Working with What You've Got

I've been working on the pictures I've taken at Brian and Gabby's wedding, and I came across this situation I've been in so many times before. I thought it'd be good material for a photo blog, so here we go!

Gabby wanted some pictures of the groomsmen out in front of one of the buildings at the University of Maryland, because this is the school that she went to, and the architecture at Maryland is very much a part of the school's identity. So, I had to have at least one good shot of the guys in front of the building, with its iconic white pillars. However, the building that we choose to shoot in front of had the sun behind it, so all of my subject matter was shot underexposed. In some of the pictures in which the sky was shown, all the color was blown out. In short: I have no good pictures... Or should I say, no 'easy pictures.' I've got to work with what I have.

So, I picked the picture I thought had the guys with the best expressions and heads all turned the right direction.



Obviously, the light is poor, the colors are 'blah,' and the palette is terribly flat. Though the building looks good from far away, this shot is close enough to see some of its 'ugly' - there are big air conditioning units sticking out of the windows, some random lamp in the way. This picture is not 'fixable' - it's time to radically change it.

The first thing I did was experiment a bit with making the photo a composite HDR to liven up the colors. The metering in the original photo, however, was flat, so things were not 'popping' like I wanted. I made the HDR, and then adjusted the tone curves even further. I still had to lighten the image without destroying much data, as the white bricks in the picture very easily became a sheet of white that almost lost itself in the columns. So here is where I made the decision to go black and white - at least partially. The only good hints of color I wanted to keep were in the pockets (and tie) of the groomsmen. So, I clipped those bits out of that layer and put them on top.

The composition of the shot was also lacking; however, luckily I shot wide, and this was easily fixed with a crop and some adjustment. I wanted to accentuate the columns and run them parallel to the guys, so I slightly rotated the picture and brought the width in a lot. It makes the building look more imposing, and the guys look taller - a little metaphorical, but you can't help but to notice subconsciously.

Lots of fiddling around later, it became time to clean the photo up. Those air-con units are hideous and that piece of lamp poking out from behind the pillar is very out of place. I did a lot of clone stamping, some blurring and even some layer clipping and grafting... The result, if I do say so myself, came out quite well... Even under zoom scrutiny. Still, I would have liked to see unbarred windows, but I did not have a good reference shot to borrow one from. :(

Anyways... The result is quite bold:


High contrast (it's an addiction), that 'hint' of color, excellent clarity, and a picture rescued from some bad light conditions.