Originally posted by tx0h the original is very dull, you can imagine. foggy landscape in the early morning. there was not very much structure and color in the sky, the sky was almost grey. it was not bad but now the tree really pops out in front of the sky.
as a linux user i used darktable and applied levels, highlighted shadows, increased the colour saturation and softened it a bit. and yes, a bit of parametric denoise as well.
thanks for your critique. i always try to avoid obviousness of the post production. but most of the time i'm also concerned if post production is really needed and why didn't the perfect photo come out of the camera. i always think it's my fault and others have more skills in taking nice pictures in this situations while i need to PP the images.
greetings,
tx0h
Though I'm still figuring out digital still photography (mostly internet reading, and trial and error, mixed with scattered periods of life of being an entusiast), I'm around motion picture photography every day. I'm new to the forum, and I've recently learned that my monitor is not the best (but doesn't suck) for properly viewing images, I try to look at photgraphy in sRGB mode to get as close to a standard where I can see what the photographer intended. I flipped through the other modes and it totally changes the look of everything. Now that I've disqualified myself from any point of authority, here's the advice:
I'm not even going to talk about post, because that is totally subjective, but necessary if you shoot RAW. For a landscape such as this, shoot more frames. Change some settings, and shoot different exposures, and shutter speeds. Not knowing your situation (handheld/tripod), I see you're at a low ISO 125, relatively slow shutter, and almost wide open. If you're handheld, ISO is your option to change. (i'm still wrapping my head around EV adjustments, and stick to film principles) shoot a frame at 400, 800,1600, and you may end up with a better starting point. With a tripod, you can get into real slow shutter speeds, and start playing with apetures and filters, a polarizer might have pulled out the cloud detail before heading into post, or a top grad to balance out the frame, for that matter, but you'd have to slow that shutter down. It seems to be a great situation to have played around with HDR as well
A theory, I've recently learned and so far seems to help, is in digital to try and get your histogram shifted right and introduce more contrast in post. This one has been tough for me, as I like high key ratios, so if the opportunity presents itself "bracket" your shots, the more you do it, the more it will become natural.
I need to figure out how to put up some of my shots, and open myself up to some criticism, it's only fair