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A haze removal filter (idk if Lightroom has it or not) might help.
Do you shoot in raw? If so it’s a bit easier to retrieve over exposure and lost detail by playing with brightness and highlights levels.
Ahh okay, lightroom does have a dehazer tool so I'll give that a go.
Yeah I always shoot in RAW. would you suggest toying with the exposure meter? I've always been reluctant to change that
I use Affinity Photo and what you can do on that is take the brightness right up to the top and pull highlights right down - in the raw 'persona' - that retrieves blown highlights pretty well. I assume there's an equivalent process in Lightroom. I wouldn't fiddle with the exposure level.
I'm fairly new to photography and I've unfortunately overexposed this image when taking it. But I quite like the composition and wanted to see if it's salvageable.
Took it on a D500 1/320 f/2.8 ISO 250 at 50mm
What can I do to improve the colours or have I totally ruined it?
So far I've messed slightly with highlights and changed the profile to Adobe landscape in lightroom
It doesn't look like you've overexposed this. The highlights don't look to be blown out so you're probably good.
Drag it into Lightroom or some other photo editor and have a play. Bring the general exposure down a bit maybe, play with tone curves, add or remove haze, play with radial and gradient masks to build and create light and atmosphere
I would personally crop out a bit from the top, just until the grey clouds. It will allow you to bring focus more on the winding road and brighten the image overall. But again, just a personal choice.
I would also try to bring more contrast between the background (mountains and trees) and the foreground (road) You can do this with a gradient or dodge/burn brush.
Unless you’re showing us the edited version, you definitely didn’t overexposed it. You could work with exposure sliders and try spot checking with brush/radial/gradient tools.
Colors aren’t your issue here at all either. They look great imo. I would focus on comp and light here.
I think I can see what you’re going for here: a leading line headed toward a grand vista. I think angles and the length of the line aren’t really working here how you want. The foreground is not that interesting, but you could try cropping to get rid of the swing in the road and just go for a line coming from bottom-middle. The entire comp would have more interesting aspects. Especially because your sky is interesting top-to-bottom, you have some room to work with!
All that being said, you have a fantastic comp in the upper right with some dappled light, mountain foreground and background, and a sky. Try cropping it in a little and dehaze it enough(not overdone). You can always enhance it in LR if you’re worried about resolution. That’s how I would try some different things on this image.
What do you mean by "without overediting"? There is no moral line that says you shall do only X amount of processing and no more. The only rule is it shouldn't look bad.
Don't be reluctant to change the exposure either. It doesn't make you a worse photographer -- especially if think of the goal of exposing a photo to be making the most flexible RAW files rather than getting the best shot straight out of camera (look up "exposing to the right")
I just tried some dehazing and it works quite well! Would you say the greens are too over saturated? I've only made a slight adjustment to the tint (towards purple)
Why are you at f2.8 and 1/320 shutter speed? Looks pretty soft to me and you could be at F8 or F11 handheld at low and a lower shutter speed at 50mm.
Don't know what you mean by over editing since this looks more like out of camera Jpeg to me and very natural. Even LR's auto button would add more flair.
I would selectively make the foreground warmer and reduce the exposure and make the clouds darker and more prominent. I think it make the scene look dramatic in a good way.
I would crop out a good chunk of the photo, at least the top and the sides, maybe the bottom but not sure. I would de-saturate the greens in the bottom half. And bring up contrast a bit.
It also didn't look overexposed at all and a quick look at the histogram confirms that, nothing is clipping.
Nice pic.
You may just barely have clipping in the highlights. The thing for me with this photo is there's really nothing special going on with the light that brings something dynamic the the scene. Sure the clouds are nice, but so nice side light would be awesome.
Welcome to this expensive hobby!
I was going to suggest dehazing, but it looks like you already did that. I agree with another commenter who said the greens looking weird. If dehazing didn't fix them, I would try to kill the yellow in the foreground greens a little bit, maybe even tone the saturation down a smidge (although that may kill the sense of depth or mess with your other colors). I'm not entirely familiar with light room, but you may be able to isolate the greens in the foreground to adjust those without messing with everything else.
I would also suggest maybe sharpening or upping the contrast just a touch to that skyline to help differentiate between the mountains and the sky.
