Landscape Details

Seen from the Roman road I have been walking along in Carmarthenshire, this view shows a small patch of the landscape in which it is set. Even though the tree in the foreground cuts across the view, I feel that it still does the job of somehow framing the scene, putting the scale and perspective in context.

The monochrome shot of the fence posts is more of a detail of the landscape. Apart from changing it to monochrome I had do some further work on the image. I liked the stance of the fence posts and the tangled texture of the barbed wire but there were one or two distracting objects in the background field that needed removing. One of them was positioned  behind the fence and proved a challenge to remove satisfactorily. Generally I make image adjustments in Lightroom but for more detailed work like that I would open the shot in Photoshop.

Complementary images to my walks this week can be found directly on Instagram or via the sidebar images on the StillWalks blog. Images displayed here and on Instagram are a mixture of iPhone and Canon DSLR photography.

Carmarthenshire

monochrome fence posts

Fixing Phone Photography

Fixing photographs taken on a phone is easier said than done. Having said that, there is nothing like a challenge. How far you go with any adjustments will depend on the results you want to achieve but there is inevitably going to be some compromise in the end.

Below are different versions of one of the phone photographs taken in the woods at Fforest (see previous posts). The HDR option was switched on and so I had two versions to work with – but neither one was satisfactory! Two much strength in the sunny highlights in the original and too much green saturation in the HDR version. Some darks needed lifting, others not. Some highlights needed recovery, some not.

The first image is the one I will use. The second two images are the two (adjusted) versions of the original shot. The adjustments I made in Adobe Lightroom were not enough to satisfy me. The solution was to combine selected areas of the two versions in Photoshop.

Comments very welcome on this issue.

Fforest Forest-3

Fforest Forest-3 Original and HDR combined and adjusted

Fforest Forest 2

Fforest Forest 2 HDR adjusted

 

Fforest Forest 1

Fforest Forest 1 Original – adjusted

The last two photos are the original and HDR versions of another shot which are both in their original state from the phone. They illustrate the problem quite well.

Fforest Original

Fforest Original

Fforest  HDR

Fforest HDR