Maybe it’s “only a fraction”, but it is the most important fraction seen from the perspective of our vision. (Could there actually be any other perspective to see things from …? )
The basic element in our visual perception of the world is contrast.
Try to remove all contrast in luminocity from pictures, so that only color and color differences (contrast) is left. And then remove the color from the image, but keep luminance contrast, (a.k.a. black-and-white image). Then chose which version has the most information available for you to orient yourself in the world … For most images color is clearly not the winner.
Geesh, you got me thinking about the mechanics of testing such. G’MIC would be my first choice of tool, gotta figure out the operators to dial all the L values of a Lab image to one value. No promises, I’m lips-deep in making a simple CAD program work correctly…
I was happy to have offered this up in play_raw, as I could grab the raw file again.
You all had some interesting ways of approaching my “problem”, and some great renders!
After thinking about the advice and discussions regarding methods to increase separation, I think a large part of my frustration has been about the loss of airy lightness that was present in the IRL scene. In color, it is easy to maintain that look, while getting sufficient contrasts to provide some notion of volumetric depth. In black and white, i think, this is harder to do without having the right conditions in the scene/composition. This particular capture was not going to really allow for low contrasts without looking super flat.
I think what would have allowed me to get where I wanted to be in my head:
Eliminate a large chunk of the water. It is so dark relative to the rest of the scene that it adds a lot of visual heaviness.
Get much closer. This is not easy to do without a boat lol. However, if I had been able to increase the size and level of detail in the sharp and bright areas I would not need as much large scale contrasts in order to provide the separation needed to show volume and depth.
Assuming 1&2, using a shallower DoF would be necessary to keep the “softness” in the remaining trees which I liked so much.
I cant go back and fix these issues, so I should probably stop trying to force it into something it cannot be. Still, I think I settled on something of a compromise. I still do not love it, but I think it is passable.
I think I really need to spend a long period of time working in only black and white, until I can “see” that way during the time of capture. I am hoping to be shooting 8x10 film by the end of this year, and film costs alone make it a bad choice to learn all these valuable lessons on. Hell, shooting film is not a cost efficient way to learn some of these lessons lol
)