'Light Snow' ... in a digital darkroom.

[Wild Wassa]

In this image I want to portray that in the sub alpine ridge country near my home, what little water that falls as snow is very slight and only falls basically in the catchments. What little falls is all taken eventually by just a couple of greedy power companies or huge corporate farms. I have an on going theme about the lack of fresh water here in Australia and how it has been corruptly or negligently over allocated or stolen at the expense of the environment. Those who know my landscape work will see that my underlying theme rarely changes about water stress.

The original photographs in this manipulation are very basic and show the Snow Gum tree line and subalpine grasses and the stone cairn which is the historic border surveyed during 1902-05 between the Australian Capital Territory and New South Wales. Surveyed when the alpine rivers were allowed to run free.

Left of the cairn the water runs North and East into the Cotter catchment or to the right, it runs South and West into the Goodradigbee catchment. The grasses in the photograph were vital materials to the Old People (the Aboriginal people of the district). The main long grass Lomandra or commonly called Iron Grass which was used for making baskets and strings for ropes and twines for fish nets. There are no native fish in these catchments now except for maybe the extremely rare and protected Native Black Fish and the tiny Galaxis ... all other species that required good flows have now gone extinct, in my district. That is the general background for the image ... but the real background is, that the environment benefitting greatly from the thaw as it once did, is now just an illusion.

The first image was not used in the photo manipulation ... it is just an archetypal image of the subalpine country around my neck of the woods.





The historic stone cairn is the place where the waters divide.





The ground where I live is like concrete. One of my US friends who came to visit said that where I live is "scary dry". So the third image is of a ceramic floor tile with about the same hardness and with the same water retention as the dirt around here.





Now to link the 2nd and 3rd images together and show the main stages in the build.

[Wild Wassa]

I converted the main image to a square format and separated it to the Blue, Green and Red channels. The square format is compositionally static. It implies no directional push and pull, that is seen when employing a rectangular format.





I chose the Green channel to work with. It has the best overall tonal range with the best highlight detail. At this stage I'm not interested in a good or correct contrast range. The original Blue and Red channels were deleted. The green layer, was then recombined to become the new RBG channels. Using 3 channels allows colour manipulation and employing effects like toning and colour balancing of the b/w image at a later time, that may not be possible when working with one channel only.

The black and white was then layered with the colour tile image. The tile photo was adjusted to give a minimum textural detail in the snow. If you compare the snow's shadow detail in the above image to the detail within the red rings ... a marked difference is visible. This new detail symbolizes the footprints of the small mammals that have gone extinct. Australia has the greatest rate of mammal extinction of any continent. This detail although just visible is important to me. When I was a kid I would see many footprints in the snow from the different native animals ... now I mostly see footprints of ferals ... foxes, cats and pigs and the occassional domestic dog that's gone wild.





With a smudge tool, I then started to melt the snow below the cairn. This took some time balancing the degree of transparency, the brush width and the correct look that I was after paying attention to not disturb the cairn too much.





Corrections were then made to the cairn using a lassoo tool and I simplified the image by removing a few if the distracting bits of untidy detail, seen in the red rings below.





The area selected by the lassoo tool allowed the resharpening of the cairn, and changes to the tonal and density values of the rocks without affecting other parts of the image. Parts of rocks that I disturbed were cloned from another photo to help rebuild the cairn. The image below shows slight tonal changes throughout the print, as I balanced the details in the trees and grasses ... prior to sending it to Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2.





I give images the heavy hammer of lightroom. I like blacks to be D Max and I like to vignette the images which adds a bit of tonal drama. Some of the settings can be seen on the right, where as many of the repeated adjustments can be seen recorded on the left.





The final vartiation was toned by making changes to the colour balance by adding tints of Magenta, Yellow and Cyan (which increased the blacks slightly and gave a touch of warmth) and finally linked through Photobucket. Photobucket is disappointing with the loss of fine detail and tonality.


'Over The Edge'.





The final image can be seen on my dA site, just click on the thumbnail and an intermediate image will appear, then click on that image and that will bring up the final image showing good detail ... http://wildwassa.deviantart.com/

Warren.

[Liz]

Thanks for taking the time to post all this valuable information, along with the "visual aide" which helps those who are technically challenged - like myself. You really work hard to get the best images - and it certainly shows.



