I shot this photo on a walk through downtown a couple of weeks ago. I had just downloaded and started using Luminar, a fun and easy to learn image processing application. The original photograph was no great shakes. While there was sun the sky was bald and cloudless and everything was a bit drab. I pushed some buttons and yanked some sliders and it got better. But where the seatbelts came off and things went over the edge is where I started playing with the sky replacement feature.
This is the part of the program that will take you right over the edge into kitsch territory. Yes! "Dramatic Sky." And then you can use the A.I. Sky hyperzang filter to add in stuff to your sky such as: The Aurora Borealis, a mountain range, a flight of birds, or, in this case, your own eagle.
Yes, the program encourages one to go right over the top but in defense of the apps designers I have to say that you can populate the sky gallery or the hyperzang ultra-chromatic exteringnator filter (not the official name...) with your own images and they can be as subtle and calm as you want them to be.
I think software makers of products like Luminar 4.0 and Portrait Professional 37 include over the top stuff to get you to play with their applications and see how they work. You can also use things like Sky Replacement in conjunction with layers and masks in order to tone down effects and have more control.
It's fun to play around with this stuff and I can see commercial applications galore. Everyone wants a beautiful sky behind their building or their factory. It's just human nature. Not much call for low contrast, gray, rainy day filters...eh?
9 comments:
Hey, the hyperzang didn't fix the keystoning. Next release?
Is that bird/eagle/hawk the correct species for the area? Did it use GPS to determine which bird to use?
Over time, will it learn just how much zang to add to tailor itself to your taste?
I don't like the deep blue clouds, or is it my monitor?
Robert, all the architects in Austin are super into tilting buildings. Not making them tilt when taking the photos, the buildings are actually designed to tilt somewhere between 7 and 13% depending on whether it's a conservative design for banks or a trendy design for law firms. I added a little extra tilt for pizzazz.
Sadly, no GPS. Too bad because as you probably know I am a huge fan. I geotag my travels in quarter mile increments so I can hook my camera up to my computer and figure out what I've seen and where I might see it again. "two point seven miles west on hwy. 71 from the junction with Hwy. 290 there is a very interesting McDonald's paper cup littering the side of the road.... TAGGED!!!
I think the program presumes you want MAXIMUM ZANG. It's up to you to turn it down from its default... which appears to be ELEVEN.
Finally, I would suspect it's wrong on both of our monitors since mine has blue clouds too but I've never seen that effect in real life.
Not sure what I can do about it.
Best, KT
What throws it off for me is the odd blend of the sky into the reflective left edge of the building that dominates the upper right of the photo. It happily considered the reflective surface part of the sky, and it is subtle so you don't notice it at first, but your brain knows something is not quite right.
Otherwise, interesting visual experiments. At least you approach it with the right perspective (pun intended).
Keep the posts coming, Kirk, they are one of my lifelines to sanity!
pictorial, (bragging here) I could have fixed that reflection with clever and highly technical masking but I chose to keep it in to reinforce the wonderful, gut-punching power of over-processing. Like a badly done tattoo on a beautiful woman's thigh...
Hey wait a minute..... This isn't straight out of the camera?
;-)
color by Fujichrome.
Eagle by zangifier.
Thanks for clearing that up.
Your FP has a Teal and Orange LUT. Lets see some of that !
I guess what does it for me is that the clouds are out of focus. Apparently the bokeh slider was accidentally tweaked. ;)
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