Branching out!

[Lisa B]

I took this picture of a bent up tree - the tree had all sorts of junk in it (car tyres, rubbish, etc) and tried to salvage something good out of a bad situation. If you have any suggestions about how to tone it down a little without making it too dull, I would appreciate it as I really love the picture itself (just some of it, i find, is a little bright - would you agree?)

 

[spiffybeth]

on my screen, the picture is tinted pink.

is it just my screen?

 

[Alex_B]

The light was very hard that day I suppose, so the highlights are quite extreme and you have very strong contrast. You could play with the curves to fix that.

I think the strong red-ish colour cast does not really help it.

 

[Lisa B]

It is a slight red tint, I haven't touched anything yet, the picture is as I took it. It was EXTREMELY bright that day. I tried pulling the curves a little but it just didn't feel right. It's very frustrating.

 

[jlbrew3]

If you have CS3, try the Black & White tool, its great for getting rid of this kind of stuff when converting from color. If not, yeah, just play with levels/curves/saturation until you can get rid of the red. The photo is a nice idea, but the slight tinge of color is kind of distracting...once its gone I think the shot will be a lot stronger

 

[JamesD]

Shoot near dawn or sunset next time. Nice light, that time of day...

 

[Bobby Ironsights]

I agree with with JamesD, (have you bought a new enlarger.etc.yet?)

Photo's taken during the devils hours (8:30am-6pm) are going to be flat and lifeless.

The only exception I've found is when you are taking deliberately hard, harsh painful pictures of very old, very thin, men with cruel and grizzled faces and piercing eyes close up. Then you can sometimes get away with the picture, if you get under shade and use the hard reflected light to make the picture even harsher. But how often does that situation come up....really?:er:

Also, if you are under a deep canopy in the woods, the occasional shaft of light can make for a compelling picture, if you are using film which has a naturally low contrast and wide exposure latitude, like tri-x.

You might be able to do the same with digital...but I have not seen it done. Digi-B&W is just too muddy to manage the effect most of the time.

So...back to the light.

Lotsa' people are concerned with camera, lens, developer, etc, but the basic element...the light, is most important.

Try shooting during the magic hour.

It happens twice a day, from just before sunrise to an hour after, from an hour before sunrise to about ten-fifteen minutes after.

P.S. I don't shoot digital, but I've been around enough pixelographers to know that white balance is important, and the preset WB on factory camera's is very seldom perfect and sometimes terrible. Also, I've been told it goes out of whack over time and needs to be reset regularly.