Souping the Stew

We were headed toward the coast on the way to Birch Bay, when Rosco said, "Stop."  "Here?"  "Yes," he said, "I want to shoot the skylight breaking through the wall of trees on that hill."  "Okee dokee" I said as I turned the Jeep around and found a place to park along the shoulderless road.  Rosco scampered out to take his picture.  

I waited and watched as Rosco fiddled with the dials on the camera. He held the camera up, brought it down and fiddled some more before raising it up once more before bringing it back down for more fiddling before raising the camera a last time and clicking the shutter. 

"You were out there a long time," I said, as Rosco got back in the car. "It wouldn't work right" he doggies-muttered in a frustrated tone of growl.  "What do you mean?" I asked. "Well, it was either almost all black or super bright and not at all what was in between." 

I took the camera and looked at the settings. "Oh, oh," Roski, you had the exposure set on pin-point.  "And?"  "Well that's not the best setting when you are shooting a bright spot in the sky."  "Why not?"  "Because if you center-point on the bright spot the camera will adjust its aperture-exposure to that brightness and everything else will be dark.  If you center point on the dark spot, it will open up the aperture and everything will be super bright."  "Oh," Rosco said, exposing his disappointment, "I was trying to be accurate."  "Well, sometimes the muddled middle is better."  "Do you think we can fix it?" Rosco asked apprehensively (he hates to loose his efforts).   "Well we'll see when we get home."

Rosco's Foto as Shot by the Side of the Road

Back home, we brought the foto in our workspace; it was definitely underexposed. 

"Is that the colour of the sky you wanted," I asked. 

"Well, yes, pretty much, except that the trees weren't so black." 

Then we probably don't need to fiddle with tone and temperature on this one."  Just in case I clicked auto-temperature correction and the result, Rosco said, was nothing like the scene was like.  "Okay," I said, then we can lean tone and temperature as it is, at least for the moment.

 "It needs more light," Rosco said impatiently, "Expose it!"

Hitting the Auto Expose (Correction) Button

Rosco was silent.  "Was that what you saw?" I asked.  "Well maybe the grass," he said tentatively, "but not the sky. It's all washed out. It wasn't that way. You saw it."  I had, and the radiance and luminesence were lost."

Rosco started licking his paw -- a clear sign of frustration.

"Hold on Rosco," I said, "the show isn't over till the fat doggie sings."

"You want to brighten up one part of the photograph while not affecting the other, right?"

"Yes that's what I want to do." 

"Well see these other sliders underneath exposure? Recovery, Fill Light and Blacks?  That's exactly what they are for."

"Why didn't you say so before?" Rosco asked accusingly.

"Because I wanted you to see the problem for yourself." 

Rosco snorted.  (Transl.: Sometimes chowprovider can be such a jerk.)

Recovering or Darkening  Overbrightened or Blown Out Light Tones (Zones)

I slid the Recovery slider all the way up to show how it darkened the clouds. "You see that?" (He did.)  "You would used "recover highlights" exactly in this type of situation where Auto Exposure corrected the trees and grass but "blew out" or over-brightened the sky.  "Recover" would recover the color, shadows and detail that you lost while keeping the lightness added to the grass and trees.

Rosco panted.

"Now watch this," I said as I slide the Fill Light slider all the way up.

Brightening the MidTones

"That's it! That's what I wanted, Rosco said.  "Only...."

"Only what?"

"Are you sure the sky is the same?" he asked.

"Yes," I said, "for a second it looks brighter because you see it in relation to the now brighter grass; but if you look closely, it has actually remained the same."

Rosco studied the pictures and after a while said, "Maybe the grass is too light.  "Yes, i think so too," i said, "lets try a combination."

We fiddled around with tonal exposures and took a short detour into color channels to add a tad of blue and green accenting to the grass until we came to balance that Rosco liked.

Almost there....

"You know what Roski," I asked  "What?" Rosco asked back.  "I think we should go for a romp."  "Now!?"  "Yes, Rosco, now.  Sometimes it's a good idea to let the soup stew for a bit and then come back with a clean palette."  Rosco looked  pensive. If he got it or not, I don't know, but a romp is a romp.

On our way out, Rosco asked how come we had never done this with the old camera.  "You mean with the L35 film Nikon?" I asked. "The one we used when we travelled to that place with all the really tickly smells." "Well, Roski," I replied, "you could do the same thing with film but it was really tricky because you would have to cover up part of the picture with your paw when you shined the light through the negative to burn the impression on paper."

Rosco cogitated a bit and then asked, "Suppose you had to use both paws?" "Well, yes," I said, "it got tricky; too tricky for simple folk like us." 

Several hours later we came back and sat back down at our developing console, Rosco always right next to my shoulder panting, growling and woofing as the case might be.

When we reopened the final version, Rosco was not all that happy. The grass and trees were ok, he said, but the glowy-in-the-darkiness-radiance wasn't really there.

"Push down the fill," he said the with newly acquired air of a seasoned studio director.  

"If you darken "Fill" too much," I said, "the trees will go back to being black silhouettes."  

"Well just to the point where they are not," Rosco commanded.  And so it was.   

And Finally Rosco is Content

"Chow time?" I asked and before I could close out the program, Rosco was happy dancing around his bowl.

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