After returning from the Cairngorms I've started editing some of the panoramas that I shot and after finalising the one above, I realised that it would be a great example of how to achieve the effect that you might have pictured in your head whilst standing behind the camera on location, by using layer masks.  When I was there, a brief window of light cast some warmth to the tops of the trees closest to the water, however I was facing the other way and so I missed the opportunity for the sake of a different image.  Once I was ready to shoot this scene the light was still brightest on the tops of the trees and so when it came to post processing, the effect I wanted was to make the tops of the trees glow a little more than the rest of the image - to do this I played with layer masks and selecting specific colour ranges.  

This blog will cover the whole edit of the image so if you have never used masks before, then don't worry I will cover everything as though the reader hasn't used masks before.  However, if you are used to masking and just want to see the part about selecting specific colours then you can scroll to the bottom and read the last section.

So, how did I get from the panorama below to the shot above?

Well, I'll start with how I shot it, because that makes the biggest difference (there's only so much Photoshop can do).  The nine image panorama was photographed underexposed as I was shooting on a D800e and knew that I could shoot for the highlights and capture some detail in the mountain that you can see on the far right of the image.  In the end I didn't use that part of the photograph, but with the D800e's ability to capture such a large dynamic range I was able to brighten the image and start to see the results that you see above.  If you are shooting on a crop sensor, then it may be worth (if you were in the same situation) shooting the scene slightly brighter and getting less noise in the shadows.

As I said before, you can't (or I personally don't want to) capture a scene and then completely change the 'light' to achieve a new look - I would say that is starting to branch a more 'digital art' type of picture.  So I start by opening the panorama in CameraRaw and using the basic adjustments to get as close to the final result as possible.

After quite a lot of deliberating I found that the three small trees at the water's edge made a nice focal point and so I cropped down to make them central (shown below).  Usually central is where you may not want the focal point of an image to be, but with this picture being based on symmetry I felt that it worked well!

This is how it was imported in Photoshop and now comes the part when  you chose which bits of the image you want brighter/darker, which colours you want more/less saturated and make the final global adjustments like brightness/contrast.

So, I'll start from the bottom and cover the important layers.  But in case you have never used masks before, each time you apply an adjustment from the panel that (by default) should show above the layers panel, it comes with a mask attached - if you can't see the box then make sure the drop down box at the top right of Photoshop is set to 'photography' and not anything else.  The box looks like the image I have posted on the right.  The masks allow you to paint the areas that you want to be adjusted and leave the rest untouched.

this did to the already bright grasses and rocks at the edge of the water.  One of the most simple way to mask is with a brush, which is what I used for this layer.  I used a brush that was slightly larger than the area I wanted to affect and set it 100% opacity, 0% hardness and the colour to black, then by clicking on the left of the screen and dragging the brush across the grasses all the way to the right of the frame, I had removed the effect of the curves from the bright grasses.  The next layer was the same type of adjustment, I used a brightness/contrast layer to darken the grasses and rocks even further and it was masked using the same technique.

I should quickly explain how the colour of your brush effects the mask.  Basically, black means that it won't show up and white means that you will see the changes you've made.  In this first case, I left the layer as white and painted black because I wanted that small area to not be affected by the adjustment.  If I only wanted a small portion to show through, then it would make sense to make the mask black and paint the area that I wanted in white.  You can make the mask black by inverting it, this is done by using 'CTRL i' or 'command' on a mac.

                                                                                                  ***********
​
Now comes the part when I used selective masking by picking certain colours.  I don't need to cover each layer from now on, because you'll understand the concept if I just explain the mask I used to make the trees 'pop'.

I started by making a vibrance adjustment and making the effect quite strong - I overdid the effect so that I could easily tell the areas that I had changed and then I went back and lowered the adjustment after completing the mask.  Once you have done the adjustment, double click on the mask (white box) and another box will appear that looks like the one below.

 By using your little eyedropper tool, you can click on  any colour in your image and the mask will change to be white anywhere that the same colour is present.  As you can see from my masking, I selected a bright green and so only the tops of the trees are white.  Your mask is now done and you can go back to your adjustment and change it to how you want it to look, because right now it'll be very strong. 

I used exactly the same technique to brighten the trunks of the trees.  If I didn't know about selecting colours I would have increased the brightness and made a mask on which I would have to paint each trunk that I wanted to be brighter.  That technique would have taken a long time, but by using the colour range tool, you can just click on one of the trunks and the adjustment will instantly apply to all the trunks and only the trunks!

By using layer masks you should  see a big improvement in your images, mostly because you will find them looking very close to how you pictured the image at the time you took the shot.  The changes will seem minimal, like all of the ones that I made on this example, but overall it adds another level to your picture.  That extra something might not be noticeable to other viewers, but I personally am much happier with my images since I learnt about this method of masking!

Thanks for reading and I hope that it helps you somehow!

I couldn't send a blog out on the last day as it was mine and Anthony's turn in the black grouse hide and so I'm writing it in the minibus on the way home!

During the day we walked up Ladder Hills to find, stalk and photograph mountain hare.  As a group of 10 the stalking was a difficult task, but most people managed to get some images.  One of the biggest challenges when we started was the rain.  We were facing up the slope and the rain was driving down towards us, this meant frequently having water on the front element if you weren't careful. 

