Cathedral Spires and Bridalveil Falls, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.
This is a view of Bridalveil Falls and Cathedral Spires in Yosemite Valley processed to simulate a pinhole camera: vignetting at the edges, softness, brightness in the center, high depth-of-field, and an overall antique look.
Digital simulations of “looks” from the back pages of classic analog photography are great fun!
Winter Vista, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.
To enhance this monochromatic winter vista of Yosemite, I used a split toning effect. I added a deeper sepia tone to the darker tones, and lighter sepia to the brighter areas of the image.
In the analog darkroom, toning was a function of paper, processing and chemistry. Split toning was achieved by altering the process so that highlights were handled differently from the dark areas of the photo; for example, by stopping a chemical bath at an earlier point than normal.
In the Photoshop darkroom toning and split toning are, of course, virtual—like the entire digital monochromatic process. Digital black and white is an aesthetic intention with soul, a willful abnegation of color, and an intentional and anachronistic reference to the historical craft of photography.
You can learn more about toning and split toning techniques in Photoshop in Creative Black & White: Digital Photography Tips & Technques.
Ice Storm in Yosemite, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.
This is a photograph of an ice storm in Yosemite Valley. The lines in the ice on the trees could easily have looked “yucky” when they were sharpened. We’ve all seen oversharpened photos. Yucky. Now there’s a technical term for you!
Fortunately, there is a better way than conventional sharpening tools. I use the image of the Yosemite ice storm to demonstrate the sweetness of selective sharpening with LAB color for compositional purposes in my latest Photo.net column about creativity in the Photoshop darkroom.
Here’s the full description: This tutorial has nothing to do with turning blurry or shaky hand-held images into tack sharp masterpieces. Rather, the point of the article is to teach you how to sharpen selectively or compositionally using LAB color. This can be done to direct the viewer to certain parts of the image. Harold Davis walks you through how to convert to LAB color, and then how to apply a series of sharpen masks and layers to selectively and artistically sharpen your images.
Check out Sharpening in LAB Color, and then try your hand at sharpening your own images with this way cool technique.
Winter Reflections, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.
I converted this image of winter reflections in Yosemite Valley to black and white using one of the simplest conversion techniques from a RAW original. The Grayscale Mix on the HSL/Grayscale tab of Adobe Camera RAW (ACR) does it all in only a few clicks, and provides a fair amount of control over the conversion. You can get good results this way quite quickly.
Yosemite, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.
In my previous post I showed a photo taken a few years ago of Yosemite Valley—and noted that the work of a digital photography is never definitively done. It’s tempting, and often but not always an improvement, to rework the post-processing of older images; or to process images bypassed in the first edit.
You also don’t need to make an either-or choice between color and black & white. This image shown in this story was re-purposed into monochrome from the color photo in the last story. I created the dramatic black-and-white sky using a high contrast Red filter b&w adjustment layer in Photoshop, in case you are interested.
There’s some disagreement over on Flickr as to whether the black & white or color version is preferred (see the linked comments). I say, why not have both? A “two-fer”…
Yosemite, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.
Love may mean never having to say sorry—but digital means you’re never definitively done. This is a re-work of a RAW file originally shot in 2007 of Yosemite Valley in late February following a dusting with snow.
Pond in the Sierras, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.
This pond is found along the Tioga Pass road in the high country of Yosemite National Park. In Photoshop, I multi-processed the RAW file to make the sky darker and lighten the water.
Exposure data: 18mm, circular Polarizer, 1/160 of a second at f/11 and ISO 100, tripod mounted.
My Yosemite Dreaming set on Flickr.
First Light, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.
Briefly noted: This is a re-cropped (and slightly re-processed) version of Upper Yosemite Falls. (See the original story for info about making the image.) I enlarged this portion of the photo to focus on what matters: the first light of dawn on the cliffs and water.
Tunnel View, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.
Briefly noted: This is the view from Tunnel View in six progressive captures, with the forest area that’s in shadow combined using Photomatix HDR and the sunnier sky and rock formations added using hand layer masking in Photoshop.
Along the Inspiration Point Trail, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.
At Tunnel View there are almost always crowds and photographers. Except sometimes at night. Well, the view is worth it.
Walk a couple of hundred feet up the Inspiration Point trail, and the crowds are gone. Everything is serene and quiet again.
Came Both Mist and Stars, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.
Briefly noted: It was a wet, misty Yosemite night. The fog clouds that were almost snow only seemed to be getting denser. Facing south down the Merced River I was surprised to see stars. In post-processing, this twelve minute exposure looked more like something pictorialist or impressionist than a modern photo.
Related story: Yosemite at Night is looking the other direction from Swinging Bridge (with far less mist).
Flash Dance, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.
Briefly noted: The cloud above El Capitan was lit with the last light of the setting sun, but the winter trees below were stark, dark, and cold.
This is a composite of ten exposures ranging in exposure time from 1/10 of a second to 1/200 of a second. All the exposures were made at f/11 and ISO 100, using my Nikon D300, the 18-200mm VR Zoom lens at 18mm (27mm in 35mm terms) and a circular polarizer, with the camera mounted on a tripod.
I combined the ten exposures into a single HDR image using Photomatix, tone mapped the result, and tweaked it a bit in Photoshop (here are the details of how I’ve been post-processing these images shot for HDR).
Mirror Lake, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.
I got the boys occupied in throwing snow balls and trying to crush through the skim ice on Mirror Lake. Then I hunkered down to the ground and fired off a series of ten wide angle, high depth of field exposures. These were shot at 12mm (18mm in 35mm terms) and f/22, with shutter speeds ranging from 1/6 of a second to 1/125 of a second. In other words, a twenty times range to capture the full range of lights and darks in the scene I was seeing.
Back home, I used Photomatix to blend together the ten versions, adjusted using the Photomatix tone controls, and then hand corrected with another five layers in Photoshop. Here’s a more detailed explanation of my process.
For some more of my photos of this much-admired spot (in the late 1800s, Mirror Lake was a required subject for artists visiting Yosemite), check out Mirror Lake and Mirror Lake in Winter and Spring.
Yosemite at Night, photo by Harold Davis. View this image larger.
With the boys tucked safely in bed I headed out into what proved an increasingly moist night. Wet fog enveloped most of Yosemite Valley, but there were odd pockets of open sky. From Swinging Bridge, I had a pretty straight shot at the stars over Yosemite Falls. The falls themselves were partially hidden by the darkness and fog, but the entire cliff face was illuminated by the light pollution from Yosemite Lodge.
This is a twelve minute exposure with my 10.5mm digital fisheye at f/4.5 and ISO 100.
Waking up, I glanced at the clock. It was 3:49AM. The kids were sleeping peacefully in our room at Yosemite Lodge.
I dressed for winter, and headed out into the night. The paths were icy but the stars were crisp and bright. I made my way to a clearing in the woods below Yosemite Falls. Easy enough in the day, but a little harder to find at night. I knew Polaris was right above the Falls. In other words, Yosemite Falls was pretty much due north when standing in the valley, implying that star circles above the falls would work well.
View this image larger.
This is a stacked composite of ten four minute exposures at f/3.5 each, at ISO 200, using my 10.5mm digital fisheye, for a total exposure time of forty minutes.
By the last exposure, dawn was coming to Yosemite. I processed this capture separately in order to layer in early morning colors in the mountains and water fall.
Then I headed back to my sleeping kids in their warm beds.
Related story: Starry Night.
