Could I get some opinions on this photo?

Hello :-]

I've been playing with lighting and white balance and would like opinions on this photo as to whether I under-did the white balance.

I don't normally use cameras for more than taking family shots, but would like to get better at it.

Be as honest as you see fit, thanks.

http://www.paradigmwebdesigns.com/images/PA150125.jpg 146kb


'nuck

Hi there


Do you mean exposure? (White balance determines colour temperature, not lightness/darkness).

I think your exposure is good; it gives a certain atmosphere. If the image was any brighter the sky would be over exposed. Just as it is, the burnt out areas of the clouds work nicely.

I would say the image is a little cold. I've just tried applying an 81 warming filter in Photoshop CS1 at 15% density, and it seems to finish it off nicely.

Perhaps I misunderstood what white balance means.
I'd had poor results from using the presets that came with my Olympus C-4040 and had been making manual adjustments to as closely match the colors and light levels from the actual scene as possible.

I'm currently stuck with PS6, and I don't recall seeing a "warming filter"...perhaps it's a fuction of your version only?

Thanks for the comments.


'nuck

It was added I think with CS. PS6 does not have the Photo Filters that CS has.

Nice picture for sure CC.

You can change colour balance yourself by using Image > Adjustments > Colour Balance.

Try dragging the M/G slider to M to read -5, and the Y/B slider to read -15 to see what I mean.

hey there great photo it has more possibilities such as.. photoshop layering..

you could layer a lighter version on top so then the boat details would shine thru yet still have the strong contrast of the clounds.
would make the picture seem more balanced and give it deepth

what is clounds ?

You mean clouds.

What is deepth?
I think it looks great as is, dont touch it. Although, it's all digital so I guess you could play with it some more and come up with a million of other dynamic variations. The silhouettes are what make the picture so I believe giving the boat more detail would cancele that out and make the image look fabricated. That's a boat, lol?

Pine Lake in Michigan has been the victim of zebra mussels for approx 9 years.
What you're looking at are a collection of boats and the cradles necessary to lift them out of the infested water...it prevents the mussels from gaining a foothold on the boat keels.

There's also a small assortment of deck chairs and a sea-doo.


Thank you for all the comments.

I like it, perfect how it is.

White balance is literally what it sounds like. It's based on the pure colour of white. Once you have what's white in the real world looking white in your photo, the rest of your colours should fall right into line (because all three colours are brought up to the appropriate levels - balancing).

Depending on what type of light you're shooting under (sunlight, flash, incandescent bulbs, flourescent tubes, etc) if you don't adjust your settings accordingly, you'd get VERY funny colour casts on your image. Just try shooting under a flourescent light with your camera set to the "incandescent" setting (it usually looks like a little light bulb). You'll see a lot of very blue images

It's a nice shot. The sky is perfectly exposed (the duration the sensor is exposed to the scene). BUT, below the horizon line is very underexposed.

For this type of situation they have what are called Neutral Density Gradiation filters.

Basically, they're a gradient of transparent through varying levels of opacity to its darkest point. Neutral density because it doesn't alter the colour & tonal range of what's coming through, it just darkens it. You put the darker part of the filter in the top half of your image, and align it vertically with your horizon line.

Now you can expose longer to get some mroe detail in your foreground, without blowing out highlights and over exposing the sky.

Sounds reasonable, but can you adust the vertical position of the darker element without having to move the camera, such as a slide arrangement?

Yup, that's what makes them so useful

They're generally a square piece of film, that slides up and down via a filter attachment on the end of your lens.

You can achieve this sort of thing with post shot editing in Photoshop, but obviously you won't have the same amount of detail across the tonal range as you would using a grad filter.

You can also take multiple exposures with a tripod and combine them afterwards, although I've never tried actually doing it. Photshop CS2 has an HDR feature which combines RAW shots (still using CS1 myself).