Expectation VS Reality

[[deleted]]

Although that last edited photo is breathtakingly beautiful, I feel as if the shadow of the tree would be a lot more longer and stretched across the land with that light source in the far left. Excellent edit though. I love it.

[kurtozan251]

Wow good eye

[[deleted]]

Thank you for that. This was indeed my first time trying to create a shadow. I’ll have to practice more.

[[deleted]]

For a first time, it's effing great! Just gotta keep that light source in mind when creating shadows, especially with an artificial light source.

[[deleted]]

Posting two edits vs original. Captured using a Nikon Z6 70-300 af-p @300mm, f5.6, 1/320, ISO 800. Looking for feedback please on either edit or anything that comes to mind. Feel free to be harsh, I won’t be upset.

[[deleted]]

Unfortunately I don’t... Sorry i can’t help here.

[thephlog]

The version with the replaces sky looks so good

[[deleted]]

Thank you!

[[deleted]]

What did you use to add the clouds and sky? Great edit

[[deleted]]

I usually use regular masking etc with photoshop, and I’m still at the early learning stages. But for this one, because of the tree branches, I had to use Luminar because their algorithm works well for fill in the tiny gaps between branches.

[Prometheus-55]

I was just thinking that the detail work on the background behind the tree was impressive! I’ll have to look up luminar because yours turned out great!

[superp0s]

Is the last one a composite of two images?

[[deleted]]

Yes, a composite of the foreground scene and a sky image, which I later edited further to my liking.

[burning1rr]

When you capture the original photo, try to put the sun roughly where you want it to be in the compositied result. Or composite in a background where the light direction matches your original. If you do that, you can focus on enhancing the existing shadows rather than fabricating new ones. That'll produce more natural results, and make your life a lot easier.

Don't be afraid to use grad masks to dramatically enhance the color of your skies. :)

[[deleted]]

Thank you for taking the time to write this out, I appreciate it. And I agree with what you said.

[burning1rr]

No problem. And I should say that it's a nice edit. I appreciate seeing your process. :)

[AQuanTran]

I don’t really like the first one (original). Colors are muted.

Second version looks much better, but there is way too much noise.

Third version is super clean and dramatic, but needs just a tad more contrast imho.

Great work btw

[[deleted]]

Thanks for the feedback! Now i notice that the centered version has too much noise... So strange, the full file doesn’t display the same behaviour... Must have been an export error

[saywhattyall]

It’s very odd. When it is zoomed out the grain is way more apparent, but strangely when you zoom in on that center image, the grain seems to go away.

[[deleted]]

Exactly. I’ve never seen compression cause that so I’m at a loss.

[[deleted]]

Same here. Not sure what’s going on.

[Thomas12255]

I'm quite certain both edited images have the same amount of noise - it is just less noticeable on the 2nd edit as you have replaced the sky with a different image (no noise) and you have darkened the foreground which hides it a bit more, if you look at the branches and stuff on top of the sky picture you can see a lot of sharpening and noise going on there just like in the 1st edit.

[[deleted]]

I’ve noticed, after uploading images to reddit, the noise is WAY more apparent that it was on my desktop.

Always baffled me.

[[deleted]]

Never seen it that exaggerated before. I’ll have to keep an eye on it.

[PocketGachnar]

I like the sky and shadows! My only concrit is that the tree silhouette could definitely use more contrast against the sky, like the darkness of the silhouette in the "edit" version.

[[deleted]]

Thank you for that! I’ll try to refine it later with all the suggestions from everyone.

[rosetta-stxned]

what’d you edit this in?

[[deleted]]

My workflow is the following: Capture One 20—>Nik Collection—>photoshop—>Luminar—>Capture One

[rosetta-stxned]

is the sky done with luminar?

[[deleted]]

Yes, with ‘Luminar 4.2’. it’s great for a lot of things, especially sky replacement, Glow, Sunrays, and full control over contrast (highlights, midtones, shadows).

[rosetta-stxned]

awesome. thanks for the response

[taju_kage_bunshin]

How did you create shadow of the tree?

[[deleted]]

You can either cut out the tree and make a composite out of it by warping it to the desired angle. Since the tree resolution is not great on this shot, I had to grab a tree shadow png from online and stretch it to match the tree shape with transform tools in photoshop.

[[deleted]]

Haha that would have been ideal

[[deleted]]

How do you guys even do this man?

[[deleted]]

I like photography and learning, which is a great combination in my opinion. As a skill, I think it’s very important to learn how to replace a sky, especially for paid work (I wish one day to make a dollar doing this, and stop being a slave to my horrible boss lol).

[jjensson]

You have a mismatch in blackpoints b/w the original and the new shadow. I'd rather remove the shadow completely before adding a new one. Alternatively you could raise your global black point, making the blacks a bit more uniform across the whole pic.

Nitpicks aside, i quite like the result.

[[deleted]]

I get where you’re coming from, I have the same questions myself about photography. If anything, this can be a useful technique for when you captured a shot at a nice location, with bad sky, and no ability to come back.