|
|
Post by whippet on May 20, 2018 10:25:18 GMT
11pm. I had my outdoor light on. I took these pictures along with using the flash, too. I did prefer them without putting the stars on. But felt that they needed something.
Any suggestions, please.
  |
|
|
|
Post by Lillias on May 20, 2018 19:59:43 GMT
I'm not sure exactly what you have in mind here whippet but in lieu of any other suggestions I would definitely resize and tone down your stars as what you have at the moment isn't really realistic to my mind.
|
|
|
|
Post by Bailey on May 21, 2018 3:13:01 GMT
Hi whippet, I like the stars as an "artsy" effect, assuming that is your intention with them. The single star in the second image provides a nice overall balance in the image, however I feel there are too many stars covering nearly every nook and cranny in the top image. I would think about half the number would be a nice balance. Atm, for my brain and eyes, they are a little distracting. On my screen, it appears the photo is a little overexposed with the highlights (very bright yellow parts) washed out a bit resulting in loss of detail in the leaves. If your camera has Flash Exposure Compensation, maybe dial it back half or 1 stop in a similar situation next time. Hopefully your camera has a histogram it can display or "blinkies" (flashing blown out highlights) when you review the shot in camera. These are very handy tools you can use to adjust exposure when required. Anyway, as always, just some food for thought  |
|
|
|
Post by hmca on May 21, 2018 3:44:06 GMT
I agree with Lillias and Bailey. My first thought was that there are too many stars and they are too big in the first one. I like Bailey's comment about the one start providing a balance in the second one. I also agree with Bailey about the yellow leaves being too bright. You may want to try adjusting the yellows. You could do this by duplicating you layer and then choosing hue/saturation under the enhance>adjust color menu at top. (using PE 11) This would allow you to pull back on both the saturation and the brightness of the yellow in your picture. By doing this on its own layer you can then reduce the opacity of that duplicate layer to blend with your original to taste.  |
|
|
|
Post by Bailey on May 21, 2018 10:09:33 GMT
Hi again whippet, In addition to hmca's suggestion you might like to try something like these 2 methods, not only for this photo but as general techniques to try to fix overexposed photos in the future. If you have RAW files, then exposure correction is much easier and flexible. If you shoot in jpg, then maybe have a play with hmca's suggestion and these 2 below. 1. Duplicate the overexposed layer and then use the Multiply Blending Mode on the duplicate. You can adjust the opacity to then hopefully get the look you want. You might have to use multiple layers depending on the amount of over exposure. But details in blown highlights is hard to recover, if at all 2. If you have Elements+, then using the various sliders in RAW Corrections should give better results than method 1. In the example below I reduced the Exposure and hightlight sliders and bumped up the Shadows slider a little. More recovered detail in the highlights can be seen in this example. You can then play with adjustment layers and masks to enhance the image and get the look you want, which I haven't done in this example. Hopefully you have the stars on a separate layer so they won't be affected by any adjustments/edits.  Using Multiply Blending Mode  Using Elements+ RAW Corrections But it's always better to try to get the exposure correct when taking the photo, rather than rely/hope to get it right in post processing. Hope this helps |
|
|
|
Post by PeteB on May 22, 2018 1:22:52 GMT
Hi Whippet Here’s my suggestion. I think the yellow flowers compete with the star for the viewers attention. My suggestion is to alter the composition by cropping out some of the yellow flowers and have the star become “the star” of the image. After cropping, the brightness of the remaining yellow flowers can be adjusted so the star is the brightest spot in the image. Also, I like the fact that two diagonal branches seem to point to the star.  |
|
|
|
Post by whippet on May 22, 2018 15:15:10 GMT
Thank you all for your most welcome response. I am going to have a try with your suggestions. I didn't care for all of the stars. Plain and simple is usually my thing. It is a powerful outdoor light which I have. So perhaps using the flash too, was wrong. I wish I had got my camera out last night. On Pete's picture, where there is a big V on the right of centre, the moon was out, and it was dead centre of that gap. I hadn't noticed the effect of the branches, Pete.
hmca. The tree is a laburnum. And the 'yellow leaves', are flowers. |
|
|
|
Post by Bailey on May 22, 2018 21:09:53 GMT
No problem whippet. I'm glad all the suggestions help |
|
