I recently spent a few weeks in Egypt, and of course, took a lot of photos. However Egypt presented quite a few challenges for me photography wise - hazy skylines, a serious lack of color, and some metering problems as I tried to figure out how to best expose for both the sand and the sky.
I’ve uploaded a few of the shots that I liked the most overall, but all of them seem seriously lacking to me; they either look washed out, hazy, or otherwise unremarkable. If anyone has suggestions as to what corrections I might make in Photoshop Elements, I’d be very grateful.
I think those photos look fine. Please resist the urge to oversaturate color or increase contrast. You’re in the desert, don’t expect bright popping colors. The only one that looks hazy to me is the cityscape and minarets because it is hazy. It appears that the light bit of wispy cloud reduced contrast of direct sunlight a bit and this appears to be a good thing, particularly for the man on horseback. This image belongs on the cover of the National Geographic. I would be proud to have taken these photos.
As for metering problems can I assume you are shooting digital? Digital is a bit funny in that “correct” exposure is often getting things as bright as possible without overexposing highlights into saturation. This is because the elements at the lower end of the exposure scale will have less recorded detail. Do you have a histogram function? It charts the distribution of pixels by brightness. If you have a troublesome exposure shoot so the histogram is as far right as you can get it without hitting the right edge of the chart. Nikons have a blinking highlight display which can be a quicker way of checking for this.
The downside to exposing this way is your image doesn’t look like the original scene. You need to correct this by altering the contrast curve. Does your camera shoot in raw mode? If so this will record more bit depth so you can recover more detail even after some manipulation.
Wow, thanks, guys. You’ve both made my day - especially with the National Geographic compliment. High praise indeed! (I’ll be blushing for weeks!)
I am indeed shooting digital. I haven’t actually tried using the histogram mode - that’s good advice, and it is available on my camera. I do tend to shoot in RAW whenever possible but I still have some learning to do regarding effectively maninpulating the file to get things the way they should be. I always thought that darkrooms were tricky things, but the digital darkroom might be even more so!
Just being honest. There is a fine line between pictures of stuff and photographs and I think you have crossed over into the good side.
Resist the urge to manipulate. My rule is that if you can tell it was manipulated in post that’s usually too much. Avoid counting on PP to do what you should have done in the camera. Use a fixed or custom white balance rather than automatic. Use different metering methods such as incident or gray card and shoot manually sometimes. BTW what camera are you using? It would help knowing what options are available to you.
It’s a Canon 300D (Digital Rebel). I absolutely love it and it has been worth every penny I’ve put into it.
As for shooting manual, I spent a lot of my time in Egypt teaching myself to shoot well in fully manual mode. Previously I’d stuck to the somewhat safer aperture- or shutter-priority modes. For the pictures I post though, I relied more on the automatic settings because I was on horseback and was a little nervous about falling off, and didn’t want to spend a lot of time fiddling with the controls when I could be holding on
Spurred by your comments regarding reviewing the histogram, I found out that it also has a “blinkie” feature for pinpointing over- and underexposed areas. That’s certainly useful to know, as it’s often hard to tell how the exposure went just by looking at the LCD.
You have an excellent, capable camera. Learn how to use the included software bundle for raw processing to get the most from it. Invest in some good wide glass. IMG_2325 looks like it’s begging for a wider lens and to be shot in landscape orientation.
I appreciate everyone’s input a lot. I did so some extremely minor tweaking to two of them, just to see what I could achieve. I submit for your perusal:
A slightly warmer looking man on the horse Had he not been smiling, I think the more greyish original might have worked better, but I think the little bit of extra warmth in the tweaked photo suits his expression better.
The pyramids with a slight bump in contrast What I like most about this revised picture is that the quality of the light is a little more distinct, especially where the sun hits the sand in the foreground.
Yeah, you did a pretty good job shooting in difficult conditions. I think your edited portrait is an improvement but increasing the contrast in the pyramid photo has made it too dark and has blown-out the highlights in the clouds above the top.
In the future, consider shooting in Raw which gives you more latitude in adjusting exposure post-shoot (although it’s always better to get it right in-camera). You could even blend different exposure settings to achieve a more balanced output ( see this article for more info ). As you can probably tell, I’m far less of a purist than Padeye when it comes to post-processing.
Your portrait is very good. Focus seems a little soft but that’s a minor quibble. Please consider using a fill-flash for future outdoor portraits. This will lighten the strong shadows you’ll often find under bright sunlight. The 300D will let you reduce the flash strength so it won’t completely eliminate the shadows.
You might also consider using a UV/Haze filter to cut down on some atmospheric haze or possibly a circular polarizer to cut glare and increase colour saturation, esp. in the sky, although you may not want that effect in desert shots.
Since you’re on flickr, you might want to check out some of the discussion groups like C.A.F.E. for critique or Technique.
Thanks for the links - I think I’ll be spending the rest of the evening going through those!
I see your point about the Pyramid shot - while the darkened Pyramid didn’t bother me so much, I had completely missed the blown out clouds. Maybe I’ll find a happy medium. And I agree that the focus in the portrait is just slightly too soft.
Regarding adjusting the flash, I’m not aware of this capability on the 300D. Maddeningly, I seem to have lost my manual - until 5 minutes ago, I was sure I knew where it was but it’s gone missing. But in a quick search I found a review of the 300D that cited the lack of adjustable flash being one of its disadvantages, so I’m thinking it isn’t available after all.
That article on blended exposures is excellent though, and if that were the only thing I had gotten out of this thread it would have been worth it!
I agree that the adjustments to the man look good but the entire sky in the pyramid shot look unnatural. Did you just change the contrast or did you change the curve? A little finess with the curve in a raw file can let you adjust the midrange without blowing highlights. Curves are very powerful but as always a fine line between making an image better and Sabatier effect.
You can use fill flash without having a separate flash exposure. I work with Nikon equipment but you should be able to do the same with Canon. I virtually always shoot flash in TTL but with the camera in manual. I let the flash expose the foreground while I dial the shutter speed to adjust the background exposure. For me this works better on the fly than flash compensation becuase I only have to use the command dial and not also the flash comp button. This same method also works well with non-TTL thyristor flash and even manual.
Hodge, I’m not against adjustments in post, I just think that too many people use them as a crutch for poor technique in camera. I do not think that is the case with TellMeI’mNotCrazy’s photos here.
That sucks. Sorry to mislead you, I just assumed that all DSLRs would have flash compensation built-in and I’ve only ever demo’d the Digital Rebel XT (350D).
Nice tip. I’ll have to try that
I see where you’re coming from, and I agree that it’s always better to get it right in-camera whenever possible. On a slight tangent, I just recently discovered the DPReview Forums which contain a wealth of good information but some of the atrocities committed in the name of Paint with Light (PWL) in the “Retouching” forum are enough to make your eyes bleed.
Having said all that, if good PP techniques can rescue a poorly exposed or framed photo, then so much the better.