Statue in Hyde Park...

[leek]

...

[stubbsy]

John

Excellent - I'm assuming that a green bronze look is the "normal" colour of the fountain - did you make it blue in PP or was this realised by more traditional means (like blue paint)?

[leek]

I was doing a composite image to reduce the exposure of the background and to bring out the detail of the statue and accidentally clicked on WB-Tungsten for my lightened image... It looked quite good, so I proceeded...

This is one of my first composites, so I'm interested to hear what else I could have done...

[leek]

...

[dooda]

I'm not sure about this. It doesn't seem to fit with the background very well, like it was cut out of a magazine and pasted in there.

There are also some lights around their edges where you made the selection. I try and get these out with QuickMask, then select the area and choose Gaussion blur. Admittedly I sort of suck at this so I think that others might have a better suggestion. You can also adjust the levels etc of the selection in QM. This seems to be an important tool for this kind of thing.

I think that the statue should be a little darker, more like the original and lightened up just a bit to blend in to the photo better, though that is admittedly my subjective Opinion.

[KerryPierce]

FWIW, the only way I know to get that entire scene properly exposed would be to bracket the exposures by at least a couple of stops or perhaps using a couple of sb800s for fill flash.

Did you try exporting the 2 shots, using -1EV and +1EV and then blending them, with an eye toward using the shadow boost tool in PS?

[leek]

I'm not sure about this. It doesn't seem to fit with the background very well, like it was cut out of a magazine and pasted in there.

Having seen it in the cold light of day, you might be right Dooda... The blue colour does look a little artificial... I might try it again without the tungsten WB...

Did you try exporting the 2 shots, using -1EV and +1EV and then blending them, with an eye toward using the shadow boost tool in PS?

I don't normally bother bracketing on exposure, because I can achieve the same effect by shooting in RAW and then saving various copies of the photo... That's exactly what I did in this case... Opened the NEF file in Photoshop, saved one PSD at -1.5 and another at +1.5 (or thereabouts). I then blended them and used a mask to bring out the Blue colour on the statue. I'm still learning PS and didn't try the shadow boost tool... I'll have a look at that tonight...

[mudder]

G'day,
Maybe the color of the statue makes it harder to "blend"? It certainly makes the statue stand out! Great statue though... Like that a lot more than some of the "modern interpretive art" I've seen around...

If you use Nikon Capture, you could try the DDE lighting on the shadows to bring them out morein your "high exposure layer", or maybe curves...

[big pix]

here is someting to do, take out all the background around the statue and fountain and put the deep etched image onto a graded background.

good luck

big pix

[Matt. K]

John
So you're the wise guy with the blue spray cans? Shame on you.

[big pix]

I think I saw them on special Bunnings......

[leek]

here is someting to do, take out all the background around the statue and fountain and put the deep etched image onto a graded background.

good luck

big pix

Thanks bp, but I might need more explicit instructions... I'm not quite sure what you mean...

[lejazzcat]

IMHO

at least crop the staute a bit tighter to add emphasis to it - as it is, the bakground has too much realestate to be just be a back-ground - it has too much presence.(unless its your intention for it to compete for our attention...)
Also as the brightest part of a image get the most attention,especially if its on the right side, you should burn it in a stop or 2...

[big pix]

This has been done a bit on the rough side just to show you, but all I did was go around with magic wand and added colour with layers

good luck

[leek]

Ah... OK bp... I understand now... A project for a rainy Sunday (we should get plenty of those soon)...