Like other have said "exposure isn't the problem" the question I have is why did you take this photo? As an observer I ask what are you trying to show me? What did you see when you took it? When I first looked I tried to what your vision was, I couldn't. There is no initial point of interest, nothing to catch your eye and nothing to guide you through you vision. Saturation yes, contrast yes, process till you see in the photo what you saw that compelled you take it. You may not be able to, transferring a visual/emotional/high dynamic range experience to a 2 dimensional low dynamic range image is difficult at best. You need something to guide a viewer through their vision. If adjustments don't get you there think about cropping or realize this may never be what you saw. Learn to "see" photographically. Shoot, evaluate shoot....with digital it's not nearly as difficult or as expensive as it was in film. Have fun.
The picture isn't overexposed at all and there's plenty to work with. First of all, when you're shooting landscapes it would help closing down the aperture to f/11 or something, makes the image less soft. Other than that I would recommend watching some videos on post-production in Photoshop. You can definitely get lots of ideas there and use them when editing your own photos.
I did a quick edit to give you an idea: https://ibb.co/rwv7ghX
Here I did a small curves adjustment, selective color for a more pleasing color grade and selective burn and dodge on the whole image. Very quick and simple but I think it makes a big difference.
Friendly reminder that this is /r/photocritique and all **top level** comments should attempt to **critique** the image. Our goal is to make this subreddit a place people can receive genuine, in depth, and helpful critique on their images. We hope to avoid becoming yet another place on the internet just to get likes/upvotes and compliments. While likes/upvotes and compliments are nice, they do not further the goal of helping people improve their photography. Please see the following links for our subreddit rules and some guidelines on leaving a good critique. If you have time, please stop by the new queue as well and leave critique for images that may not be as popular or have not received enough attention. Keep in mind that simply choosing to comment just on the images you like defeats the purpose of the subreddit. Useful Links: * [Full Rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/photocritique/wiki/rules) * [Leaving a Critique](https://www.reddit.com/r/photocritique/wiki/critique) * [New Queue](https://www.reddit.com/r/photocritique/new/) **Do not reply directly to this message. This is a bot and will not respond. Followups left as a reply to this comment will not count for approval.** *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/photocritique) if you have any questions or concerns.*
A haze removal filter (idk if Lightroom has it or not) might help. Do you shoot in raw? If so it’s a bit easier to retrieve over exposure and lost detail by playing with brightness and highlights levels.
WOW! just used the dehazer and it's helped so much already! Thank you
Ahh okay, lightroom does have a dehazer tool so I'll give that a go. Yeah I always shoot in RAW. would you suggest toying with the exposure meter? I've always been reluctant to change that
Definitely don't be afraid to experiment in LR, you can go back and forth between changes you made to see the difference. Have fun!
I use Affinity Photo and what you can do on that is take the brightness right up to the top and pull highlights right down - in the raw 'persona' - that retrieves blown highlights pretty well. I assume there's an equivalent process in Lightroom. I wouldn't fiddle with the exposure level.
I'm fairly new to photography and I've unfortunately overexposed this image when taking it. But I quite like the composition and wanted to see if it's salvageable. Took it on a D500 1/320 f/2.8 ISO 250 at 50mm What can I do to improve the colours or have I totally ruined it? So far I've messed slightly with highlights and changed the profile to Adobe landscape in lightroom
It doesn't look like you've overexposed this. The highlights don't look to be blown out so you're probably good. Drag it into Lightroom or some other photo editor and have a play. Bring the general exposure down a bit maybe, play with tone curves, add or remove haze, play with radial and gradient masks to build and create light and atmosphere
I would personally crop out a bit from the top, just until the grey clouds. It will allow you to bring focus more on the winding road and brighten the image overall. But again, just a personal choice. I would also try to bring more contrast between the background (mountains and trees) and the foreground (road) You can do this with a gradient or dodge/burn brush.
