This is “Time No. 2″ that I created at Zabriskie  Point in Death Valley, perhaps the most photographed spot in the entire park.  This image was created just before the sun went down and it’s amazing how Zabriskie Point can look so differently as the light changes from morning, to noon and to late afternoon.

Today I wanted to show a “before and after” so you could see what the original image looked and how your vision can change it.  Sometimes vision takes place as you’re shooting and sometimes it occurs when you’re processing the image.  And sometimes your vision changes over time and so you  go back and change the image repeatedly (you should see how the The Angel Gabriel has evolved over time).

This original image is quite flat and muted, and so to make this a “Cole Thompson” image, I had to improve the contrast and separate the colors.   I do this by adjusting the color channels in the black and white conversion tool of Photoshop CS5.  By sliding each color’s adjustors in both directions, you can see how it will affect the contrast and separation.  With the colors I had in this image, I was able to change the b&w version quite a bit by adjusting the color channels; the Red and Yellow channels brought out highlights, the Blue channels darkened certain parts of the image, and the green had no effect.  When adjusting the channels, be careful not to go so far that you introduce unacceptable amounts of noise, particularly in the blue channels.

I then dodge and burn the image with my tablet to further enhance the contrast.  In this image I used a very small brush to individually work each piece of the image so that I brought out the striations that separated each set of hills.  I particularly paid attention to the ridge tops and brought out the highlighted edges.

One of the most important steps in my conversion process is to use the “Histogram” to check the blacks and white and then to adjust them using “Levels” if necessary (it’s almost always necessary).  After you have established a good black and white, you can use “Levels” to adjust the midtones and really change the mood of your image, for my images I generally am pushing the midtones darker.

Once the image looks great on screen, I then use the global contrast adjustment to push the contrast even further so that it will print with the same “pop” that it has on screen.  Remember that a monitor uses transmitted light and that always makes things look better than it will on a print.  The reason for this is that a print uses reflected light which is quite dull and flat by comparison.  By pushing the contrast further than you think you should, it will help ensure the printed piece looks good.

For me, the appeal of this image is it’s simplicity, it’s detailed contrasts and the compressed perspective.  Death valley is really a spectacular place, especially in the winter.  I go each January and just revel in the timeless solitude.

Cole

P.S.  What I don’t like side by side comparisons is that someone always writes and says “I like the color image better!”  I’m just kidding of course, we all have our individual tastes and mine just runs to the black and white.

I often receive requests to show some “before and after” images to help people understand how much of my work is done in camera and how much is done in Photoshop.  I’d say it’s generally about 50/50 but that can vary by image with some images almost ready right out of the camera and many requiring extensive processing in Photoshop.

Lone Man No. 20 is a good example of a 50/50 image.  As you can see, the image I started with and the final image are both quite similar and yet quite different.  The original shot has all of the important elements; the composition, the long exposure of the water, the clouds and the lone man, but it doesn’t have the dramatic effect of the final image.

Probably the first change you’ll notice in the final image is that the severe vignetting has been repaired.  I was shooting with an extremely wide angle lens and I had two stacked neutral density filters on my lens, as a result a great deal of the filter was included in the photograph.  To repair this I first cropped the image and then I used the clone tool to fill in the missing corners.

Next you’ll notice that the sky in the original image has very low contrast and is quite bland.  To bring out the sky detail I split the image into two halves, upper and lower, and converted them to b&w differently.  In each conversion I used Photoshop’s “Channel Mixer” but in the upper half I used some blue channel to improve the contrast and detail in of the sky.  Next I used some pretty aggressive dodging and burning to bring out the definition and detail in the clouds, this information was in the image but it was almost hidden to the eye.  As a rule you can generally recover image detail as long as you have not over-exposed the image to the point that you have blown out the highlights.

Note: one of the side-effects of using blue channel in the conversion and dodging and burning is that the image can get very grainy.  When using this technique you must carefully balance the good-effects with side-effects.

Next I converted the lower half of the image to b&w, darkened the image and greatly enhanced the contrast.  This dark and contrasty approach is the look that I like and it often has the effect of making daytime look like night time.  The March/April issue of Photo Technique Magazine featured an article on my work and they used the phrase “Darkness at Noon” to describe this look.

All of this produced a basic final image, but it still didn’t have the dramatic impact I was seeking and that I had pre-visualized before I captured the image.  So my final step was to dodge and burn to bring out the highlights and selectively darken blacks to locally enhance contrast.  As I did this I carefully monitored the histogram below:

This histogram shows that I have a good black and a good white, something your eye cannot always discern when looking at the image on the screen.  Monitors are often out of adjustment and our eyes can be fooled, but the histogram never lies.  People often complain to me that what looked good to them on screen, often prints flat and muddy.  Generally the problem is revealed in their histogram; they lack a “true” black and good contrast. 

As you can see from my final image, it does not represent reality.  Reality is not my goal but instead I strive create images that reflect how I see the scene through my vision.  That is why I advocate that photographers work just as hard on developing their vision, as they do on their technical skills and equipment.  The image begins and ends in your mind’s eye.