Another image from my archives. This was taken in Pegairolles De L’Escalette about three years ago. Unusually for me, this one has been heavily Photoshopped. Even more unusual is that I planned it this way before releasing the shutter.
One of the problems with photography is that the camera does not adapt as readily to contrast as the human eye – so what we see when we take the image and what the camera records are two different things.
Traditionally, the way around this was a compromise – expose for the part of the image that is most important and when processing, dodge and burn to bring out anything that has been under or over exposed.
Digital photography offers another way around this. The dodge and burn technique can still be carried out on the computer – but it does rely on there being sufficient detail in the image to start with. Another is multiple exposure.
Placing the camera on the tripod, I set the aperture and exposed several times at varying shutter speeds. This gave me several exposures to play with that were identical apart from the exposure. I then layered them in Photoshop and removed the under and over exposed portions of the various layers, then flattened the image, giving me an even exposure overall.
I’ve always like alleyways and archways such as this. Okay, so in reality, that archway doesn’t actually lead anywhere, but it looks as if it might.
While on the subject of art and the arts, which seems to have been something of a theme this week, I came across the Jackdaw and his artbollocks today, courtesy of JD commenting here. Having had some of that on here a few days ago, it rounded off the week with a smile…
This is my favourite of all the shots you’ve posted so far. But then I must be an ignorant philistine as I’ve preferred all of them to that multi-million pound crap you posted a while ago…
But I don’t know if that’s the look you were going for or not but it looks ever so slightly dull. If you check the levels in Photoshop I’m guessing you can brighten it quite a bit without losing any detail.
(Sorry, I spent 5 years at Jessops as the technical nerd/Photoshop geek…)
Andrew, you and me both, then… 😉
What I wanted was an almost monochrome effect with just a hint of colour from the old door and the geraniums at the top of the steps.
Although it was a fairly sunny day, deep in the alleyways, it was pretty dull and flat light. This rendition is as close as I could get to what they eye actually saw.
Yes, I probably could brighten it up, but that wouldn’t be what I saw.
A lovely photo LR 🙂 😉