Struggling with contrast

[Edward4Safari]

I cropped this image. The road extends behind and foreground. Given the color of the Wild Dogs I struggle to make them stand-out given a similar color background.

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[bleirer]

Cool how you got them to pose. Selective focus maybe? Or maybe getting down lower so more of the road is out of focus? In post you can selectively alter the color of the background or use a blur filter.

 

[SonoranDesert]

Truly a great shot. I don’t have any suggestions about how to get better contrast in this shot but as an observer of the photo I‘m not needing more contrast. I find it fascinating that their coats are very similar to their environment. They’re in camo coats.

 

[gbodave]

It's a nice shot.

You'd be up against it with the colour of the coats and their surroundings. That combination helps their survival rate.

No idea what settings were used or focal length or distance from the camera to the subjects, but it could have been possible to create a shallow depth of field so as to have the animals sharp but the background and foreground blurred much more which would have made them stand out from the background more. Background colouration would have been similar just less obvious.

 

[realspeed]

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Bit of haze removal and reduction in the red colour may help

 

[Edward4Safari]

Thank you all for the compliment. I took the image from a game vehicle in Sabie Game Reserve, South Africa, so not allowed to get lower on to the ground Below is the uncropped version on LR and below that from NX Studio showing focul point. Perhaps focul point could have been on their eyes and instead of Dynamic (Matrix) area AF I could have used single-point AF? (Does anyone know how to show focul point in LR for Nikon Z6?)

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Cropped further which I think improves the image.

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[NorthernFocus]

Great shot. Others have already made some good suggestions. If you're limited to LR for your PP you could use the brush tool to selectively increase clarity on the animals and reduce clarity on the FG and BG. Also a subtle vignette helps on this type of shot.

 

[Joe B]

Before	After I messed with it
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So I'm often a bit too lazy to use the brush like Dan suggested, but I often use radial filters similarly, adding a little exposure, warmth, clarity, and contrast centered around the focal point of the image, usually the animal's eye. Then, depending on the image, I'll make the opposite global adjustment. A lot of times I just bring the global exposure down a little, but this time I also took out some contrast and clarity.

Really cool picture, by the way

 

[Edward4Safari]

Thanks guys, much appreciated. @Joe B your edits are great.

 

[Joe B]

Glad you liked it. It's been a helpful trick I picked up. I think I got the idea from some things that a photographer named Tin Man Lee said about warmth, brightness, and contrast drawing people's eyes. So, if those gradually increase as you get closer to where you want people to look, it will help take their eyes that way. Not sure how he applies that, but a radial filter made sense to me. And, it's a lot quicker than brushing!

 

[Rassie]

Thank you all for the compliment. I took the image from a game vehicle in Sabie Game Reserve, South Africa, so not allowed to get lower on to the ground Below is the uncropped version on LR and below that from NX Studio showing focul point. Perhaps focul point could have been on their eyes and instead of Dynamic (Matrix) area AF I could have used single-point AF? (Does anyone know how to show focul point in LR for Nikon Z6?)
View attachment 24172
View attachment 24173

Cropped further which I think improves the image.
View attachment 24175

Focal point was just fine where it was. Being that distance from the animals your focus point on the shoulder was for all practical purposes in the same plane as the eye. Secondly, you were already on single focus point. The Matrix you’re referring to applies to metering of the light in the image, not focus. Again, metering was fine and I would have used Matrix for this scene as well. Good picture overall. The animals are posing really nicely here.

 

[bleirer]

Thank you all for the compliment. I took the image from a game vehicle in Sabie Game Reserve, South Africa, so not allowed to get lower on to the ground Below is the uncropped version on LR and below that from NX Studio showing focul point. Perhaps focul point could have been on their eyes and instead of Dynamic (Matrix) area AF I could have used single-point AF? (Does anyone know how to show focul point in LR for Nikon Z6?)
View attachment 24172
View attachment 24173

Cropped further which I think improves the image.
View attachment 24175

Lightroom doesn't show focus points natively. You'd have to Google for a 3rd party plugin. I know they are out there for dslr, but you might have to hunt for your camera model. I didn't see one in a quick search. I didn't see anything wrong with your focus, I was talking about getting lower to get more of a separation of the road from the subjects. Since you have Photoshop you can try the iris blur filter.

https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/using/blur-gallery.html

 

[DRwyoming]

The road extends behind and foreground. Given the color of the Wild Dogs I struggle to make them stand-out given a similar color background.

