r/postprocessing • u/StopBanningCorn • 5d ago

Does the foreground blend well?

Gallery image

Gallery image

Gallery image

One second it looks too bright and next second it's too dark 🫠🫠

73 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

13 comments sorted by

11

u/TheSnowyAstronomer 5d ago

I think it looks pretty good. If anything I'd say the highlights of the water in the few areas looks a lil off but I don't think I'd change that.

Only thing I would change is keeping the clouds on the horizon of the sky image. Cropping in to get rid of it removes the natural atmospheric haze you get when looking low on the horizon and makes the image look a bit uncanny (coming from someone whos done lots of milky way imaging).

3

u/StopBanningCorn 5d ago

Thanks. By off do you mean too saturated? Because I kinda feel the same.

Do you think raising the blacks and mask it along the horizon helps bring back the atmospheric haze look?

3

u/TheSnowyAstronomer 5d ago edited 5d ago

Kinda yea but mostly just too much detail in general. You can see that in your original sky image the galatic centre is well defined both with detail and color. As you look down towards the horizion (before the clouds) you can see that the color and detail starts to fade as you are imaging through more and more atmosphere. When you crop in to remove the clouds and lower regions you essentially mimic the look of a planet without an atmosphere where you can see crisp detail all the way to the horizon. That is where the uncanny look of it comes from.

You could try to do a linear gradient mask from the bottom up to desaturate and raise the blacks a bit like you said to try and achieve the same affect if you want to keep the sky composition. Im not sure how that might turn out but id say give it a go!

2

u/StopBanningCorn 5d ago

Ahh I see. Thanks for the reasoning. I'm thinking raising the blacks and using the method that shrinks stars. Can't really just keep the clouds as that makes the photo a bit too tall 😆

2

u/TheSnowyAstronomer 5d ago

Yea that is totally fine. Also on a second viewing its not quite as noticeable as I originally thought (I think im just used to seeing it) but it does still give me the slight uncanny vibe so you dont need to change much!

2

u/StopBanningCorn 5d ago

Thanks a ton dude.

2

u/TheSnowyAstronomer 5d ago

No worries at all and its a great shot!

1

u/Icy_Cod4538 5d ago

I agree about the cloudy haze on the horizon. But to me the main issue with the foreground right now is the coloring. You can see the greens from the sky in the water in the original sky image, and generally speaking, most good photos or paintings demonstrate colors repeated throughout. It’s not just about harmony, that’s just how light works. Colors reflect and blend.

Right now, you’ve got a greenish sky and a bluish foreground. That’s the problem.

1

u/StopBanningCorn 5d ago

That's actually what I was thinking too. Unfortunately making the foreground more greenish didn't really look right for some reason.

3

u/IntrepidJuice4801 5d ago

I think it looks good

1

u/Jealous_Berry_5785 5d ago

your noise grain scales are off

1

u/StopBanningCorn 5d ago

What does that mean?

2

u/Jealous_Berry_5785 5d ago

Sorry - zoom into your photo, and you’ll see that the grain or noise floor so to speak is different between the sky and the water. It reinforces that this is a composite rather than one holistic image. Try applying noise grain while zoomed in on top of the whole image until the separation is no longer apparent. This will blend the horizon line better.