Muriwai Gannet Colony, New Zealand.

CdTSnap · Jan 3, 2016

1

Muriwai Gannet Colony by Chris Turner, on Flickr

2

Muriwai Gannet Colony by Chris Turner, on Flickr

Tim Tucker · Jan 3, 2016

Dramatic shot, but I think you've kinda killed it a little with your processing.

If I was going to use a longer exposure to flatten the waves I would've also tried to shoot a much shorter one to arrest the movement of the birds and combined the foreground.

I find the images over-tone mapped which has washed out the colour, removed the impression of light and generally flattened the image.

In a very basic explanation, when you tone-map you bring the darker tones up and the lighter tones down. To do this without altering the colour balance can be thought of as the opposite of adding contrast. Now adding contrast not only boosts the difference in luminance it also increases colour contrast by subtracting grey, it saturates the colours a little. Tone-mapping de-saturates the colours by adding grey. The trouble is that if you shoot a scene into the light and shadow or on a generally dull day colour can be muted as in your dominant hues are not very dominant. It is very easy to wash them away. Now in your colour model browns are a hue and so increasing contrast and saturation with no other dominant hue brings forward the brown and grey.

The impression of light, and I can't stress this enough, is the difference in local and micro contrasts within your image. It is not contrast and micro-contrast alone that produce the impression of brightness and light but the variation in the patterns of contrast. Remove this through tone-mapping and you remove the impression of light, no matter how much you push it after the image will look as though it's shot on a dull day.

Now there is no way I can edit your edit to look realistic, and I offer these not as correct but only different to try and highlight the relative lack of colour/impression of light in your original. Offered as helpful advice. Try editing it again but with less tone-mapping.

Original:

Edit:

LarryLomona · Jan 3, 2016

Nice shot, like first one

NancyMoranG · Jan 3, 2016

Tim has wonderful photos on this forum and gives wonderful advice. However, it is over my head as I do not understand processing. (I wish I did!!! )
In my newb eye, I love the first a little more than the 2nd, but wow!!

CdTSnap · Jan 3, 2016

Tim Tucker said:
Dramatic shot, but I think you've kinda killed it a little with your processing.

If I was going to use a longer exposure to flatten the waves I would've also tried to shoot a much shorter one to arrest the movement of the birds and combined the foreground.

I find the images over-tone mapped which has washed out the colour, removed the impression of light and generally flattened the image.

In a very basic explanation, when you tone-map you bring the darker tones up and the lighter tones down. To do this without altering the colour balance can be thought of as the opposite of adding contrast. Now adding contrast not only boosts the difference in luminance it also increases colour contrast by subtracting grey, it saturates the colours a little. Tone-mapping de-saturates the colours by adding grey. The trouble is that if you shoot a scene into the light and shadow or on a generally dull day colour can be muted as in your dominant hues are not very dominant. It is very easy to wash them away. Now in your colour model browns are a hue and so increasing contrast and saturation with no other dominant hue brings forward the brown and grey.

The impression of light, and I can't stress this enough, is the difference in local and micro contrasts within your image. It is not contrast and micro-contrast alone that produce the impression of brightness and light but the variation in the patterns of contrast. Remove this through tone-mapping and you remove the impression of light, no matter how much you push it after the image will look as though it's shot on a dull day.

Now there is no way I can edit your edit to look realistic, and I offer these not as correct but only different to try and highlight the relative lack of colour/impression of light in your original. Offered as helpful advice. Try editing it again but with less tone-mapping.

There is only a very minimal tone curve to add contrast in these images, they are actually almost SOC, I prefer mine purely as it looks as it did through my eyes on the scene. it was a very grey evening shot at 8:23pm where there should have been a sunset there was only a grey sky and lots of wind.

As for the birds, I thought about doing that but I liked the "arty" look.

Thanks for the input though, its all good stuff.

Attached is the SOC version as you can see its not much different, nothing has been adjusted bar lens corrections and sharpness. As you can see it is pretty realistic compared to the edit.

SOC Version by Chris Turner, on Flickr

CdTSnap · Jan 3, 2016

Actually in my eyes the only mistake I made was leaving the VC on with the tripod which required me to sharpen the image a fair bit.

But thats just me

Tim Tucker · Jan 3, 2016

CdTSnap said:
There is only a very minimal tone curve to add contrast in these images, they are actually almost SOC, I prefer mine purely as it looks as it did through my eyes on the scene. it was a very grey evening shot at 8:23pm where there should have been a sunset there was only a grey sky and lots of wind.

As for the birds, I thought about doing that but I liked the "arty" look.

Thanks for the input though, its all good stuff.

Attached is the SOC version as you can see its not much different, nothing has been adjusted bar lens corrections and sharpness. As you can see it is pretty realistic compared to the edit.

I have to ask,

, why shoot it in such flat and uninspiring light in the first place? I (in my misguided wisdom

) and anybody else looking at the image will assume a level of daylight against a lack of colour that's not far off B&W. Such drama in such flat light!

CdTSnap · Jan 3, 2016

Tim Tucker said:
CdTSnap said:

There is only a very minimal tone curve to add contrast in these images, they are actually almost SOC, I prefer mine purely as it looks as it did through my eyes on the scene. it was a very grey evening shot at 8:23pm where there should have been a sunset there was only a grey sky and lots of wind.

As for the birds, I thought about doing that but I liked the "arty" look.

Thanks for the input though, its all good stuff.

Attached is the SOC version as you can see its not much different, nothing has been adjusted bar lens corrections and sharpness. As you can see it is pretty realistic compared to the edit.

Click to expand...

I have to ask, , why shoot it in such flat and uninspiring light in the first place? I (in my misguided wisdom ) and anybody else looking at the image will assume a level of daylight against a lack of colour that's not far off B&W. Such drama in such flat light!

Well I went out there for sunset but it was a long drive, by the time I got there the cloud cover was alot lol (and low), So I wasnt going to let a little doom and gloom put me off so I made the most of the shot.