Don Poulton  


Tree by Don Poulton

March 2023 - Tree

March 2023 - Don Poulton

Original

About the Image(s)

While at the NECCC conference last summer and on an architecture photo walk, I encountered this unusual looking tree. I used my Canon 7D mark II camera with my 10-20mm wide angle zoom lens to photograph it. Considering that the light was getting rather contrasty, I shot the usual brackets, which I tone mapped in Aurora HDR 2019 using the HDR Look Exterior preset. This produced the "original" result, which I worked on first in Lightroom, then in Photoshop. I adjusted color in Lightroom , then in Photoshop I pruned off the top of the tree using content-aware fill, straightened the image using content aware crop, used a selective color adjustment layer to further improve the color, and additional content aware fills to remove a couple of people. I also took the image into Luminar Neo to improve the sky, and back in Photoshop used the patch tool to clean up some repeats that had appeared in the foreground during the content aware crop.


This round’s discussion is now closed!
7 comments posted




Rick Cloran   Rick Cloran
You did a lot of work getting everything plumb and some of the potential distractions out and that part looks good to me. You didn't comment that you were intentionally going for a grunge style look rather than what I guess we would call natural, but the intense saturation gives me that impression.   Posted: 03/07/2023 20:03:20



Don Poulton   Don Poulton
Thanks Rick. I really wasn't going for a grunge style, rather I was trying to tame the strong contrast that had developed on the bright sunny day. But, in afterthought, I realize that I did create an image that evokes a grunge style.   Posted: 03/09/2023 08:49:51



Max Burke   Max Burke
Your explanation shows you put significant time into this image and explaining what you removed and changed is good to know. It does have the grunge-looking style that one can do with HDR. It is a most interesting tree and if you had to do it again, maybe include the limbs that merge on both sides of the picture.   Posted: 03/13/2023 17:16:24



Jane Ballard   Jane Ballard
Nice tree! Very unusual! I see why you were drawn to it! I can see that you have done a lot of work to it to eliminate some people and such. It does have some really strong saturation that may be a little heavy handed for my taste, but it works well here.   Posted: 03/17/2023 16:09:16



Lisa Cuchara   Lisa Cuchara
Good to see some inspired images came out of the NECCC photo walks. It was a lot to orchestrate, so glad to see that you got something out of it. Photography is slowing down and noticing and you did just that. Then you used all of the tools in your toolbox (camera and computer) to bring the image alive. The grunge HDR reminds me of the vintage HDR that was done at the onset.   Posted: 03/21/2023 20:25:09



Brad Ashbrook   Brad Ashbrook
Very cool tree and the image certainly has a lot of color and pop! I think with the advancement in HDR processing, this definitely be considered grunge and old school. You did a lot of really good work to clean this up and make it presentable. Perhaps take it 1 more step and turn it into a painting or something which might take advantage of your strong colors.   Posted: 03/23/2023 12:12:38
Don Poulton   Don Poulton
Thanks everyone for your comments. Brad, this is certainly a great idea, and I'll have to look into it some more. Right now, I've just purchased a new desktop computer and am busy configuring it with Photoshop and all the tools and plugins that I use on my images. I'll try to look more after I get the computer working the way I want.   Posted: 03/24/2023 10:16:50