Hi everyone,
I've shot this a couple of years ago, and the image has been in my portfolio ever since. However, I'm not 100% happy with the post processing on this. The color just seems a bit dull or boring. I can't seem to get much more color contrast in there, and the blue just seem a bit too greyish overall. I've worked on this quite a bit, but I'm hoping that someone has an idea for getting better color. Please let me what you think, good or bad.
Can't get the color right
The image itself is quiet spectacular! Have you tried the dehazing feature in Lightroom? Try to think back to when you were there. Use how you felt as a guide, versus what you saw.
Thanks for your feedback Robert! I don't own Lightroom unfortunately, I'm still working with Photoshop 2014. Well I remember the blues to be more vivid, I just can't seem to get that done in the edit. I've tried adjusting the saturation, vibrance, white balance, the blue curves channel and even a photo filter. Although I'm now realizing that that's more about what I saw. When I go by feeling, it gets darker and less contrasty, with the moon being more prominent. It's a different version, but I'm not sure if it's better.
Have you tried converting to black and white. It's a beautiful image. It might be worth a shot
Thanks for the suggestion Micheael! I gave it a try, but I'm not too convinced that that's the way foreward. But maybe my conversion is just crap. I appreciate the idea though.
I am just an "up and comer", so I do not come with the experience that you'll find with 90% here - That being said, I took the liberty of editing it and reposting. If you like, I can fill you in on my technique. And NO, I will not steal your image. Credit to you, my friend. Nice work.
Hi Jeff, thanks for taking the time! Your edit is defenitely a bit too much for my taste, but you certainly brought the blues out :D It might be interesting to try this effect dialed back a bit though, if you dont mind telling me which tehnique you used here?
LOL, yeah, I know. Was kind of exaggerating here. I am a GIMP 2.0 user, but you can do the same with Photoshop.
Create 2 additional copies in layers.
On the "top copy", or "front Copy", desaturate the layer - then invert the colors. (turns into a negative)
Blur the negative slightly.
Change the opacity to bring out the 2nd layer. I choose somewhere between 77 and 85, depending on image. (this is where you can meter the colors by changing and playing around)
Merge the top layer down. (you now have 2 layers)
On the current top layer, change the mode to "overlay" or "soft Light".
Not an exact science but the more you play with it, the more control you gain.
Have fun, my friend. Hope it helps.
That is a really interesting technique, I've never heard of that before. My result looks quite different from your version, and I had to add a bit of contrast in the shadows afterwards. I'm going to continue playing with this a bit, this is defenitely going in the right direction. Many thanks!
Good for you! Happy it helped someone.
Lukas, mind sharing the raw/tif/dng file with me? It can be flattened down to your edit. Just want to play with the more data I can.
Sure thing! How can I send the image to you?
Easiest way is just google drive. Turn on sharing via "Anyone with link can access" and PM me the link or post it here. Up to you!
Lucas, thanks for sending me the tif file. This was a quick edit I did of the tif. Not quite sure if it'll be to your taste considering how blue you had your edit before.
I didn't have time to fix the coloration issues in the corners, but that mostly stems from working off the edit you had already done. Let me know what you think.
*edit - with more time I could make the clouds look more natural. Just didn't have the time to put into it
Hi Alex, thanks a lot for taking the time to edit this! It looks great, there's a lot more color seperation with the warmer tones in here. I tried not to exaggerate the light source, because, well, I composited the moon in. I noticed you brighened up the centerr quite a bit and added some vignetting, that really helps keep the eye in the frame. I think I would tone down the sky between the peaks and make the foreground rock a bit less yellow/greenish. But other than that this is really nice, thanks for the inspiration :)
I actually removed some vignetting lol. But I think what you see is mostly from creating light in the center of the frame to give off the idea that all the light is coming from there, creating a natural vignette (well not really natural since I put the light in there lol).
This was a really quick edit. If I were to sit down with the original blends you did etc, I'd make sure there was less of a vignette, make sure the clouds didn't look so grey - still darker but not so grey/blue.
I'd also be a little more precise with my brush work. I saved this with the intention to show my idea rather than a "ready for portfolio" edit. Although I do like the result.
Thanks for letting me play with it and I hope this pushes you towards a final image you are happy with.
Interesting, from blue to green...
Maybe something like this?
Hi Dragan, thanks for the feedback! I appreciate the time you've taken to edit this, but I'll have to be honest and say that this isn't really the edit I was looking for. For my personal taste this has a bit too much contrast and micro contrast, and the blues go a bit too far in the teal/turquoise/cyan direction. Many thanks for the effort though!
Lukas Bornheim Check out this .psd this is how I see it: http://portraitsreno.com/clients/colour.psd
Many thanks for taking the time to edit my image! That's quite a nice result, I like it. It's really quite interesting how different everyone's editing style is. I probably like a bit more magenta in the sky. But this defenitely helps me create a final result. Thanks!
First I must say, what an awesome image.
Second, this thread is starting to become a wonderful exhibit of others color grading styles. It's spectacular to me how much someones individual style can be portrayed in the same image.
Hi Connor, thanks for the compliment! I totally agree with you, it's really quite amazing how much all these editing styles differ from each other. It's great to see so many different versions of my image, it's certainly a huge creativity booster for future projects.
I don't know if this helps at all!
Hi Natalie, thank you for taking the time to edit my image! It defenitely helps, this is very nice. I like how the greens are standing out more in this version. I see you desaturated the sky (or just changed the white balance?), which makes this scene look a bit more like a mid day shot. I was trying to preserve the blue hour feel a little more. But your version also has a very nice natural look to it. Could you let me know how you brought the greens out so well? Many thanks again!
I took out the color cast a bit... which you can easily reduce more if you want that blue feel, then went into the selective color and just fined tuned the greens in the image so they didn't have such a cast! Let me know if you need me know if that helps :)
Hi Lukas,
Well here is my 2 cents worth. I prefer a more contrasty B&W look, personally, but tweaked your colour image here and there while trying to preserve the 'blue hour feel' you mentioned. To me there is still a slight magenta cast to the rocks which I would probably try to get rid of if I could.