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It’s difficult to achieve an original composition at such a highly photographed location as Mt. Rushmore. But even so, a personal photo is a personal memory and even at a place that is proverbially littered with tripod footprints, and the photo you are trying to capture can be purchased on a 25 cent postcard at a nearby gift shop, it’s still fun to try to make the shot for yourself! Here’s my personal attempt at a nighttime composition of the presidential likenesses with the lighted walkway in the foreground. Since editing is such a significant part of achieving a quality photo, I’ve included the original unedited image for comparison and analysis. In the post-development of this photo I increased the overall exposure a bit, decreased the highlights and greatly increased the shadows. I also warmed up the white balance a bit. I felt the faces needed some special attention to bring out the detail and further reduce the highlights, so I accomplished that using a brush in Lightroom. In Photoshop, I did some more editing to fine tune some of the details. Fortunately my visit to Mt. Rushmore was in mid May so the crowd was minimal compared to mid summer, and most of the passersby were moving enough that they disappeared in the long exposure. A few ghostly remnants of people and the flashes of their cameras at the far end of the walkway were all that I had to clone out. The sign on left was reflecting a red light, so I copied the sign from the right and overlayed it on the left sign. I had tried locally reducing the exposure to cut down on the distracting brightness of the light in the lower right corner, but finally decided to clone it out altogether. I also noticed that one of the lights was burned out toward the far end of the walkway, so I cloned it in from one of the other lights. As you can see, the lights were different shades, some being more amber and some more white. I tried selectively changing the white balance to make them all look the same, but I could not achieve a natural look. Perhaps some of you who are more savvy with editing would be able to accomplish it! As a final touch, I edited the trees in the upper right to eliminate the appearance of “chopped off” treetops. So let me know your thoughts and what you would have done differently in either taking the shot or editing it.
Camera: Nikon D7100
Focal length: 34mm
ISO: 100
Aperture: f/16
Exposure: 25 secondsAttachments:
Awesome shot, @dan-cope!
Maybe you Americans are used to see this picture, but that’s not really the kind of picture that we see on our postcards here in Quebec 🙂Great info about how and why you edited this shot. I have a lot to learn on editing, which I feel is a domain more neglected than some other areas of photography.
Wow! That’s a really great perspective. And I really like all the edits you made. They enhance it very much. I don’t even like looking at the first one any more. 🙂
I’ve tried my hand at making the pillars the same color. Could you tell? Does it look natural?
You can do it easily in Photoshop using Solid Color layers, masks and the Color blending mode.
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Thanks guys for the comments! Your edits look great, James! Using your advice, I went back to Photoshop and worked at it some more. I also used a cooling filter and a color balance layer to “whiten up” the faces a little more. Back in Lightroom again, I thought the sky would look better if it were darker, so I slid the blue luminance slider down a good bit. I also adjusted the orange sliders, reducing both luminance and saturation slightly and adjusting the hue a little bit to make what I thought was a more pleasing color tone in the now all-amber lights!
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I like your second edit better, @Dan-Cope! Good call on “whitening” the faces. I know that the WB range was very extreme, and that always creates problems in post-processing. Speaking of postcards, I think this photo would be a good candidate! 🙂
Ditto that! Now it just needs a living element in it, like a person standing in the middle of the columns gazing around in wonderment! 🙂
Thanks @buddingphotographer! Sometimes getting the right look in post processing is almost as fun as taking the picture!😀
Thanks James! Yeah I guess an awe stricken visitor would add some interest! Sometime maybe you can share the exact steps you took in PS to adjust the color of the lights. The first time I tried it I was actually trying to change the amber lights to look like the white ones. I selected the amber color by using color range selection and applying that to a mask on a cooling filter. As I mentioned earlier, I just couldn’t get it to look right. This time based on your comments and example, I did the color selection on the white lights and applied it to a mask on a solid color layer. I selected the color for the layer from the area around one of the amber lights. I then fine tuned it with a brush on the layer mask. I still have many things to learn about Photoshop and I actually wasn’t sure how to use the color blending mode that you mentioned.
Thanks @buddingphotographer! Sometimes getting the right look in post processing is almost as fun as taking the picture!
You’re welcome! 🙂 I agree, I don’t often go to great lengths in post-processing, but every once in a while there’s a picture that’s special to me, and I really want to do it right. This snowflake shot stands out in my mind as one of the most advanced processings that I have ever done to one picture!
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Nice! I’ve never done any macro photography, but I am really intrigued by your snowflake pictures! The little minute details of nature are fascinating! A friend of mine went with me on a hike years ago. I sometimes take binoculars on a hike, but this guy took a magnifying glass! We got down on the forest floor with that magnifying glass and inspected amazing and beautiful little details! I’m sure there is a lot of beauty to be discovered through a macro lens!
I’m sure there is a lot of beauty to be discovered through a macro lens!
That is an under-statement! I just recently found a “steal” on ebay for a Tamron 90mm f/2.8 macro lens. It focuses all the way to 1:1 magnification without extension tubes, and it’s very, very nice! I was inspired to take it out for a couple of days, and I’m very happy with the results! Here are a few pictures I’ve taken with it in the last few days…
(You can click on any of them to view them larger at flickr.com)
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