It's certainly a tricky shot and really shows how well their natural camouflage works.

Lot's of good editing approaches above. Here's a cut I took at it using:
- Some Lab space curve adjustments to pull the similar colors further apart (probably should have been more subtle on this but trying to demonstrate pulling similar colors apart)
- Crop to 16:9 aspect ratio to emphasize the subjects and lose some of the sharp foreground
- A diamond gradient to darken the background and spotlight the subjects a bit
- A bit of blurring of the far background
- A small vignette on the final image to burn down the edges of the photo

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[John Woodworth]

It's certainly a tricky shot and really shows how well their natural camouflage works.

Lot's of good editing approaches above. Here's a cut I took at it using:
- Some Lab space curve adjustments to pull the similar colors further apart (probably should have been more subtle on this but trying to demonstrate pulling similar colors apart)
- Crop to 16:9 aspect ratio to emphasize the subjects and lose some of the sharp foreground
- A diamond gradient to darken the background and spotlight the subjects a bit
- A bit of blurring of the far background
- A small vignette on the final image to burn down the edges of the photo

View attachment 24478

Whoa! Great edit

But, what is a "Diamond Gradient"?

 

[Edward4Safari]

Agree, great edit. Iv'e learned so much reading every comment. LAB space curve is a new one for me and one I'll use in most of my African wildlife images going forward. Diamond gradient is another - any easy online tutorial on using it?. Thank you.

 

[DRwyoming]

Whoa! Great edit

But, what is a "Diamond Gradient"?

Thanks!

The diamond gradient is a tool in Photoshop that can be used in a number of ways but in terms of this photo was used to create a gradient layer mask so that I could keep the center of the image near the cubs at normal brightness and gradually darken the image moving out towards the edges in a diamond shape. You could do similar things by using a brush and painting on a layer mask but the diamond gradient is a quick way to add a spotlighting effect. You can do a very similar things with the Radial Filter in Lightroom though I often find the diamond shape of the resulting spotlighting more interesting than a circular or oval shape that you'd get with LR's Radial Filter though in either case you can use a brush tool to modify the shape and intensity of the spotlighting.

Here's a pretty extreme example with an image I was working on this morning. I just added an empty adjustment layer (a Curves layer with no changes to the shape of the curve) and changed it to Multiply blending mode. That made the entire image much darker so I added a Diamond Gradient to the layer mask which keeps the Hummingbird at normal brightness tapering towards a darker background with a feathered diamond shaped layer mask.

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And here's a similar example(extreme example to illustrate the point)of spotlighting a subject (burning down the background) using LR's Radial Filter tool:

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Both of the examples above are just ways to selectively Burn (darken) part of the image while leaving other parts unchanged and feathering the transition but those tools can be used for many selective adjustments and of course brush tools could be used instead of automated gradient style tools but sometimes the automated tools are quicker or give the look you're after more easily.

 

[DRwyoming]

LAB space curve is a new one for me and one I'll use in most of my African wildlife images going forward.

Working in the LAB color space opens up some interesting possibilities but I mostly use it for adding color contrast to images that have a lot of similar colors. It's not the same thing as just bumping up a Saturation slider and it's not something to apply to every image as it can make images that already have a lot of colors look garish but for images with a lot of very similar colors it can open up possibilities.

Dan Margulis has written quite a bit about using the Lab color space in useful ways including this classic book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0321356780/?tag=backcogaller-20

The basic idea is that the LAB color space represents images with a single lightness channel (L) and then an A and B color channel with a representing the green to magenta range of colors and b representing the blue to yellow range of colors instead of the more typical Red, Green and Blue representation of an image. So if you convert an image from RGB into LAB in Photoshop you can then add a Curves layer and steepen the slope of a straight line curve in the A and B channels to increase color contrast. Then you convert the image back to RGB for any remaining processing or for saving.

Here's a typical example using a sandstone Canyon image. The right hand image has no additional Saturation added, it has LAB space curves applied that do saturate the colors but more importantly pulls similar colors a bit further apart from one another (adds color contrast). Again, I pushed this image pretty hard to illustrate the point and it's easy to be a lot more subtle.

