It's been awhile

Kanthaka · Jun 21, 2015

Still working with a simple point-and-shoot camera until I can afford either a DSLR or a mirrorless. These two pictures were taken in Arizona.

I didn't have a tripod to be able to get a higher shot so the bottom right part that shows the edge of the cliff I was standing on kinda ruins this for me but I'm still happy with this anyway.

The other is this:

Any comments? Advise? It would be much appreciated. :1247:

A/Ox4 · Jun 22, 2015

I like the second one. Perhaps a bit more contrasty, and lower highlights.

Sent from my SM-G900T using Tapatalk

Kanthaka · Jun 22, 2015

A/Ox4 said:
I like the second one. Perhaps a bit more contrasty, and lower highlights.

Thanks for the advice! I took the first pic right when the sun was at its highest point, so I totally get that it's too bright. I was actually thinking of just converting this to a B&W photo but I really didn't want to lose the color of the Colorado River.

As for the second one, I was actually wanting to accentuate the colors. During the tour, I saw people taking pictures and they were able to get nice purple, blue, orange, and yellow colors on the rocks but this is the best I could come up with. Would messing around with the white balance be the answer? :concern:

A/Ox4 · Jun 22, 2015

I just did this quickly on my phone. A RAW file would yield more.

Sent from my SM-G900T using Tapatalk

Kanthaka · Jun 22, 2015

Unfortunately, I'm a beginner at this so I'm going to need a bit of clarification. Did you just mess with the contrast? Or are you adjusting white balance as well? What exactly did you adjust?

Sincere apologies for being a dunce. :cower:

A/Ox4 · Jun 22, 2015

Kanthaka said:
Unfortunately, I'm a beginner at this so I'm going to need a bit of clarification. Did you just mess with the contrast? Or are you adjusting white balance as well? What exactly did you adjust?

Sincere apologies for being a dunce.

I brought down the highlights, raised the shadows, added some detail. No WB adjustment.

Sent from my SM-G900T using Tapatalk

Kanthaka · Jun 22, 2015

A/Ox4 said:
I brought down the highlights, raised the shadows, added some detail. No WB adjustment.

Thank you so much for the response! I'll look for the RAW files and see if I can improve them in PhotoShop. I'll post the results either later on tonight or tomorrow since I'll also try to look for a post-processing tutorial of some sort.

Kanthaka · Jun 22, 2015

Sadly, I wasn't able to get the RAW files from the camera. These particular shots were only recorded in JPEG. I tried using curves and the burn tool though to provide more contrast. IMO, it's slightly better though not much.

Here's the other pic: