May 182010
Every six months I take another crack at this shot (from 2005). I get closer, but if those kids weren’t wearing bright white shirts… oh if only. A lot of burnt highlights but this is as good as it’s going to get. I ran it through tonemapping which helped and used PS ACR for the raw conversion. But this was taken before I had the nice “highlight priority” mode, which would have made the whole thing much easier to deal with.
In addition to all that – every character was “mask – painted” in lightroom, either to bring up, or bring down the tone.
I have “highlight priority” turned on (500d) these days by default.
Technical challenges aside, I think you finally nailed it. The kids, climbing and laughing have brought life to the stature and the photo. This is just great. The moment sings.
Thanks Bob. It was an impossible shot to work with technically until recently. I always loved the shot (subject-wise) which is why I kept going back to it.
Isn’t it nice to have a paint brush with masking that doesn’t crash? That tool is just a life-saver. There’s something positively magical about Alice herself and the kids in this image, Dave.
.-= Chris Klug´s last blog ..Fort Warden Ladder =-.
I was surprised by the size of the statue Dave. thought it was quite small until I saw the kids on it. Nice shot.
.-= Phill´s last blog ..InstaArt =-.