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| AFTER |
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| BEFORE |
The drama of a clearing storm can help create stunning
landscape photographs. This was a lucky catch at the Grand Teton National Park.
Conditions were perfect. Heavy gray clouds above, billowing clouds behind the
mountains, and a break in the cloud cover revealing deep blue sky. And the sun
was in the perfect position to create strong rays coming down in front of the
peaks.
The contrast was extreme and it was a little dicey finding
the right exposure for the bright areas as well as all the dark areas. You
might think that HDR would be useful here, but for now it is one of my least
favorite ways of working with an image. I am too much of a control freak to
allow the camera or HDR software to do the work for me. The histogram looked fine, but as you can see in the Before image,
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| Histogram |
As always, Lightroom was able to pull out all the detail
needed to make this a more pleasing image. By reducing the Highlights and increasing the Shadows, an
entirely different image emerged. The addition of a little Vibrance improved
the overall color. The After version is much closer to what the scene looked
like.
This is a great example of an image with a good
histogram - all the tones are within the confines of
the histogram box – that still needed a great deal of help with image
optimization software. All too often you might finish up a day of shooting,
download your images, and are very disappointed with the results. Usually all
the information is there, it just needs to be “developed” and brought out with
Lightroom.
So when you see what appears to be an unsuccessful image,
don’t despair. Have a go at it with Lightroom, or other image optimization software
of your choice, and see what hidden beauty likes within the image.
TECHNICAL DATA
Shutter Speed 1/800 sec. Aperture f/11.
ISO 400. Lens: Canon
17-40mm f/4L, set to 17mm. Camera:
Canon 5D Mark III. Handheld.
TODAY’S QUOTE: “ Nature is often hidden, sometimes overcome,
seldom extinguished.” --Francis
Bacon
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