Image Help - - waterfall blown out highlights

tell · #1 07-30-2006, 05:49 PM

Hi there. The other day l had this pic printed in a photo lab . It was taken not far from my home in the Grampian range national park in Australia. I knew the highlight area's of the waterfall were blown out and tryed to rectify them using curves. Just wondering what else l could try to make the highlight areas not so obvious.
I guess l could have tryed cloning areas with the healing brush. Maybe blown out highlights in some images could be considered appropriate. Anyway am looking forward with interest to any suggestions.

Littlecoo · #2 07-30-2006, 08:22 PM

Ah, the Grampians... beautiful! I'm gonna have to make another pilgramage down there sometime soon. Was it overcast when you took this? If you are eager about this image (I am assuming you are working with film and from a scanned print- chide me if I'm wrong) it may be worth your while to get the neg rescanned at good resolution and bit depth and saved as a .tif file to squeeze the most image info out it as you can get.

duwayne · #3 07-30-2006, 08:52 PM

TELL - Try this

http://retouchpro.com/forums/showthread.php?t=13348

mistermonday · #4 07-31-2006, 09:08 AM

The Patch tool works nicely if you want to repait blown out sections of the falls with undamaged areas. I would pull more details out of the shadows using a Shadow/Highlight of Curves. Finally as recommended above, recolor or replace the sky.
Regards, Murray

tell · #5 07-31-2006, 08:11 PM

Littlecoo, you're chided mate but only a little. The image was taken with a digital camera. The gramps is in a metamorphoses and making a spectacle of itself. It took a real punishment during last years bush fire but now everywhere the eye takes you, new growth has sprouted. Duwayne, just had a look at your shortcut, good tip thanks..Great patch Mistermonday, I cant tell its been manipulated, looks as good as before but with more detail. Thank you for this great example of removing blown out highlights. Tell.

Kraellin · #6 08-01-2006, 11:35 PM

had a go at this also. lots of clone and some airbrushing on blank layers.

craig

tell · #7 08-02-2006, 12:48 AM

Nice touch Craig. When l use the clone tool, the give away is a kind of blurred effect. I like the way you managed to keep the cascading waterfall in perspective. The blue rinse adds a calming serenity to the scene. The only thing l'd change is to apply a mask and paint back the original highlights in the foreground rock, boulder. ... Tell.

Kraellin · #8 08-02-2006, 12:14 PM

tell, thanks

yes, the boulder is now a bit too dark. i always see these things AFTER i post

the nice thing about blown out water like this is that you can get away with a lot because you just claim all that blurring from the clone is mist

but looking at it today there are a few areas i'd touch up some more.

one thing you might try is to find some other images and borrow the water from that rather than trying to pull it all from the original. the hardest part of this one was in showing a bit of definition from the top waterfall and the next one, the larger one. because everything was blown out as one big lump it didnt show the 2nd waterfall top at all. so i had to try to find different shading on the water being cloned in to show this.

it's a great piece of scenery. any chance you'll be going back?

craig

dkcoats · #9 08-02-2006, 03:16 PM

Shadow/highlight
Cloning & (mostly) healing brush
Replaced the sky
dc

Daviskw · #10 08-02-2006, 04:07 PM

Hi there

There is always stockXchng... and lots of falls with water to clone in... who will know...lol

Butch

tell · #11 08-04-2006, 01:35 AM

Gone overboard with my last attempt. Its fun trying. After l finished cloning an entirely different waterfall , lt dawned on me that l'd just painted in more highlight. This cloning is a difficult process. Yes Craig l think borrowing from another waterfall is the best idea , I live only 30 minutes from the Grampians and visit there often. Craig do you think some brushes do a clone better than others? .. Im waiting on Flora to do a tutorial on brushes. I really need help there. I find the brush topic needs more coverage. Retouches share their results generously but never think to include what brush they use. Are brushes important?

Kraellin · #12 08-04-2006, 08:48 AM

tell,

yes, it can be fun

as for brushes and cloning, i almost always use the default brush. but then i'm using paint shop pro and really cant speak to photoshop that much. what i find i alter quite a bit is opacity, hardness and density, not the brush type. it's the opacity that kills most folks. most folks just starting out tend to go 100% opacity all over and that almost always leaves the dreaded 'clone marks'. and the other side is going too little, which then leaves the blur marks. so the trick is getting enough opacity to be convincing but without leaving clone marks or blurs.

on your picture my starting settings would be something like, default brush set at 60% hardness, brush size around 32, 100% density, round shape, and 80% opacity. by watching carefully where you are cloning from and where you are cloning to and keeping an eye on this always, you can sort of overlap and feather in your clones bit by bit. that would be for the worst areas. as i get the worst areas done i'll normally alter the opacity downwards by 20 or so until i get to around 40 or 30 and then drop it by smaller increments. i rarely change the hardness or density in cloning but sometimes you find an area where that may be wise.

i'll also use the airbrush tool to hide some of my marks at times and give a more finished look but that can be a bit dangerous also. there are lots of tricks one can use to help on this. if you do do a heavy clone on an area, sometimes you can do a very light gausian blur on the layer to get a better blending, often with a blend mode included. remember, you always clone on a separate blank layer.

if i had the software for it (and knew how to use it) or a video camera, i'd do a proper clone tutorial. this is one of those areas where it would be easier to teach by showing rather than telling. it's the tool that got me interested in retouching and restoration and it's an artform all by itself. in fact, there are paint programs that are pretty much paint by cloning.

so, the biggest key to all this is practice, practice and practice. i've spent hundreds of hours using the clone tool and i'm still not a master at it. an image like yours has some tricky challenges in it so dont be afraid to hit the undo or start over or wipe a layer or whatever. it's a complex image for cloning but also a very good picture and worth the effort.

craig

tell · #13 08-04-2006, 08:29 PM

Craig, good to hear your tips on the clone brush. I know its a good idea to use 100% hardness when using the healing brush. I make a habit of things and generally use a soft brush when cloning. I think l will try adding a little hardness to it, maybe even try a range of brushes. I find if l drop the clone brush opacity it makes for a erastzy (if thats a word), and poor quality clone. When using the patch tool l like to start the selection with the lasso tool, switch to the patch tool and ctl- to duplicate, move the object in place and with the ctrl key still down click the T key to change shape and transform, click enter to confirm the transform . Finally move the patch tool a smidge and it blends the patch with the surrounding shades. Usually when lm done l can have a rubber ball look like a Giovanni pizza and l throw the lot into the recycle bin... Tell.