Dream Castles


Posted by sdaconsulting on Sun Sep 14, 2003 8:30 pm

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Probably my favorite image from this past week at the beach. There was a very talented sand castle builder with some amazing work, and I had the pleasure of photographing his work.

Two exposures, f/8 (minimum f/stop), Sony DSC-F717 + WA convertor 26mm equiv., blended in photoshop.
Matthew Cromer

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by NDCheryl on Sun Sep 14, 2003 9:17 pm
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Matthew,

This is very creative and so cool. It looks like you had a 'magical' time at the beach.
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by Greg Downing on Sun Sep 14, 2003 9:32 pm
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This is very sweet! I am curious about the two exposures. Did you mask the water when combining the second exposure since it was a moving element?
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by E.J. Peiker on Sun Sep 14, 2003 9:45 pm
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Wow, this is fantastic - both the photo and the sandcastle work. Please do tell us more about your technique for this photo.
 

by sdaconsulting on Sun Sep 14, 2003 9:46 pm
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Hi Greg! Glad you like it.

On this, basically only the sky was masked but not the water. I use two layers in photoshop, then use a soft brush to blend the layers using a layer mask. I find myself using this technique all the time with landscape images instead of a GND and find it greatly superior since I can customize the gradient. For example, in this picture the spire was not masked, which would not be possible with a physical ND filter.

Since I am using a digicam, I can get tons of DOF at f/8 so the shutter speeds don't get too slow. If I wanted to blur the water here I'd have to pull out my 3 stop ND filter.
Matthew Cromer
 

by Heather Forcier on Sun Sep 14, 2003 10:13 pm
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This is so cool! All the elements work very well together, the castles, sky, and waves. I may try experimenting with the technique you mention.
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by Ken Cravillion on Sun Sep 14, 2003 11:07 pm
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Vey cool shot. Those castles almost look real! :)
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by thapamd on Sun Sep 14, 2003 11:42 pm
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A lovely, lovley image. One of the most original shots I've seen in a long time. There aren't many images I wish I would have taken...this, however, is one of them.
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by stevebein on Mon Sep 15, 2003 1:03 am
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Just wow. What an opportunity and well executed!
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by Paul Skoczylas on Mon Sep 15, 2003 12:03 pm
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Excellent in all respects! The timing is particularly nice--these casltes aren't long for this world...

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by Rich S on Mon Sep 15, 2003 1:21 pm
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Nicely done all around, light, timing and composition. Small nit: I would slightly burn in the bit of wave at the edge, but that's minor in a wonderful shot.

Rich
 

by Mary Dennis on Mon Sep 15, 2003 2:36 pm
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This is a very enchanting image Matthew. It's not too difficult to imagine that these are real castles by the sea and you have taken the photo from a cliffside looking down. I love this! :)
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by Bob Ettinger on Mon Sep 15, 2003 7:04 pm
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Matthew,

Well dope and really appreciate the explanation.
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by Lillian Roberts on Mon Sep 15, 2003 9:46 pm
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Very, very cool. I want to learn how to do that masking thing. :) Does that explain the slight halo effect around the near castle? IMHO that actually enhances the image's dreamlike quality.
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by sdaconsulting on Mon Sep 15, 2003 11:29 pm
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Lillian,

No the halo is there on the exposure as well, although I was sure it came from the masking. I'm thinking it is probably some weird flare from the gunk that got on my lens in the blowing salt spray and wiping it on my shirt instead of clean lens cloths.

I thought about removing it in photoshop with some burning, but decided to leave it there for now.

As for the masking technique, I cannot recommend it enough for any situation where you might have too much contrast. You basically take two or more exposures identical in every way except shutter speed. Then copy one on the other and add a layer mask (hide all or reveal all as desired). Then you use a soft-edged brush at 100% (or you can use less if you like) and paint on which areas in the layer mask where you want the bottom layer to show through (or the top one depending on how you do the layer mask and whether you are painting black or white onto the mask).

This is a very useful technique where you would use a GND or where you wished you could use a GND. I find it almost indispensible for making really nice landscape images that include whitewater where you often have 4 stops from your hottest whites and your surrounding scenery average luminance. Far better to have one exposure where the whites are totally under control and another where you expose the surroundings very well, leading to much richer and less noisy images in the shadow areas.

I use similar techniques all the time with adjustment layers (where the layer mask seems to be created automatically when you make the adjustment layer) for burning and dodging, changing color balance or saturation in part of the image, etc. Really learning layer masking has made a huge difference for me in my control of my final image and has make processing images so much faster and more efficient for me than before.

At some point I'll write up an article on this topic and see if it is helpful for anyone else.
Matthew Cromer
 

by Juli Wilcox on Tue Sep 16, 2003 1:25 am
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Lovely photo, Matthew. Your technique sounds interesting and useful! Might consider a small crop to remove the white object on the Left side.
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