Liz

[Frog]

That's a lot of work and thankyou for the lessons.
Shows me that I have a lot to learn which I consider a good thing.

[Cathathome]

Pretty cool! Thanks for this

[Ron Kruger]

When I have more time, I'm going to go back through this and study it. Thanks.

[Wild Wassa]

Thank you for the encouragement Liz and I'm glad that this post is of interest.

I hope people try revisualizing their images in post processing and thank you for the kind words and interest from all.

This is a colour experiment that I started this afternoon, looking at transparent glazing. I don't see this next image as photo manipulation. It is just simple exploration in the digital darkroom.

'Glazing' ...is a work in progress.





There is so much glass in Melbourne, I see Melbourne as being all about glazing and reflections. Glazing is also a painter's term for laying down transparent washes and different colours of varnish and is what we see when we look through a reflection on glass. There is great room for exploration in this theme.

Warren.

[Wild Wassa]

127 thread views ... that is excellent. Let's take it to over a 1000 .. shall we? I hate odd numbers.

It is hot here at the moment ... "Oz, it's as sweltering as bro. I wish I was beached as, but not as beached as hot plinktun bro." ... do you like my new Kiwi accent that I'm acquiring from Kiwi tourists over the summer holidays? Do you think it is kewl?

Although some might find my new accent a bit misleading or even totally d'ciptive bros, I'm finding it as multicultural as. "Summer is ridical in Oz bro." Everyone I talk to is largely a new Australian ... so "Cong Hei Fat Choi !!!!"

Anyway, back to the hot post processing plot. Here are some hot shots from my little Canon point-n'-shoot S70. Hoilding my 40D is totally out of the question. 3rd degree burns can be life threatening.

The Coastal Ranges are going up. The sea breeze is bringing with it a heavy pawl from the burning Budawang Wilderness and the once warm temperate rainforested coastal ranges will be no more, sadly. Losing the precious remnants of rainforest to fire is tragic. It is a sad week that has prompted these next few shots.

'Smokey'





I'm not talking only 100F ambient air temps, that is just a kiddy play temperature, I'm talking seriously hot air, like closer to 117-120+F. I've seen some hot "simmers" here but this summer is absolutely swelteringly hot. Where I was working this morning the radiant temperature from the surroundings was 53C/130+F ... so I left work and went and did some photography in the shade.

'Sweltering Heat Brown Stump'. Showing 3 stages in the build. The original image is a slumping heat stressed Hairy Oak, adding a texture screen in the second stage and then finally converting to b/w, sharpening selected areas and toning the image using the colour balance parameters and abit of cloning to add some evil drama. As always, I ran the image through Lightroom and then back through Canon's Arcsoft to make the finer tonal adjustments.











Man it is hot. It would be even hotter here if I had a longer thermometer (a variation on thermometers that I stole from a Mark Twain quote). It is so hot holding a black camera here, when you take a breath and hold it, it burns your throat and pressing against a camera ... renders facial burns.

Warren.

[jetrim]

Warren,
I really enjoy seeing your "texture overlay" shots. I have experimented some, but haven't been able to produce anything nearly as impressive as what you turn out on a regular basis. Thanks for sharing a little bit of your process with us.

[Wild Wassa]

Jetrim, thankyou. It's my pleasure Mate.

If I strike a chord with one person, then my contributions here on the Forum are well worth-while, to me. Fine comments like yours and from others are great support and very satisfying to read.

Here are two more post processed images that I constructed today using texture screens. The two images are about the current fires in the coastal ranges, about the sweltering heat that we are experiencing this simmer and the never ending drought in our neck of the woods ... now entering its 17th year without meaningful rain, in the SE region of New South Wales.

'Sweat it Out' ... the ground is like concrete, the sheep are exhausted, the farn dams are all but dry, the trees are water stressed and many forest giants have died ... but I'm just sweating it out.





'Building Smoke' ... the northern most slopes of the Australian Alps. Mounts Tennant, Franklin and Agie (the peak) and the Murrumbidgee River corridor in front of the Bullen Range.

The smoke comes with the sea breeze at about 2 o'clock each day from bush fires burning in the coastal ranges, 60ks to the east. Simmer is not ever an enjoyable season in the Bush Fire Capital of the World.





