UKC

There's a vogue for photos with great 'Clarity', washed out backgrounds and saturated figures, how do you achieve this? I have no photographic integrity whatsoever I just like making pretty pictures.

In reply to Murko Fuzz:

Can you link to an example?

In reply to Alyson:
http://www.ukclimbing.com/articles/page.php?id=6888#

This one has lots of light going on in the background yet the detail on the skier is all there.
https://ukc2.com/i/253010.jpg

In reply to Murko Fuzz:
You start of with amazing light.

The kind you cannot replicate in normal circumstances.
It will be shot at a pretty narrow aperture (f/16-22) that requires good quality glass to ensure the details is there with no nasty ca/flare issues.
There will be a bit of clarity and messing with levels/curves/etc.

In reply to Murko Fuzz:
http://www.ukclimbing.com/articles/page.php?id=6888#

Not sure that it always has much to do with 'amazing light', in the article he answer these questions -

Some of your photos have a certain style to them, a desaturated background - how do you achieve that?

..sometimes in a complex image a little manipulation can help simplify the composition and help isolate and draw the eye to the subject. In software such as Adobe Lightroom, ‘vibrance’ and ‘saturation’ affects the colour intensity of different parts of the spectrum. Often for instance the rock + lichens, especially Chamonix granite, are so vivid that they can pull the eye away from the intended subject. Sometimes reducing the vibrance can mute these colours, whilst increasing the saturation a little can bring up the colours of the climber/skiers clothes and help isolate them in the image space.

What post processing tips can you give us for our mountain shots:

I try and just use post processing to further isolate the subject. It is all about balance and taste though. Some people like heavily processed images that tend to lean away from naturalism, others find this distasteful. I think it is all too easy to use too much Lightroom adjustment like ‘clarity’ which are often very obvious and leave haloes around high contrast areas. However some careful and isolated use of these tools, for instance using masks to slightly reduce saturation/vibrance in some areas and increase it others one can subtly help isolate the subject. I tend to try and edit in a balanced way so that the editing itself never becomes the subject of the image.

In reply to Murko Fuzz:

I'd say that in the example you linked to, the subject has had the exposure and saturation selectively increased. Amongst other options, you can paint in both of these parameters quite easily using Lightroom.

In reply to Murko Fuzz:

Um, in my simple world, that's achieved by depth of field - widen the aperture and have the subject towards the foreground. Doesn't require post-processing magic and seems to be the technique in the example you cite?

In reply to Murko Fuzz:
In the first pic the white balance has been increased a lot to give everything a yellow hue. It's been pushed up so much some areas are showing purple. Colours at that time of day will always be amazing. I love shooting during golden hours. The 2nd pic looks like it's had a lot pulled back from the shadows. The figure is less sharp than the rest of the pic and the colours are desaturated in comparison to the surroundings.

The rest on that page are amazing.

In reply to JJL:

I think he's talking about 'washed out' colour in the background rather than soft backgrounds - which obviously depth of field won't help with in the slightest.

In reply to Murko Fuzz:

Thanks for this info folks, I'm going to have a look at Lightroom. I've got a teensy little Canon ixus, I think I can have manual control of aperture and exposure, plus white balance for that matter.

Often I'm out in grey, flat light, hanging around on north facing aspects and end up with a bright sky and sort of under exposed foreground and subject. I need to be able to achieve balance or separate them for post production.

In reply to Murko Fuzz:

Often I'm out in grey, flat light, hanging around on north facing aspects and end up with a bright sky and sort of under exposed foreground and subject. I need to be able to achieve balance or separate them for post production.

If that's what you're looking to correct then:- 1. Shoot in RAW if you can. 2. In Lightroom shove the highlights slider way to the left and the shadows slider way to the right.

In reply to Murko Fuzz:

Sounds to me like Lightroom will do exactly what you're looking for. You used to be able to download a 30 day trial and you won't look back, it can help transform otherwise quite dull images. But as AdrianC said, shoot RAW to get the most out of your photos.

In reply to Murko Fuzz:

Buy some software and press the 'Awesome' button*.


(* this may not yet exist, but can also be achieved through hard work learning how to do stuff**)

(** Stuff: the whole range of digital photographic skills)

In reply to Murko Fuzz:

The caveat of correcting in Lightroom is that the information needs to be there to make use of it. If you blow the highlights or 'crush' the blacks, you'll never recover that part of the photo.

In reply to AdrianC:

Either that or stick a flash into the equation. You don't need a massive amount of flash to help lift subjects out of the gloom. If done well it will look better than adjusting afterwards as the recovery of highlights usually produces bands of colour whereas lifting shadows will bring out the noise in the dark sections. Another consideration is where the light is in the sky. If it is around sunset time even on a northernly aspect make sure they are facing into the brighter sky. It makes a big difference when it comes to getting the sky properly exposed.

In reply to Murko Fuzz:

Murko, you can buy a monthly subscription from Adobe for their photographer's pack, you'll get Lightroom and Photoshop for the princely sum of £8 a month. Then you will spend a lot of time learning to use them, and if you're lucky, you won't have any relatives who bring you a dog chewed precious photo and ask "can you fix it?" The digital darkroom is a great place, but is as difficult to truly master as the old red light celluloid darkroom. I haven't, and I've been fiddling for years.

Tom

In reply to Murko Fuzz:

He's pushed the saturation up. Because the climbers are the only coloured things in the shots only they are affected - the blacks and whites of the rocks and snow aren't.

In reply to the abmmc:

Yep, I'm starting to realise the complexity of it! I'm trialling Lightroom to see how I get on, then I might well sign up for a package.