Friday, February 13, 2015

Country Morning Still Life, Round 2 (Be Still 52 #5)

Yesterday, I posted the top still life, which is cropped, but otherwise straight out of the camera. I shot it with side lighting on the right a white reflector on the left. I did no post processing because it was part of a lesson on capturing light in various ways. 
This second image is the same one processed on my computer to make it more to my liking. I brightened the image, increased the color saturation a bit, decreased the contrast and sharpened it a little.
Just for fun, I took the image with basic side-lighting (no reflector) and processed it to my liking. this is what I ended up with:
I had to use add more brightness and decrease the contrast even more to get this result. And I don't like it as much as the one taken with the reflector. What that tells me is that, even though post-processing can help, it is still better to get the lighting right during the shoot.
Again, the differences become a little clearer if you click on the photographs to enlarge them.

5 comments:

Cheri said...

I've learned the same lesson - multiple times. Only so much post-processing can do with a bad photo. But it is fun when you have something that is decently composed and well focused to just play!

alexa said...

A lesson for us all, Rinda, in learning how to use our cameras. Though your processing has achieved lovely effects!

Sian said...

Interesting stuff! Getting enough light in the first place is a constant struggle here..

Carola Bartz said...

Yes, it's always a good idea to get the lighting right for the shot. I also often get the bluish tint that you have in your photos, and it's something I don't really know what to do about. I also love to use white reflectors - and funny, I often like a black backdrop. That came as a surprise to me.
Beautiful arrangement. You are lucky to have such a productive lemon tree!

Anonymous said...

A good lesson for all of us. It's so hard at this time of year to get proper lighting and with the time change tomorrow it will be worse for a couple of weeks.