Sometimes the simple things are the hardest. Let’s for instance talk about an image with foliage in a forest. Something like this one. Simple? Maybe, and I think it does not look unnatural, but in reality it was hard work to get there in post-processing.
One reason is color temperature. My OM-D E-M5 has pretty good automatic white balance, but I have not seen a camera yet, that was not fooled by the strong cast of forest light. Thus I had to work by the numbers, but I also tried to separate the different shades of green. Simply using the natural separation looks boring in pictures.
The next problem is of course dynamic range. Achieving a good tonal distribution with healthy contrast and without that sick, over-processed HDR look that is so popular for mysterious reasons, that all took me time.
In the end I am pretty satisfied with a result that varies strongly from what the camera captured, but that pretty accurately accentuates what I saw and what made me take the image. Photography? Photo illustration? Hope you don’t care. There’s no point in it 😄
The Song of the Day is “Las Simples Cosas” from the Martirio album “Flor De Piel”. Hear it on YouTube.