Much Be Home

Arrived back home at last! Took pretty much every mode of transportation I could to get home. Van to train to plane to van to boat to car.  Much not fun, but the ferry had some amazing views of the olympics. The weather was pretty wild over there, and the lighting was awesome. There were low clouds in front of the mountains, and then very big, fluffy, angry clouds above them.

I threw on the telephoto lens (kidding, I actually was very careful), and took a meter reading. As my setting were, 1/200, f/8 and ISO100, it was perfect exposure. About a third of a stop underexposed, but that was only because of the bright clouds throwing off the exposure.

I tried doing a panorama, but with the telephoto lens I didn't think it would work at all. On a moving boat, with a long lens....just no. But...when I got it into Ps, it worked better than most panos I do on a tripod! So weird!

My first adjustment was the color. I used the curves adjustment to add a little blur to the shadows, and then add some red to the highlights. This gave a richer feel to the photo. I also lowered the green a bit to get rid of an ugly overtone. Next, I set my white and black points by using the threshold adjustment layer. I've explained how to do that before I think..

Finally, I added a clarity curve layer. For this, I darkened the midtown shadows, but then adjusted the blacks not to be effected. Essentially, this made the midtown blacks darker, while not loosing details. It also raised the highlights a bit.

In Lr, Victor and I agreed that the photo was a little to purple/red ish, so I adjusted the orange channel to be more yellow. This took out the tangerine over tone, and made it much more realistic. Wonderful. I also added a selective clarity adjustment over the mountains.

See you tomorrow!