Bridge

[tayl0124]

The weather got to around 50 here today so I thought I better get out and shoot some photos. Here is one of my favorites, pp'ed and not.

[LeeIs]

Hey tay, I would crop out all of the sky. Like totally, I tried it on the monitor and it definitely improves the shot imo. the sky as it stands right now has no information what so ever, just bland white. Hope that helped!

[jetrim]

I agree completely with Liban, great angles going on but lose the sky for sure and you'll have a keeper!

[edit to add] Looks like this spot would make an awesome night shot as well, judging from the placement of the light fixtures.

[Shebang]

I agree with the sky crop suggestions. I like the color in the left one best.

[tayl0124]

I agree about night shots there. I am waiting to get a tripod and than I will be taking some photos from that spot at night. You can see our state capitol from that spot also. Looks really cool lit up.

[tayl0124]

Here is a cropped version

[LeeIs]

Yes tay, it definitely looks much better. although there's a bit of a red cast now. but the composition has definitely improved.

[tayl0124]

Yeah, I see that. My problem, besides inexperience, is that I was trying to get some good blue color to the water(rather than muddy as the great Mississippi is) and also have the rust color of the bridge stand out. I also feel that there is a lot of blue in the backround(near the houses) as a result.

[LeeIs]

Yeah, you would have to fiddle around in photoshop to get the water blue and then mask and get the bridge rusty red. but if you apply both colour treatments to the entire shot, neither the water or the bridge will be the intended colour. Also, it's very tough to get rivers blue naturally, unless using photoshop. They're not deep or clear enough like seas are.

[tayl0124]

Tell me about it. I realized that when I was in Switzerland back in '97. I have never seen a body of water that blue/green before than or since.

[jetrim]

Agreed - the comp is much better, but you gotta work out that color thing. If you are uncomfortable with masks try doing a selection on the river using the lasso and adjusting the color only in that area.

[tayl0124]

Thank you for the suggestions!! I am hopefully going to play around a little in photoshop friday night and see what I can get.

[ASWEAVER]

Tay, I actually redid the photo a bit just to try a few things out for you. I ended up creating a 8x10 Crop so I could see how it'd look with a little sky cut out but not all, then I quick selected both the water and the sky. On the sky I dropped the exposure down and used a cyan photo filter, on the water I ended up putting a deep blue photo filter on it. Anyway, I'll link it here so you can just see an option of how to do it. I imagine you could probably easily guess who I am too, heh.

Edit: Also, the line on the sky is a little hard, which you could soften pretty easily, I just figured I'd show you a quick rough of a different approach to seperating the filters you throw on. Also, that's with the photo taken from the left side of your original post. You could do the same quick selection tool to grab the bridge and probably put a red filter on it.

[tayl0124]

Okay so I played around with masks and such, Not sure if I did it right or not. Or if I may have overdone the colors now. I also couldn't figure out how to select everything but the bridge and water after I had 2 layers with masks of them.

[ASWEAVER]

My only issue really with that last post is that the blue seems to defy the light logic in the rest of the composition. This could be me being nitpicky but I feel like the reflective quality to the bridge and highlights isn't carried through in the water. Just feels a little detached from the rest of it. However, on a positive note, you're definitely figuring out how to edit the individual pieces of the composition, I just feel like maybe the water needs to come a bit lighter to meet the light value of the composition.