A Canon S70 point and shoot camera is responsible for the images on the tread ... except for the architectural image, which was shot on a Canon DSLR 40D.

Warren.

[draymorton]

Great thread, Warren. Thanks for sharing.

[Wild Wassa]

Draymorton, thankyou. I'm glad that you're finding this post processing thread interesting.

I discovered something very interesting yesterday.

It is very smokey, so the shots are flat tonaly in both value and colour. The tones in the image below are straight out of the camera.





I converted the JPEG to TIFF knowing that I was going to be playing seriously with it (that was my intention) and the RBG channels I converted to HSV channels and then auto enhanced each of the HSV Channels. Then recombined them. I then colour balanced a red colour shift.

...and ended up with this result ... an HDR looking image, even with grain? So could this be how simply HDRs are made? Even the grain increase is similar to the grain buildup when over Micro Shading in an HDR programme.





I tried to mimic this result using the original file by using the normal post processing variables like brightness, contrast, hue and saturation, and the lassoo captures to individually balance areas like the shadows ... but got nowhere near it. A most interesting result.

The only thing that I didn't find satisfying is the build up in grain, which has to be a micro contrast issue. This grain increase was instantly seen when I auto enhanced each of the HSV channels.

I've reduced much of the grain using a smoothing tool, where the grain was easily addressed in the bland areas of colour. I could have sharpened the image slightly, but that only increased the grain again.

Warren.

[Wild Wassa]

The next stage ... 'Mount Franklin Lumier'.





One can't ever experiment enough ... I find.

Wassa.

[shootme]

Hi Warren, your a man of your word, thanks for all of this, I ended up buying some books as well for nighttime reading, but I guess it will take me a year before I can come close to managing this. Be sure I will be practicing. When I have something I'm comfortable to share, I'll be sure to let you know. Thanks for the education. Shootme. PS: Now I wish I did have the boatwright and refinishing skills, but sadly my background is finance & strategy, M&A stuff, reorganisation, building structures and processes, analytics, that sort of thing. Alas when we finally make it to OZ be sure I'll come look you up for a weekend of photography.fficeffice" />>>

[Wild Wassa]

Shootme, when you visited you certainly came at the right time. The temperatures you no doubt enjoyed in Melbourne and Sydney were very comfortable.

Here at the moment we are having an extraordinary heat wave. In Melbourne this week it has been over 46+C each day, and today its an unbelievable 48C.

I'm half way between Sydney and Melbourne and the temperature here today is best described as being in hell.

Warren.

[shootme]

Shootme, when you visited you certainly came at the right time...Warren.

You are right it was very comfortable when we were there, perfect in fact. It must be scary to have that sort of heat, certainly isn't normal. My sister has 6 chooks, they all died last Wednesday nearly 1 after the other due to the heat. Good luck.

[Wild Wassa]

Shootme, I'm sorry to read about your sisters 6 chooks ... which prompted this next shot. I took this shot when 6 of my neighbours lost lost their homesteads to fire. This month is the anniversary of the fire.

'Another Burnt-out Wedding' ... we didn't save much that day, but I did save the scorched veil of the Bride of Death.





Warren.

[shootme]

Wow, looks like a painting, very nice shot, colour, composition with the road ends falling off to either corner. Well done again, S

[Wild Wassa]

From the light snow fall and cold days just before Christmas, that prompted the start of this thread, to the staggering furnace of today, doesn't seem real ... does anyone want to swap temperatures?

Looking over the Molonglo River Valley to the Blue Range, I couldn't see clearly through the twilight smoke and blistering temperatures.





... until there was an improvement in post processing visibility, and I could see the cause. I can see clearly now.

'Fire Dragon Blue Range'.





I hope the fire doesn't jump the river. Burn baby burn .. burn-out.

Warren.

[jetrim]

Very cool manipulation Warren, as always. Looks like you employed displacement mapping in this shot (and a fresh piece of tile )

[Wild Wassa]

Jetrim, thank you. I like your use of the word cool. I could use some coolness. It is midnighht here and the temperature is still 104F.

For Fire Dragon Blue Range, two JPEG exposures were converted to an HDR, by only using the 'Tone Compression' functions. Then I converted the JPEGs to TIFF files before adding a slightly dark vignette to the the image in Lightroom.

