How do I get "luminous"?

Jock Elliott

Hall of Famer
Location
Troy, NY
Oakwood Cemetery, late in the afternoon, slanting light, some of the yellow leaves were positively glowing like they were lit from within, but the results I got were flat.
LX100 Oakwood luminous leaves sunset 031.JPG


LX100 Oakwood luminous leaves sunset 015.JPG

LX100 Oakwood luminous leaves sunset 012.JPG

So how do I get those leaves to pop? Feel free to play with any of the images and to show your own that show "luminous."

Or do I need a camera with super-colossal dynamic range?

cheers, Jock
 
Last edited:
Kyle,

I do like them. What's the recipe?

Cheers, Jock

I opened them in Polarr, version 3, specifically. It's a free web-based editor, if you're not familiar with it. So then for the first image I...

- Drew a radial filter in an oblong half-circle that was widest up top, and which narrowed down to the base of the two trees closest to us. Within it, I heavily lifted shadows, slightly dropped highlights, warmed the white balance a bit, upped saturation a little but not much.
- Drew another similar radial filter, but reversed this one so it affected the area outside the circle. With this one, I dropped shadows, dropped - exposure slightly, and cooled the white balance towards blue a bit.
- Drew another radial, this time a smaller circle right on the sun, about as wide as the two big trees. This one I cranked up exposure a little further, warmed it even more, and upped shadows as well slightly. The point here was to blow out the highlights a little, but not obliterate it.
- Graduated filter at bottom left to slightly drop the exposure there a bit farther than the sides, but still not beyond the point of believability.
- Global edits were a tiny bit of vibrance, maybe some clarity, not much really. Most was handled by the radials.

The overall idea was to make contrasting areas within the image. To draw the eye to certain parts, and away from others. Thus, the lit leaves and the sun itself were brought up and warmed, while the supporting shadows were dropped and cooled.
 
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