30 Days of Tuscany- Day 22- VIEW OF VAL D' ORCIA

This is a view of the Val d' Orcia as seen from Seggiano, Tuscany.

tuscanmuse.com/

It's unfortunate that this wasn't a raw file. It could be quite nice after removing the blue cast and working to bring out details in the clouds. (And leveling the horizon.) I really like the shapes and colors of the fields/trees.

Gotta know, how can you tell it's not a raw file?

Thanks for taking a look Gary. As you probably know, I am an amateur. Post processing is a booger for me. All I did to this photo was done in PS- I took Vibrance to 30 and Saturation to 12. That's it. So you are recommending that I fiddle with the color balance to remove the blue cast. I really want to understand why I would want to do that.

Thanks!

Unfortunately, there's only so much that I can do with this smaller, already-manipulated image.





I tried to undo the blue cast by adjusting temperature and tint; added a graduated filter of the sky to lower the exposure / bump the clarity to bring out the details in the clouds (including that hole in them), bumped the overall contrast, a bit of clarity to bring out the details in the land, straighetened it a bit (based on the line of clouds), sharpened a bit, and tried to fix some of the color with HSL adjustments, all in Lightroom 4. But again, there's only so much I can do with an already processed image.

Suggest never pushing both vibrance and saturation. Pick one or the other. Vibrance is usually used when skin tones are present; saturation can be used otherwise. My rule of thumb is, push till I can see it, then back off a bit. IMO it should enhance, not overwhelm. Here, but blue overwhelms the entire image, and destroys the other colors that should be present. For example, that glow in the sky should have more orange in it, as well as pink. The fields should be vibrant green. The clouds probably contained some deep blue and purple, along with gray. I mean, this is Tuscany, right, famed for its light?

Don: the EXIF data states that the image was captured by a Nikon CoolPix P510, a P&S. It only creates jpgs in 3 compression levels. A fine camera, but I would always recommend fine jpg format. (I have an bookmark that will read and display the EXIF data for me.)

I hope some day to be able to visit this area.

Thanks Gary for taking the time to give me such good advice. I learned a lot from you today. Vibrance OR saturationa and not both. I know I need to upgrade my camera. It is on my bucket list along with taking the time to learn post processing.

Of course, just trying to assist. I like to be verbose in the hopes that whomever I am addressing won't get bent out of shape. It takes some time to develop thick skin.

Re: equipment. Yes, I understand. The day I figured out my (rather short) lens shopping list was over $5K I got kinda depressed.

I have got to find some more paying customers. With money.