I almost deleted this shot while I started to clean out my crammed hard drive. But instead of pressing the delete, I pressed the Photoshop button. And then I started to play. With no real endpoint in mind, this is where I ended up – a chaotic Photoshop file full of random layers.
Layer 1 – The basic image of the mill. This has a strong colour cast due to the Hitech 10-stop filter I used.
Layer 2 – An “empty ” layer I use to clone out dust spots, etc.
Layer 3 – A Curves layer where I adjusted each colour channel in modify the colour cast (in the end, this had relatively little effect on the final image as I quite like the whole blue-cast thing)
Layer 4 – A Gradient Map set to 60% opacity to partially desaturate the scene
Layer 5 – A concave Curves layer, masked for the sky, to balance (darken) the exposure
Layer 6 – A strong convex Curves layer, masked for the building, to make it much lighter and become the focal point (it was lost into the background, otherwise).
Layer 7 – My attempt at the Orton effect layer. I have to warn you; this is not the textbook way of doing it. If you plan to use the Orton effect, find a good online tutorial and follow it. What I did is not very efficient… Shift-Ctrl-Alt-E to create flattened copy of all the layers below. Gaussian Blur filter added (can’t remember the exact radius – probably around 10px). Blend mode set to Screen. This created the effect, but also resulted in a bright image so I had to darkening this layer (Image – Adjustments –Curves)
Layer 8 – Last layer… a masked Curves layer to darken the reflections in the water area.
Final step – give up and have a cup of tea. Experiment over. Keep or delete? My two most trusted critics (my wife and 9-year-old son) said “Keep”, so here we are.
Equipment: Nikon D7000, Nikkor 10-24mm @ 10mm, ISO 100, F16, 60 sec, Hitech 10-stop ND Filter. Manfrotto tripod
Posted by snjscuba : t’=t.(1-(v^2/c^2))^-1 on 2015-12-10 07:36:22
Tagged: , UK , England , Northamptonshire , Wadenhoe , mill , water , LE , ND , 10-stop
