Nacho

Hi Folks:

I've been asking folks in other forums for some feedback on these. They are recent works, that fit in a short series I've called "The Poetry of Trees." Purposefully processed to capture and evoke a feeling of being wrapped in the cocoon of the forests and woodmoors in this area. Your thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

















Thanks! N

Killermondodude

Very well done indeed i like the softness as it does feel like it cocoons you
For me the bright colors distract and feel overblown while the darker ones are softer and more inviting

The #1 Dad

amazing work. you>me so i have no critique. they look great and definitely provide the "feel" you were shooting for. no pun intended.

balut

beautiful

Metonymy

Very nice.

I'm interested in how you get that extremely "soft" effect?

beansbaxter

Composition is good. I'd be curious to see a sharp, clear version side by side with the soft affect version.

xqsme

I agree. The composition is good. I'm just curious how the work flow is. I tried to do it but his is just unique. Awesome pics man. Anyway, I'm not thread jacking but here is what I've done on mine so far.

Nacho

Bean, XQSME, thanks for your thoughts and the kind words. Beans, I'll try to post some of the originals as soon as I can. X, I like your shot, thanks for posting it. I try to work tonal contrast, especially on leaves and foliage by selecting it separately and running a High Pass, and/or combining it with USM. Just to give them a bit more edge and definition. I do like the soft feel of this shot. Thanks for the words on composition. Funny thing, I don't consider myself a landscape or nature photog! I consider myself primarily a photojournalism/reportage, and documentary person, so my composition work comes from spending time trying to tell stories. As part of my other work I spend plenty of time on narrative and learning how to best craft stories, including visually. Here's what I posted on my blog about this recent post-processing exploration:

After posting my recent "Poetry of Autumnal Woods" series I received many questions about my post-processing approach. I need to explain and provide a few caveats.

The first caveat is that I am exploring. I normally don't do lots of "heavy" processing, but more recently I have been moving to explore an artistic vision and how it finds expression with work on forests, woodmoors, and trees (I love those subjects). In that exploration I've been working to induce softness, going "low-key-ish," and adding a bit of glow. In fact, with dense woods, or stands of trees with plenty of small thin branches or woodsy stuff behind and between, I've noticed that blurring or adding glow and softness to the foreground large trees allows me to create distance between them and the rest of the scene, enhancing a sense of depth and making the other stuff behind, that would otherwise get lost in a mess of detail, stand out (in short, blurring the front a bit makes the eyes travel easier behind that "layer"). What I've been trying most in that regard is softening and adding a bit of glow, and darkening, but also enhancing tonal contrast and relying on that contrast to hint at definition and evanescent detail. So far I like that effect.

Normally for post-processing, I would start exploring and fixing contrast, saturation, colors, and so forth. If I wanted a more "mystical" effect, I would go through adding a glow effect (various ways, and some tutorials online, especially in LAB mode), and enhancing "local contrast," also called tonal contrast (but I do that after the glow effects, then I reduce brightness, and continue tweaking until I got the effect I wanted. The end would see me adding saturation to selected areas, darkening corners, and brightening particular parts of the image, etc. It was time consuming. Fun, but it does take time. The local/tonal contrast enhancement I would do with the High Pass filter, and/or the USM filter.

However, lately I've been playing with Nik Color Efex Pro 3.0 and these images have been the beneficiaries of it. It has saved me time, but it still is not a quick thing. Nothing here is just push a button and be done. I don't like to just apply a filter as is, so I tweak as much as possible until I find what I want. For the glow in these images I've been manipulating the "Midnight" filter, or the "Glamour Glow" filter. I tweak some things before going in, and often do some work on Camera RAW (or on Capture NX) before going in, then tweak the filter controls until I get to where I want. I then increase saturation locally in some images, or reduce it in others. After all those steps I apply the tonal contrast filter (although you can do this with the High Pass, or a combination of High Pass and USM), and might go back to soften, dodge, or burn, selected areas. It really depends on the image. What I look to do with images of dense forests and trees is create enough separation so that it creates the illusion of depth. Tonal contrast (whether with the filter or with the High Pass) is very helpful here.

Every image is different, so each takes careful contemplation and management. I'm certainly not always successful either "manually" or by using the Nik filters, but it is fun to play. Often I abandon the filters altogether and go back to curves, various layers, some exposure blending, gaussian blur, and various attempts at an Orton effect. But with these images I did not consciously seek to use the Orton Effect. I just think that the Nik Color Efex Pro's Midnight and Glamour Glow effects end up being, in essence, a pseudo-Orton.

Much of my effort at post-processing is stepping back from various brinks (overdone, overdone, etc.). I try to be as mindful in processing as I try to be when witnessing the original scene. I'm glad these came out in a way that connected with my experience of the moment. In fact, I am glad I could turn that one of the road. On that one (and on the Orchard shot) I forgot that the camera was set to ISO 2000 (I had been exploring high ISO the previous night).

So, that's it. Not a ton to it, just exploring and figuring out what works best for the kind of images I've been taking lately, and for the artistic vision I've been trying to firm up.

Thanks for looking and for your thoughts,

N

beansbaxter

What are the pro's and con's that you've found when using Nik Color Efex Pro 3.0?

Nacho

Pros and Cons... Well, the Pros with any filter set is the ability to get a shortcut through workflow. The filters are in effect an action set or a bundle of actions (boy I remember the original "actions" in DOS, those batch files). Second, the ability to see the effect immediately, tweak and view the changes, tweak some more, and so forth. Nik's Color Efex Pro also creates layers for the applied effects so that if one does not like the effect, all one has to do is click off visibility to get the view without it (or delete the layer to get rid of the whole thing). Third, there are plenty of filters, some quite cool and useful. Fourth, Nik has a good set of short videos on their website that serve as mini-tutorials (and a useful demo download). Fifth, the Color Efex Pro window that open is straightforward, clear, and easy to use. A particular filter not only provides the sliders (or you can enter numbers directly) and a default button, but slots for your own presets (speeds things up if you come up with a good set of tweaks for a particular filter -- although this is far more helpful to me in Nik's Silver Efex Pro). Sixth, a good set of graduate neutral density filters, and other lighting effect filters, that allow for rotation of light source (angle), intensity, falloff, opacity, and so forth. Seventh, NIk's patented u-control point technology is used throughout all the filters. You can set up control points and tweak to your heart's delight. Eight, a side-by-side preview that is quite useful. Well, those for now.

Cons, hmmm. I think they could provide better tooltip help, and build in a help or short explanation mechanism for the filters. I've seen programs that (say, focalblade) that provide good explanation for each action, and what results are likely to be with a particular choice. That would be helpful, and facilitate learning. What's more, they should allow the user to create a collection of filters (say, most used, or Woodland, Contrast, etc.), and organize them for quick use. They do have a Favorites tab, but I think it is only one. I think it also might be useful if, after one spends time setting up a good set of presets for a particular filter, Nik would allow one to access the effect (the preset) by not having to enter the whole Nik Color Efex Pro window. Just let me click it from somewhere in the main window (it's already a preset, so just allow me to click to get the effect). That for now.

I do recommend it. But I also would encourage folks to select a post-processing program and learn as much as they can about it, and about what they want to accomplish in PP.

Thanks Beans, I hope that helps

N