Help With 4x5 Scan

[michaelnel]

Hello Folks

I no longer shoot large format stuff, but back in the early '80s I did a lot, hauling my Zone VI field camera outfit all around California and Utah. A couple years ago I dug out my old negatives and transparencies and scanned them on an Epson V-750 scanner.

Recently I have been trying to see what I can do with them in the digital domain. I have Photoshop CS5.1 and have done some processing on them (cleaning up dust spots, a little sharpening and color correction).

One particular image that I do like was shot near sunrise in the Alabama Hills in California, near Lone Pine. I am kind of stuck as to what it needs in terms of PP. Unfortunately, the morning I was there had a pretty clear, uninteresting pale blue sky, and the foreground rocks were in morning shadow while the mountains were in direct sunlight.

I am posting a reduced-sized image here, about 800x600. The original is a .tif that is pretty large, about 4500x3600 and 40MB. I can make it available to anyone who wants to do some editing on it. In any case, I would sure appreciate some constructive criticism on the image and suggestions as to how it can be improved, short of going back there and reshooting it.

Thanks!

http://michaelnel.smugmug.com/Other/Michaels-Junkbox/i-wj2T4zf/0/O/alabamahills-lonepine-800.jpg

[Daniel Stone]

to be quite honest, except for the "bland" blue sky, I think your exposure is dead on! Why not get back into LF ;)? Seems you've already got enough experience to warrant knowing how to expose film correctly :D

-Dan

[michaelnel]

to be quite honest, except for the "bland" blue sky, I think your exposure is dead on! Why not get back into LF ;)? Seems you've already got enough experience to warrant knowing how to expose film correctly :D

-Dan

Well, thanks for the compliment. In those days I was using the Zone System and a spotmeter, so I would pretty much expect the exposure itself to be pretty close.

I would love to get back into LF, but I have been laid off / unemployed for quite a while now, and LF is a real expensive neighborhood for an unemployed guy.

Anyway, looking at the picture I posted, there's way too much blue in the shadows and not enough in the sky. So, I pulled down the saturation of blue and raised the red, yellow, and green. Then I made a selection of the sky and brought some blue back up in the sky. Looking at it here on my monitor it seems to be a pretty big improvement, but when I reduce it to 800x600 and save for web and then link it here it looks kinda crappy. I think it has to do with converting it to sRGB. The big version doesn't have pink mountains and turquoise sky, it looks way better than this version:

http://michaelnel.smugmug.com/Other/Michaels-Junkbox/i-sS3kp9n/0/O/alabamahills-lonepine-cc-800.jpg

[Corran]

If you want more intense, pure blue you can add a Hue/Sat layer and move the cyan more to the blue side and the blue a little more to the right too, and add some saturation. Also darkening it helps a little. Obviously works better with full rez and 16-bit but here is what I got:

[Ken Lee]

http://www.kenleegallery.com/images/forum/hills.jpg

The sun had already set where you were standing, bringing a slight chill. Darkness was coming upon those foreboding rocks.

At the same time, the distant hills were bathed in a faint warm light.

Perhaps a less literal interpretation would be rewarding to explore: more feeling and less fact?

[Joel Truckenbrod]

I think what ultimately is needed is a lot of localized work - both contrast and color. This is pretty common for film scans in my experience; especially scans off of flatbeds. Regardless, the process is extremely subjective to say the least. Here's a rough idea - I can email you the PSD if desired.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v390/truckyj/alabamahills-lonepine-EDIT.jpg

[Jan Pedersen]

Here's a little more variation to the blue sky and some local contrast to the rocks in the foreground.

[Peter De Smidt]

Here's a quick alternate version:
http://i955.photobucket.com/albums/ae37/peterdesmidt/test.jpg

[sully75]

I vote for Peter's. My issue isn't a color issue, but that it looks like two different photographs together as one. I'd probably bring the front up and the back down and try to make them look more consistent. Either exposure would be fine, but together they look cut out from each other.

[Peter De Smidt]

I'm not sure that I like mine. It was just a quick riff to give an idea. What hit me when I saw the picture was the contrast between the foreground rocks and the background, and so I exacerbated it. Ken's much more subtle version highlights the mountain range, whereas mine highlights the foreground rocks.

[Preston]

Michael,

Your second effort looks quite nice to me. I like the softer contrast of the Alabamas and the granite of the mountains has just enough 'sunrise blush' of pink.

Joel's rendition looks pretty nice, too.

Sure is gorgeous country!

--P

[sully75]

I'm not sure that I like mine. It was just a quick riff to give an idea. What hit me when I saw the picture was the contrast between the foreground rocks and the background, and so I exacerbated it. Ken's much more subtle version highlights the mountain range, whereas mine highlights the foreground rocks.

This is mine.