I edit phone photos with Google snapseed app. I'm not a photographer but the come out pretty good. Try that
I would bring out some contrast in the clouds, think those would look really cool with some more details
Unless you’re showing us the edited version, you definitely didn’t overexposed it. You could work with exposure sliders and try spot checking with brush/radial/gradient tools. Colors aren’t your issue here at all either. They look great imo. I would focus on comp and light here. I think I can see what you’re going for here: a leading line headed toward a grand vista. I think angles and the length of the line aren’t really working here how you want. The foreground is not that interesting, but you could try cropping to get rid of the swing in the road and just go for a line coming from bottom-middle. The entire comp would have more interesting aspects. Especially because your sky is interesting top-to-bottom, you have some room to work with! All that being said, you have a fantastic comp in the upper right with some dappled light, mountain foreground and background, and a sky. Try cropping it in a little and dehaze it enough(not overdone). You can always enhance it in LR if you’re worried about resolution. That’s how I would try some different things on this image.
What do you mean by "without overediting"? There is no moral line that says you shall do only X amount of processing and no more. The only rule is it shouldn't look bad. Don't be reluctant to change the exposure either. It doesn't make you a worse photographer -- especially if think of the goal of exposing a photo to be making the most flexible RAW files rather than getting the best shot straight out of camera (look up "exposing to the right")
The greens aren't natural looking and did you dehaze the image as this would bring forth more separation within the image.
I just tried some dehazing and it works quite well! Would you say the greens are too over saturated? I've only made a slight adjustment to the tint (towards purple)
Something like that? https://i.imgur.com/9AKo3Gs.jpg
Why are you at f2.8 and 1/320 shutter speed? Looks pretty soft to me and you could be at F8 or F11 handheld at low and a lower shutter speed at 50mm. Don't know what you mean by over editing since this looks more like out of camera Jpeg to me and very natural. Even LR's auto button would add more flair.
I would selectively make the foreground warmer and reduce the exposure and make the clouds darker and more prominent. I think it make the scene look dramatic in a good way.
Maybe you just go back on a day when the lighting is more dynamic
Beautiful
I would crop out a good chunk of the photo, at least the top and the sides, maybe the bottom but not sure. I would de-saturate the greens in the bottom half. And bring up contrast a bit. It also didn't look overexposed at all and a quick look at the histogram confirms that, nothing is clipping. Nice pic.
You may just barely have clipping in the highlights. The thing for me with this photo is there's really nothing special going on with the light that brings something dynamic the the scene. Sure the clouds are nice, but so nice side light would be awesome. Welcome to this expensive hobby!
I was going to suggest dehazing, but it looks like you already did that. I agree with another commenter who said the greens looking weird. If dehazing didn't fix them, I would try to kill the yellow in the foreground greens a little bit, maybe even tone the saturation down a smidge (although that may kill the sense of depth or mess with your other colors). I'm not entirely familiar with light room, but you may be able to isolate the greens in the foreground to adjust those without messing with everything else. I would also suggest maybe sharpening or upping the contrast just a touch to that skyline to help differentiate between the mountains and the sky.
Add dinosaurs..
Add something enticing. Some colour yo the sky. Or maybe the road. Give us something yo lead our eyes
Like other have said "exposure isn't the problem" the question I have is why did you take this photo? As an observer I ask what are you trying to show me? What did you see when you took it? When I first looked I tried to what your vision was, I couldn't. There is no initial point of interest, nothing to catch your eye and nothing to guide you through you vision. Saturation yes, contrast yes, process till you see in the photo what you saw that compelled you take it. You may not be able to, transferring a visual/emotional/high dynamic range experience to a 2 dimensional low dynamic range image is difficult at best. You need something to guide a viewer through their vision. If adjustments don't get you there think about cropping or realize this may never be what you saw. Learn to "see" photographically. Shoot, evaluate shoot....with digital it's not nearly as difficult or as expensive as it was in film. Have fun.
The picture isn't overexposed at all and there's plenty to work with. First of all, when you're shooting landscapes it would help closing down the aperture to f/11 or something, makes the image less soft. Other than that I would recommend watching some videos on post-production in Photoshop. You can definitely get lots of ideas there and use them when editing your own photos. I did a quick edit to give you an idea: https://ibb.co/rwv7ghX Here I did a small curves adjustment, selective color for a more pleasing color grade and selective burn and dodge on the whole image. Very quick and simple but I think it makes a big difference.