Canyon Carver - RAW by JMG, on Flickr
Canyon Carver by JMG, on Flickr
ddk632 wroteThanks for the tips! Looking forward to your pics!Personally I like to keep the major elements in my photos as they are, and actually shoot at the right time, etc.
That being said, there are times when it is necessary to pull in elements from different photos, but I will only do that if I plan on it during the shoot.
An example is a recent shoot at Death Valley, where focusing for the Milky Way (and exposing for it) while also keeping a focused foreground with light painting, all while keeping the shutter speed short enough to prevent star trails .... yeah, it was impossible to do all that in one shot. So, I have to combine a shot exposed and focused for the foreground with another one for the Milky Way.
I think also it takes a lot of practice to get good at pulling the proper shapes in order to change out a non-green-screen background, such as in your example.
If you look closely at the hood, there are some areas where the sunset is overriding the hood and it looks photoshopped. I'm not saying don't do it, but I will definitely say, follow the lines at a maximum zoom level in Photoshop to make sure you do not cut off parts of the object that you are pulling out of a scene. It is also pretty evident at the line where the bushes meet the sky.
This is routinely done in interior design and real estate photography, for example, to get an interior shot that has nice exposure of both the inside of a room as well as what is going on outside. Without extensive lighting setup, you pretty much have to combine a couple of different shots to make it look nice. And making sure you make it look seamless is where the practice comes in.
I'll see about posting some before and afters later on.
M_Six wroteNice interpretation M_Six, love the mood!I took these two shots from the roof of a dorm here at the university on the night of a lunar eclipse a year or so ago. Then I combined them in Photoshop.
Old Main by Mark Johnson, on Flickr
City Slicker - Raw by JMG, on Flickr
City Slicker by JMG, on Flickr
El Dorade Sunset - RAW by JMG, on Flickr
El Dorado Sunset by JMG, on Flickrmetrickid wroteThanks for the feedback, I'm not sure what else I can clone out on the sunset pic.I feels like you put more work into the backgrounds then the cars in the last two edits. So the cars looks pretty bad in both.
The last shot has such a busy background too with all the trees steeling attention so its hard to do anything worthwhile with it.
There are a lot of objects that should be removed/cloned in the images. Take a look at them with "fresh eyes" and look at them. If the first thing you notice isn't the car, fix that. Repeat from step one.
jmg wroteWell, I like your images (and follow you on Flickr) so don't take it the wrong way but it is not a good picture to start with as it is way to busy with the trees and the overall composition is lacking. You can take a lot better pictures than this, so I wouldn't even work with the image to begin with.Thanks for the feedback, I'm not sure what else I can clone out on the sunset pic.
El Dorado RAW by JMG, on Flickr
El Dorado 2 by JMG, on Flickr
Zing wroteI actually like the SOOC shot better - her skin tone is beautiful as-isA very cool thread. Don't know how I've missed it for so long. If I may throw my hat in the ring...
Straight out of the camera. Not a single edit other than resizing and converting to .jpg.
Matticus91 wroteI agree, the edited one just looks soft and unnatural.I actually like the SOOC shot better - her skin tone is beautiful as-is
Zing wroteYes, i think it's only a matter of degree. In the original, she looks too washed out for my taste. I'd probably go in the middle, closer to your finished product.Interesting. Maybe I gave it too much warmth and added too much glow.
highwaystardoritos wroteYou do know you can open it in Photoshop from Lightroom and with that keep the Photoshopped version in your Lightroom library?If i need to do anything crazy like content aware, clone out stuff and what not, i'll save the image and transfer it to PS.
metrickid wroteIt will also update your Lightroom version with the photoshop version including adjustments. So if you forgot to clone somthing out, but you did all this color grading work, you can open it in PS and clone it out then lightroom will update the photo and keep your other adjustments intact.You do know you can open it in Photoshop from Lightroom and with that keep the Photoshopped version in your Lightroom library?