I think all these efforts are trying to mask the fact that it looks like 2 separate pictures. Both of which would have been pretty good. Photography is hard...


https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-OmVNsZOuj_g/TxvJ-qvX9LI/AAAAAAAAA_k/NvqZpHP3O0k/s640/tiff%252520for%252520LFFP%252520copy.jpg

[michaelnel]

Thanks for all the suggestions, folks. This is the original scan (without even having the dust spots healed yet), uncorrected, just converted from the 40MB .tif file to a smaller 100% quality .jpg, should you want to try your efforts on something that hasn't been previously PhotoShopped.

http://michaelnel.smugmug.com/Other/Michaels-Junkbox/i-M846CDf/0/XL/LargeFormat-008-XL.jpg

[michaelnel]

I applied some tonemapping with Photomatix Pro in this one to reduce the contrast between the foreground rocks and the background mountains. It sure has a much different feel, but my recollection of the scene was that I was standing in the cold dark shadows, and this (although I kind of like the look) doesn't feel like it felt that morning.

http://michaelnel.smugmug.com/Other/Michaels-Junkbox/i-SzschD7/0/O/alabamahills-lonepine.jpg

[Ken Lee]

http://www.kenleegallery.com/images/forum/Hills2.jpg

[Preston]

Given the rather stark difference in the light (in terms of tonal value and color) between the foreground and background, attempts to balance these out appear to hurt the 'sense' of the morning light, in my opinion.

Michael, I still prefer the second image you posted to this thread. Compositionally, it's very nice. I hope you can get into a position to continue using LF!

--P

[Ben Syverson]

The eye loves contrast, so if the entire image is about the same tone, it's upsetting. Your eye just scans over the picture with nothing to lock onto.

If you color correct so that you get color contrast (saturation) in addition to overall contrast, it will help the photo even more. Ken seems to have created a mask to adjust the rocks separately from the background, which will help with this approach.

Here's my attempt, after playing in Curves for a few minutes. It would definitely benefit from Ken's mask!

http://img651.imageshack.us/img651/2646/largeformat008xl2.jpg

[Peter De Smidt]

So far, I like Ken's second version the best. But Michael should decide what's the main subject, the foreground rocks or the mountain range. The choice changes how the image should be handled.

In any case, I suggest that masking is appropriate, with a careful mask for the sky, mountain range, and foreground rocks. Adjust each to taste. Personally, I like the contrast of light and tone between the foreground and the mountains. When I made them similar, the disparate elements merged together.

[Nathan Potter]

I think Ken has a good approach with this image. Ask yourself what you want to convey about the scene first, then work with PS to achieve that end. You may have sentimental recollections that will drive you to a particular kind of image. Or you may now see an entirely different scene that will yield to substantial modification of the original, even driving the image into the surreal.

There is a split center of interest between the background and foreground so you could work with that, for instance. You could crop the sky much closer to the peaks which would force the eye to stay on the split scene only. I can't tell what you are trying to show us from the original as presented.

Nate Potter, Austin TX.

[michaelnel]

Thank you all for showing me different ways to look at this image. That said, none of them really make me feel the way I felt when I exposed the image. It's tough, because none of you were there that cold morning, feeling the desolation of the place and the texture of the foreground rocks and the glorious morning sun lighting the peaks.

All the versions posted do help me, but I think this is one I really have to do myself to have it feel the way I felt about the scene at the time.

[Larry Gebhardt]

Thank you all for showing me different ways to look at this image. That said, none of them really make me feel the way I felt when I exposed the image. It's tough, because none of you were there that cold morning, feeling the desolation of the place and the texture of the foreground rocks and the glorious morning sun lighting the peaks.

All the versions posted do help me, but I think this is one I really have to do myself to have it feel the way I felt about the scene at the time.


Yes, only you can decide on your image. I will offer that I don't see the color adding much to the image. I would reinterpret it as a black and white image. I added a yellow filter to the conversion and an S shaped contrast curve.

[sully75]

Larry wins.

[cpercy]

Gotta say the B&W is very appealing, but I am biased that direction.

[michaelnel]

Funny, in those days I shot MOSTLY black and white, but that morning I used color. I didn't have that many film holders, maybe I ran out of ones loaded with B&W. I agree, I like the B&W Larry posted.

[John Rodriguez]

Didn't notice you had added an un-altered version till I started on the BW. Even on the unaltered image you posted there's some haloing around the rock edges that would take some work to get rid of. Masked the foreground and background on each to bring them closer together tonally (and adjusted the saturation of each in the color version). Then some dodging and burning with levels.

Seems like a good place to go reshoot in better light.

http://i44.tinypic.com/el3ak1.jpg

http://i39.tinypic.com/2ih59pc.jpg

[Peter De Smidt]

http://i955.photobucket.com/albums/ae37/peterdesmidt/alabamahills-lonepine-2.jpg