Autumn Leaf South Downs

November 27, 2013

Autumn Leaf South Downs FinalAutumn Leaf South Downs FinalAutumn Leaf South Downs

This shot was taken in mid November 2013. I headed up to some woods on the South Downs to try some Autumn Woods shots with the colours at about their peak

The picture was taken handheld with a Sony A700 with a Sigma 28-200 lens at 200 mm.

Photoshop

The RAW file was first opened in Camera Raw and edits made to recover highlights and increase clarity and vibrance.

In Photoshop Topaz Adjust was used on a duplicate layer with a layer mask to bring in more detail on the main leaf only.

Further adjustments were made in adjustment layers To quickly make a layer mask so adjustments only applied to the leaf I first used the quick selection tool on the leaf. Then with the existing mask removed I clicked to create a new white layer mask which automatically created a layer mask with the leaf in white so all adjustments applied to the leaf and were blocked from everything else.

Note that this is a much more flexible than making the adjustments directly to the selected area of the image as it is not destructive and can be easily undone or partly undone using a brush on the mask.

To duplicate the layer mask on another adjustment layer just hold down alt click and drag the mask, drop and click yes to the dialog “Replace Layer Mask”

I used the Hue Saturation adjustment layer with the layer mask and the red and yellow channels to bring out more of an autumn look.

Layers flattened before going on to sharpening.

Duplicate layer Noiseware Pro and a little sharpening.

Second duplicate layer with mask to apply extra sharpening and contrast with low amount and high radius using Unsharp mask (Clarity Effect) The settings were 40 amount and 40 radius. A layer mask was used to exclude this effect from some areas.

A vignette was applied using the Elliptical Marquee selection tool, then inverse to select the outer edges with wide feathering and brightness reduction. The effect was to darken the edges of the picture to focus more on the leaf.

BEFORE AND AFTER

Below are the Before and After images. First the original and then the final result after processing.

Original

Autumn Leaf South Downs OriginalAutumn Leaf South Downs OriginalAutumn Leaf South Downs before processing

Final Image

Autumn Leaf South Downs FinalAutumn Leaf South Downs FinalAutumn Leaf South Downs Final

For licences and prints see Autumn Leaf South Downs

Edwin Jones

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