Then I transferred the image to Arcsoft where the grunge layer was blended in and changed the colour saturation slightly and adjusted the colour balance again only slightly before final adjustments to the overall brightness and contrast.

A few trees were changed to look more painterly ... and that was it.

I'm sure some will prefer the first image being softer and less visually harsh but the new image is about summer here.

Warren.

[jetrim]

Hey, in 6 months when the temp here is 104 and the humidity is hovering around 105% you can reciprocate

Wouldn't have thought of tone compression, but I expect this is what's giving it the watercolor like properties and the vignette almost gives it a "buttonized" appearance.

Thanks for the roadmap, I have much to learn.

[Wild Wassa]

Jetrim, you can keep that humidity Mate, thank you ... anything above 24%RH in this heat isn't nice. I used to live in Queensland, and if you stood still for longer than 1 minute during the monsoon ... you needed serious antifouling.

Here are more post processed images that I've taken and made just recently from bush walking and water activities. If anyone is interested in how these images were done, I'll give a blow by blow description of the processes.

It isn't just post processing that is critical to the result ... it is also the pre shooting thoughts and processing concepts ... that are augmented by the use of post processing.

On the web there are many free resources that can be utilised from stock photography galleries that allow the downloading of texture layers and other types of stock and brushes for digi' darkroom work and doing photo manipulations.

I'm a digital darkroom worker, a cloner and a layer of mutiple images, with a major bent towards photo retouching. I'm certainly not a true photo manipulator in the purist sense of cutting, masking and pasting.

'A Passing Ship' ... in the Point Richard Channel, Corio Bay. A friend, Eric, told me that this image reminds him of the accounts of the stragglers from the First Fleet. That is the ambience that I was after, with the distance between the two boats being as far as it was, when I took the shot. To have Eric say, that he thought of the First Fleet, is another vein of post processing and it's most rewarding. Post processing isn't just about digi' darkroom stuff ... do you not agree?





'Ethereally Up A Creek' ... the Hacking River. Over the last 25 years I've been within metres of this image and not seen it, many times. Then yesterday, I stopped the car to look at some reflections, walked 100 metres and discovered this scene ... what else have I failed to see on my stomping grounds. The nature of the scars in the rock face suggest that this is an early convict honed cutting, again another revelation. that I'll now think about rephotographing ... for the next several weeks.





'Map To The Byadbo Wilderness" ... the smoke settled in the gullies as the temperature dropped in the late afternoon. It is so smokey here at the moment, it makes up for a lack of fog during winter. I'd best make use of the smoke while it lasts.





'Because They're There IV' ... a passing storm in the Western Blue Mountains.





Warren.

[shootme]

You are really a miracle worker with the post processing of your shots Warren. I am always gob smacked when I see your finished product of what I call Art. You must be very proud of your work. Cheers S.

[Wild Wassa]

shootme, Thank you Mate. You are too kind. The way you see these images is most rewarding to me ... but I see them differently, I'm just documenting my travels. The day I feel that I’ve taken a good image will be the day that I give away photography. That will not happen in the near future.

'Port Jackson Mallee' ...Black Gin Ridge from Shrapnel Hill above South West Arm Creek. New South Wales lower Central Coast, on the Great Escarpment. The Great Escarpment parallels the Great Dividing Range and is just as long. Several thousand kilometres long.





I took the image yesterday ... of recently renamed stands of Port Jackson Mallee (now Eucalyptus obstans no longer Euc.oblonga) above South West Arm Creek. Not many would look twice at this image ... but already this shot has become one of my favourite images from the Great Escarpment. Several thousand kilometres long.

I know how hard it is beating through this bush, going no where fast. I've spent many days exploring in this tangle of anti-personnel foliage of tight Mallee, impenetrable Tea Tree, painfully spiked Hakea and with no where to put a foot in the leach infested Iron Grass without nearly squashing some species of fragile carnivorous plants like Droseras or Utricularias of many varieties.

... and enjoying every moment of it.

'A Quite Reach Below Artillery Hill' ... Artillery Hill is a few k's north of Shrapnel Hill.





Warren.

PS, If this is the first time that you have seen this post? ... 'Port Jackson Mallee' has been edited several times, since the first image was posted. If you are not ever happy with your work, then post processing ... is made for you.