Landscape photos "soft?"

[echoyjeff222]

Curious about something ... when I look at really good landscape photos (especially water ones), they seem to have a very soft, calming feeling about them.

When I edit my photos, the end result sometimes ends up the very opposite of this - it seems very harsh and grainy and I seem to lose a lot of detail. Is this because of overediting? I've noticed that it occurs more when I increase clarity in lightroom and when I use HDR mode and increase detail. Is that a no-no for landscape photos?

 

[BenjaminJ]

Both clarity and detail increase will sharpen the lines in your photos, which make them "harsher". Its up to you if you prefer softer looking photos or not.

 

[Dao]

For the smooth water scene, that could be long exposure with the help of a Natural Density (ND) filter. Basically a filter place in front of the lens that reduce the amount of light entering the camera so that you can have long exposure without photo being over exposed.

Or you can try it after sun had set.

 

[weepete]

I'll add that an easy way to get a softer effect is to use the noise reduction slider after you sharpen it, it can make your photos a bit more painterly however it makes skin horible and plasticity.

If you are underexposing and bringing the shadows up you can get a bit more noise too but its very difficult to tell without examples. Can you post one or two?

 

[elementgs]

Can you offer more information about the settings you "typically" use for your landscape pictures?

I was having a similar issue which was requiring me to use more sharpening tools and more "clarity" increases and I found that it was directly tied to how I was actually taking the pictures. With my latest landscapes though, I never touch clarity and I use the Nik Sharpener on a very base setting. I'm personally pleased with the end result.

It's just my personal opinion based on my experience but my goal is to modify my pictures as little as possible in post, not because I don't want to, or think I shouldn't modify in post but I feel it allows my pictures to have the most natural feeling, saying I "nail" the shot.

Post some examples though, let's take a look and see whats up.

 

[texkam]

Gear:
A Nikon Coolpix P90
... and a tripod?

... and never underestimate the power of good glass.

 

[elementgs]

Gear:
A Nikon Coolpix P90
... and a tripod?

... and never underestimate the power of good glass.

I was kinda hoping he was kidding with that.

 

[echoyjeff222]

Nope, not kidding haha. I'm still just using my good 'ol Coolpix!

here's the photo ... I just posted it.

http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/landscape-cityscape/339882-mount-rainier-c-c.html#post3054921

I did remove all the clarity adjustments and detail adjustments + added some noise reduction, so I think it may have helped a bit.

 

[elementgs]

Looks good, I really can appreciate having the lack of a solid professional camera as up until this last year I hadn't gone out on a limb and sprung for the good one. It's really one of those things that changed my life once I did make the leap though because shots like the one you took come out looking so much more amazing than you can imagine.

Out of curiosity, are you shooting these in RAW at all? The enhancements are significantly greater when you do. If you have the RAW and are interested, I would be happy to run it through a few of my processes to see what I can do with it. Seems you're getting a lot of low light noise that you could likely remove if you had the right tools. I would understand if not simply because I don't think I would ever personally send out any RAW files to anyone, but that's just me.

Great shot either way. Once you step up into the DSLR range I know your shots will improve tremendously. In the meantime, try the steps a few other people have suggested and bracket your shots. Setup the tripod and take multiple exposures and blend them together in photoshop or something. You'll definitely like the results.

 

[AutofocusRoss]

Curious about something ... when I look at really good landscape photos (especially water ones), they seem to have a very soft, calming feeling about them.

When I edit my photos, the end result sometimes ends up the very opposite of this - it seems very harsh and grainy and I seem to lose a lot of detail. Is this because of overediting? I've noticed that it occurs more when I increase clarity in lightroom and when I use HDR mode and increase detail. Is that a no-no for landscape photos?

Hi, I shoot weddings for my sins, but my hobby is landscapes, and like you, yes, the detailed sharp version of an image is sometimes distracting from the 'mood' of a slightly softer edit. In fact I recently tried a technique from a book I bought a year ago, for this very thing. I assume you have photoshop, but if not, I will still lay out the method for the benefit of other readers.

First, open the image in photoshop, and create two duplicate layers.

With one of the layers, make an 'adjustment layer' and choose 'channel mixer' from the flyout menu. When the dialogue box opens, as a result, there is a 'monochrome' checkbox. Check it and do nothing else yet apart from ok. Depending on which version of photoshop, alter the opacity slider (either on the duplicate layer, or with more recent photoshops, on the ADJUSTMENT layer) and make it 50%.

Now make the other duplicate layer active, and choose FILTER / Blur / gaussian blur, and then set the pixel size to 30 and click ok. In the Layers panel, set the opacity of this layer to 50% also.

Having done this, now we need to make sure the layers are properly arranged. The original image should be last on the list, the adjustment layer in the middle, and the blurred layer at the very top.

See what you think of the result. But remember, from here on, you can adjust both the opacity of the monochrome, by moving the slider on the adjustment layer, and you can vary the opacity of the blur effect by moving the opacity on the blur layer, until you get the result you want.

This won't solve the issue with every image, but there are a number of my landscape shots which don't feel right when fully sharp, which benefit from this treatment. Especially by later experimentation with the sliders.

When done, you can output the image (you may need to flatten the image in the layers box if using version CS4 or earlier) AND save the work in progress as a photoshop PSD so that you can return to this point and move the sliders again etc.

Hope that helps with some of your stuff.

Ross

 

[AutofocusRoss]

I have done this process on the enclosed images just to give you an idea... the important thing to remember, if you try this out, is not to accept the initial result as final - go into the two new layers and play with the opacity slider, the channels opacity to saturate/desaturate, and the blur layer to sharpen/unsharpen... I find it gives better control than using straight menu and filter choices directly in photoshop.