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[John Woodworth]

...Snip...

Both of the examples above are just ways to selectively Burn (darken) part of the image while leaving other parts unchanged and feathering the transition but those tools can be used for many selective adjustments and of course brush tools could be used instead of automated gradient style tools but sometimes the automated tools are quicker or give the look you're after more easily.

Many thanks. I hadn't noticed the diamond gradient tool before. I often use the radial gradient to highlight subjects but it can sometimes leave a tell-tale signature unless a lot of time is spent with the brush.

Also, appreciate the pointers on using Lab space...Maybe I can save some low-contrast images with it.

Will buy suggested book.

 

[Deleted member 115]

Thanks!

The diamond gradient is a tool in Photoshop that can be used in a number of ways but in terms of this photo was used to create a gradient layer mask so that I could keep the center of the image near the cubs at normal brightness and gradually darken the image moving out towards the edges in a diamond shape. You could do similar things by using a brush and painting on a layer mask but the diamond gradient is a quick way to add a spotlighting effect. You can do a very similar things with the Radial Filter in Lightroom though I often find the diamond shape of the resulting spotlighting more interesting than a circular or oval shape that you'd get with LR's Radial Filter though in either case you can use a brush tool to modify the shape and intensity of the spotlighting.

Here's a pretty extreme example with an image I was working on this morning. I just added an empty adjustment layer (a Curves layer with no changes to the shape of the curve) and changed it to Multiply blending mode. That made the entire image much darker so I added a Diamond Gradient to the layer mask which keeps the Hummingbird at normal brightness tapering towards a darker background with a feathered diamond shaped layer mask.
View attachment 24513

And here's a similar example(extreme example to illustrate the point)of spotlighting a subject (burning down the background) using LR's Radial Filter tool:
View attachment 24514

Both of the examples above are just ways to selectively Burn (darken) part of the image while leaving other parts unchanged and feathering the transition but those tools can be used for many selective adjustments and of course brush tools could be used instead of automated gradient style tools but sometimes the automated tools are quicker or give the look you're after more easily.

I use the radial tool frequently but I try to go very easy with it....lol

 

[DallasP]

I love this picture just the way it is. The similar tones are a feature, not a bug! Many good suggestions above. But you could also just run the Blacks slider in LR the teenciest bit to the left . . .

 

[RugglesZ9]

Personally, I have no problem with the minor adjustments in the original or many of the suggestions, it's a matter of choice. However, I find the foreground and background distracting and adding little. I'd change the aspect ratio to include more of the vegetation on the edges and less of the road/. To me, that helps focus the eye on the subject: Here, the road adds little to the story, when the story is the animals, not the journey they are on.

 

[Jim G]

Working in the LAB color space opens up some interesting possibilities but I mostly use it for adding color contrast to images that have a lot of similar colors. It's not the same thing as just bumping up a Saturation slider and it's not something to apply to every image as it can make images that already have a lot of colors look garish but for images with a lot of very similar colors it can open up possibilities.

Dan Margulis has written quite a bit about using the Lab color space in useful ways including this classic book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0321356780/?tag=backcogaller-20

The basic idea is that the LAB color space represents images with a single lightness channel (L) and then an A and B color channel with a representing the green to magenta range of colors and b representing the blue to yellow range of colors instead of the more typical Red, Green and Blue representation of an image. So if you convert an image from RGB into LAB in Photoshop you can then add a Curves layer and steepen the slope of a straight line curve in the A and B channels to increase color contrast. Then you convert the image back to RGB for any remaining processing or for saving.

Here's a typical example using a sandstone Canyon image. The right hand image has no additional Saturation added, it has LAB space curves applied that do saturate the colors but more importantly pulls similar colors a bit further apart from one another (adds color contrast). Again, I pushed this image pretty hard to illustrate the point and it's easy to be a lot more subtle.
View attachment 24526

Hi Dave.

Is this one from Bryce Canyon?

JIM

 

[DRwyoming]

Hi Dave.

Is this one from Bryce Canyon?

JIM

Yup

 

[KCPhoto]

LAB color space.....well, yes I am intrigued.

 

[MorganP]

Maybe you should buy a new Montier or video card....