seemed to wipe out the detail in the distance, this was the least problematic of the lot. I'll see if I can rework one of the others to be any better.

You lot just want me to climb the mountain again don't you!

[Snowshooters]

Yeah I couldn't do anything in Gimp better than the people here. I think the lesson is. Shoot in Raw and always PP.

You said something about depth of field not being what you wanted? Do you mean it is not sharp enough for you or are you saying you want the forest to be in focus and the mountains to be blurry?

[coyoteboy]

Unfortunately that was rescued from raw with PP before I posted it!

Depth, not DoF - i just meant it was flat colour and apparent "3D-ness" wise!

Thanks for looking though!