I shot a landscape with a bright clouded sky over a shaded street. Pulling the highlights down brings back cloud texture, but lifting the shadows enough to see the buildings makes the whole image flat and oddly gray. It looked much more contrasty in person. I'm editing a RAW file, so there is some room to work, but I'm starting to think I should leave parts of the street dark. Where do you draw the line between recovering detail and destroying the light that made the scene interesting?
Recovering highlight detail in bright skies without making shadows unnatural
- photography
- recovering
- highlight
- detail
57
1 reply
One thing I check is whether the street was actually dark in person or just dark on camera. If it looked dramatic to the eye, I think the im...
One thing I check is whether the street was actually dark in person or just dark on camera. If it looked dramatic to the eye, I think the image can keep some of that darkness instead of forcing a perfectly balanced look.
That’s where I’m stuck too. The scene felt punchy in real life, but once I start recovering shadow detail it gets polite and weird.
2 replies
I’d keep the street darker than your first instinct says. The contrast between the bright sky and the shadowed buildings is part of what mak...
I’d keep the street darker than your first instinct says. The contrast between the bright sky and the shadowed buildings is part of what makes the frame feel real, and trying to drag everything into the same brightness usually kills that.
Agreed, but I wouldn’t treat that as a rule for every building in the frame. Sometimes a local lift in the darkest parts is enough if you mask it carefully; the problem is usually when people lift the whole shadow range at once.
Yeah, selective edits help a lot. I’ll often leave windowless facades dark and just bring back enough detail that the shapes read, not every...