I took this shot of a cactus and its fruit with the sun directly behind it as a jpeg. I wanted the fruit to "glow".

Would shooting something like this as "raw" picture have given me some room to dial back the sky, or is this simply too much for a digital image?

Open it in Photoshop or Lightroom and do some of the auto correct tools. Then take it from there!

Photoshop can fix it

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Edited 999 time(s). Last edit at 12:08PM by jdc.

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M>B>
Open it in Photoshop or Lightroom and do some of the auto correct tools. Then take it from there!

I did. It's too far gone to fix.

Then use jdc's fix!

Except I would shrink the selection and slightly feather it.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/27/2014 02:05AM by M>B>.

It all depends on your camera and your skills.
The old Rule of "Expose for the Shadows - Develop for the Highlights" doesn't really apply here , as you aren't interested so much in the reflection of light, but the transmission of it.
A Polarizing filter may help:
[en.wikipedia.org])

Some people use HDR:
[en.wikipedia.org]

The problem with HDR is that is so easy to use the technique badly- the result being fake looking images.

A delicate old technique is "Masking": Take two exposures- one with a black cardboard mask cut to match the profile behind what is being imaged, and a second to accurately record the background, and then blend the two.

You're using a Lumix DMC-LX7 at 1/400 of a second. Try 1/200 for the Mask, and 1/1600 for the background. That's an extra 3 stops of range.
After maybe a couple of hundred shots, and a couple of hours in Lightroom, something might develop.

Eustace

That was a 30 second quick mask with some stock clouds I have.

In the olden days I would have shot one photo with the cactus perfect, then another with the sky perfect and composted them.

Need a tripod and the ability to adjust exposure tho...

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Edited 999 time(s). Last edit at 12:08PM by jdc.

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jdc
In the olden days I would have shot one photo with the cactus perfect, then another with the sky perfect and composted them.

Do you use that in your garden?

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bazookaman

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jdc
In the olden days I would have shot one photo with the cactus perfect, then another with the sky perfect and composted them.

Do you use that in your garden?

LOL
but a composite is what I would have tried

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/27/2014 10:10AM by billb.

Yes, shooting RAW will enable you to recover highlights and lift shadow detail much better than a jpeg will. If you expect to have difficult shots like this, by all means shoot RAW.

Or as eustace mentioned, take multiple shots, exposing for different elements of the photograph. If you do this you can merge to HDR (be subtle) or combine the two exposures manually and do exposure blending, which is much more time consuming and I'll even say, easier to do wrong than HDR.

Lastly, it helps to have it as correct as possible in camera. Try a circular polarizer next time.

I think eustacetilley nailed it--you needed a polarizing filter for that shot.

Given the extreme background, I would have metered to the bright background and use fill flash for the cactus. If you cannot get that level of control, then meter to the sky and take the picture and fix it in photoshop.

With blown out details, you cannot recover. With software these days, you can probably pull out details of a dark image. GL.

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All I ever really needed to know, I learned from watching Star Trek.

I would have exposed for the cactus and adjusted if necessary. It's subjective of course, but a blown out sky bothers me much less, and is easier to correct in photoshop, than noisy or lifted shadows.

Q & D with one selection and Photoshop Levels:

Perhaps this would have come out better if I had shot this with a forgiving film such as Portra, and used a polarizing filter?

From what I understand, color print film gives you an extra stop of dynamic range over RAW digital images, and two stops over shooting jpegs.

Back in the day, many people cheated with color print film by setting their meters to a film speed one stop lower than the film was rated for to get underexposure insurance. So if shooting with ISO 100 film, people would set the meter for 50.

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wowzer
Given the extreme background, I would have metered to the bright background and use fill flash for the cactus. If you cannot get that level of control, then meter to the sky and take the picture and fix it in photoshop.

With blown out details, you cannot recover. With software these days, you can probably pull out details of a dark image. GL.

The problem with that, is the effect that I think he wished:
"I wanted the fruit to "glow"."
I interpret that to mean that he wanted some transmitted light. (Angles of refraction are unimportant.)

Stopping down and using a fill flash would kill any light transmitted through the Cactus.
Also, I'm not sure, thinking on it, that a Polarizing Filter would help much, with the sky so close to the Sun.
For most purposes, the light of the Sun and the sky immediately surrounding it are unpolarized.

Eustace

I had some fun with it. Got a bit more color saturation in the sky and added a flare to help pop some color to the fruit. Took about 5 minutes.

If I understand circular polarizers correctly, one would not have helped here as you're shooting into the sun. The polarizer works maximally well at 90° from the sun's location in the sky and the closer you move to either 0° or 180°, the less filtering the polarizer will do. If you want the fruits to glow then, by necessity, you are shooting into the sun so the 2 effects are non-compatible in this case.

When I use my polarizer (sparingly), this seems to be it's behavior.

Yeah I don't see a circ polarizer doing much of anything here either

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The Phorum Wall keeps us safe from illegal characters and words
The doorstep to the temple of wisdom is the knowledge of one's own ignorance. -Benjamin Franklin
BOYCOTT YOPLAIT [www.noyoplait.com]
[soundcloud.com]

BTW in this case if Raw is not an option, I would meter to barely not blow out the sky (maybe 2/3 EV lower than here) and bring up the lower midtones in Curves because there's little risk of losing significant shadow detail in this shot. If the prickly pear pad at lower right ended up plugged in darkness, it wouldn't detract from the shot.

However, this is the way I shoot habitually: underexpose and lose a bit of shadow detail or bring it up later at the cost of some noise, but don't blow the highlights unless there's a lot of white paint or chrome in the pic.

Here's my stab at it. I see what you wanted to do but since you didn't meter for the sky it didn't work. If you could capture it when the sun is low and you mostly silhouetted the plant, it would have worked better. I'm sure you know that.

Seems like you could shoot this thing a bunch of ways, one of which would please you.

I don't remember what I did but I selected the sky parts with some feather, curved as much blue that could be brought back. Inversed the selection and monkeyed with the exposure/contrast etc. There's a lot of detail in the plant itself. And I like DP, didn't see a purpose to that unwelcomed line. Keep shooting shooting and shooting and sharing.





Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/27/2014 12:26PM by vision63.

CW2V

Yeah, the line...

That sort of thing is never seen when taking a photo.

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freeradical
Yeah, the line...

That sort of thing is never seen when taking a photo.

For people that shoot film, I know it a big source of pride to capture the image without having to post edit. That's the game. I think I'm gonna start shooting some film myself.

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vision63

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freeradical
Yeah, the line...

That sort of thing is never seen when taking a photo.

For people that shoot film, I know it a big source of pride to capture the image without having to post edit. That's the game. I think I'm gonna start shooting some film myself.

Even in the early days of digital, I still used much of that restraint as I had a 128MB CF card and 2 batteries for vacation shooting in Wash, DC (first time there). Time and space are the restraints here and many of the best pictures from this trip are single exposures but unfortunately a number of the almost-best pictures are also single exposures. Those happened because this was a consumer P&S with an optical rangefinder and I didn't properly account for parallax. The pics are decent but with slightly better placement, they would have been great. Time for another trip!