The image below is by Isabelle Price (www.isabellepricephotography.weebly.com).  The changing around of who was at the front of the group changed often and at the time that we were around 15 metres from this hare, Isabelle was at the front and managed to capture this image!

After this stalk, we had some time to split off and find subjects of our own if we wanted to.  Myself, Anthony, Toby and Ellie separated from the group and walked straight up the hill.  Seeing as the hill had small plateaus, we thought that we would approach the edge of the plateau, slowly look over the brow and hopefully there would be some mountain hare.  We tried several times, but with the amount of hares that were around (and to our eyes, unnoticeable) we kept startling a hidden hare which in turn would cause most to run off.  We gave up facing uphill and still had about an hour left so headed back down towards the cabin.  On the way down we were very lucky to find a hare which wasn't too scared of us getting near.
​
After we spotted it, got low down and waited, it started to feed.  Each time it put it's head down to feed we could move a metre or so forward, we kept this same technique until about 10 metres away from the hare.  I captured this image as it looked up from feeding.

​A slight change of position down the slope and I took this second image.  The low angle of the first image makes it my favourite of the two; the blurring of the foreground and background help to bring focus onto the subject, I would also say that the head position is much nicer as it's looking towards us.

​The other three got some fantastic images as we carried on stalking for a while, but they aren't edited yet, but they may make it into the final 'gallery' blog in a week or so!

***********

After Ladder Hills we headed home and prepared for the night in the black grouse hide.  You are given a sleeping bag, roll mat, pillow and obviously the hide (which is set up by David Newland ).  You just need to take your camera equipment and a lot of layers.  I obviously can't say where the hide is located, but it is at the foot of mountain and (if you get a bad night) is very open to the elements.  Myself and Anthony were very lucky in that when we set-up it was very windy, but after a couple of hours had passed the wind had died down and we managed to get more sleep than on most of the other nights this week!  

The hide is in such a nice location, obviously it needs to be next to a lekking site, but the dark skies at night were stunning.  I woke up at around 04:30 to check that the equipment was all ready to go and see whether the grouse had already arrived.  I have no idea what time the grouse came down because they were already there by the time I was awake.  I knew that I wouldn't be able to capture any images in that light and so I went back to sleep until 05:30.  We were entering the blue hour and the sky was looking like there would a great sunrise, but still I couldn't get any images.  I set up the stool, tripod and camera, sat  behind the camera and watched the grouse and listened to the birds flying around overhead.  Another great part of staying in the hide that I forgot to mention was that when you first get in (prepared the groundsheet, sleeping bag and made sure nothing is going to get wet overnight) and first wake up in the morning, you can lay back and hear the grouse, lapwing, snipe, curlew and oystercatches calling and probably a lot more that I couldn't recognise.

Anyway, I decided not to shoot at too high an ISO and instead just watch the lek until the light was good enough to capture some images.  I was shooting on a D810, which I don't like to shoot over ISO2000 with - I know that it'll do more but I don't like the quality and although the image is usable it is always on my mind that the quality isn't of that high a standard.  So I set my camera to ISO2000, F/2.8, 1/100th of a second and waited for the light to reach that level.  At around half 6 the light was looking very nice and I was shooting from then until when we picked up at about quarter past 8.  

The difficulty with photographing the black grouse is the amount of rushes and tall grasses around them - a lot of the time they are concealed.  After shooting some portraits of one grouse which spent a lot of time near the hides, I moved on to trying to capture the males fighting.  They weren't particularly active on that morning but there were quite a few opportunities.  If I was shooting them in landscape orientation then (due to the distance and focal length) I would be cropping a lot and because of the high ISO value I didn't want to deteriorate the quality of the final image too much.  Therefore I decided to shoot portrait and try to include the fields and mountains in the background.  This image below was my favourite frame, as it looks like one has kicked the other to ground.  Looking at it now I would have liked to use a smaller aperture to show more background, as I was only on F/4.  Yet I needed the larger aperture because the action happens very quickly and I wanted to try and freeze it as much as I could.  As the morning went on I did go to F/8 but I didn't get that kind of action again. 

Closer action is what I really wanted, but it wasn't very likely which is why I went for the format you can see above.  However a few minutes before we were picked up the grouse all flew off and left just one on its own.  It started to call and was jumping around (I imagine to attract the attention of any other grouse that were left - although there weren't any).  It did this a couple of times and allowed me to capture this image.  Two males would have been more impactful but it was nice to have an image with some action in it.
​

***********
​

So... This might the end of the day blogs, but we have more coming over the next couple of weeks.  I'll be compiling each photographers favourite images and make a large gallery for everybody to look at!

Once again, if you are interested in any image that you have seen on the blog then feel free to get in contact with me and I can point you in the direction of the photographer.  Also, here's the list of photographers who have online portfolios/galleries that you can browse.

Isabelle Price - www.isabellepricephotography.weebly.com
Anthony Slocombe - www.anthonyslocombephotography.weebly.com
Richard Winter-Alsop  - www.rjwaphotography.co.uk
Gail Forest Harland  - www.gailforestharland.com
Ellie Bearcroft - www.ebphotography95.wix.com
Jasmine Beveridge - www.jbeveridgewildlife.weebly.com

Thanks to everybody who has been reading, we had a fantastic trip and it was made so much better to see you all reading and enjoying our photography!