Some shots from Brecon

[Photo-JJ]

In my quest to improve my photography I took some shots last week in Brecon. I quite liked some of them but thought I'd try and get some opinions from you knowledgeable people

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All comments and criticism welcomed, thanks, JJ.

 

[foodpoison]

With a bit of post processing work, they can all be very much improved. At the moment they're looking dull and lifeless.

Original:

Processed:

What I did:
1. Created a new adjustment layer for contrast and brightness for the landscape
2. Increased the contrast and brightness (caused the sky to go too bright, but landscape look okay)
3. Created a new adjustment layer for contrast and brightness for the sky
4. Reduced the brightness and increased the contrast
5. This latest layer was above the landscape layer meaning that the landscape was too dark, so I simply took an erased and revealed the landscape underneath that layer by rubbing out the layer above
6. Merged the layers
7. Increased saturation ever so slightly to bring out the greens and blues
8. Burned the sky the tiniest little bit

If that doesn't make sense I'll see if I can simplify it a bit, but in a nutshell - increase the brightness and contrast of the landscape, decrease the brightness but increase the contrast of the sky, saturate the colours slightly and then burn the sky a little bit

 

[Photo-JJ]

foodpoison - thanks for taking the time to transform one of my pictures. I can certainly see what you're saying.

Unfortunately I am a complete novice with photoshop, I will try and have a go at replicating the effects you've shown here, I think it might take a quite a while though to understand how to add layers and change the effects on just some parts of the picture rather than applying changes to the picture as a whole.

Thanks again,

 

[foodpoison]

Very simple mate:

Layers>New Adjustment Layer>Brightness/Contrast

Allows you to edit the brightness/contrast in a separate layer to the image allowing you to undo the changes by deleting the layer

 

[scotslasszoe]

foodpoison - thanks for taking the time to transform one of my pictures. I can certainly see what you're saying.

Unfortunately I am a complete novice with photoshop, I will try and have a go at replicating the effects you've shown here, I think it might take a quite a while though to understand how to add layers and change the effects on just some parts of the picture rather than applying changes to the picture as a whole.

Thanks again,

Just have a play about in PS. Thats how i learned