# Voldemorts Wand



## kalgra (Sep 2, 2019)

This is an image I got last July while visiting the Badlands of South Dakota.
Really cool place! I really wanted to spend some more time here but only had a couple days. The morning and evening light was very flat and I was pretty bummed about that, fortunately the the first evening brought and amazing thunder storm with lots of lightning and the second night was ultra clear making way for some good milky way pics. Ill definitely be going back as some point

Shot on a Canon EOS R with a 16-35mm.

EDIT:
Updated and re-edit with new monitor calibration




Fulgar Virga by Kristian Algra, on Flickr


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## tirediron (Sep 2, 2019)

Excellent!


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## otherprof (Sep 2, 2019)

kalgra said:


> This is an image I got last July while visiting the Badlands of South Dakota.
> Really cool place! I really wanted to spend some more time here but only had a couple days. The morning and evening light was very flat and I was pretty bummed about that, fortunately the the first evening brought and amazing thunder storm with lots of lightning and the second night was ultra clear making way for some good milky way pics. Ill definitely be going back as some point
> 
> Shot on a Canon EOS R with a 16-35mm.
> ...


Great image! I love the way the branch echoes the lightning!


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## Jeff G (Sep 2, 2019)

Beautiful composition, great shot!


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## smoke665 (Sep 2, 2019)

What a shot. Well done!


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## Dean_Gretsch (Sep 2, 2019)

Simply amazing!


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## Jeff15 (Sep 2, 2019)

Very good image..........


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## stapo49 (Sep 2, 2019)

Fantastic! Great stuff.

Sent from my SM-G965F using Tapatalk


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## Scott Whaley (Sep 2, 2019)

Fantastic!  I love everything about it.   The balance is nice.  The colors are nice.  The lighting is nice.  Great job.


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## K9Kirk (Sep 2, 2019)

Very nice.


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## Tropicalmemories (Sep 3, 2019)

Excellent, cinematic image.


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## zulu42 (Sep 3, 2019)

Superb!


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## D7K (Sep 3, 2019)

Great image and mood, well done!


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## Designer (Sep 3, 2019)

Nominated for POTM, Sept, 2019


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## CherylL (Sep 3, 2019)

Excellent!


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## Braineack (Sep 3, 2019)

really underexposed. especially the lightning.


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## Winona (Sep 3, 2019)

Neat photo. We love the Badlands, but need to spend more than a few hours there. So beautiful!


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## kalgra (Sep 3, 2019)

Designer said:


> Nominated for POTM, Sept, 2019



Wow Thanks! And thanks to everyone else for the kind words.



Braineack said:


> really underexposed. especially the lightning.



Hmm where is the brightness set for your display?  As it is Im already just clipping the highlights on the lightning. If I raise the exposure anymore it is completely blown out. You can see here with highlight warning turned on.


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## DanOstergren (Sep 4, 2019)

kalgra said:


> Designer said:
> 
> 
> > Nominated for POTM, Sept, 2019
> ...


It's very under exposed on my display as well. I'm viewing on a Spyder calibrated iMac Retina display with the brightness set to a few notches below the halfway mark. Personally I do not believe every photo should be "perfectly" exposed to avoid all clipping in the highlights and shadows; a viewer who is looking to appreciate the aesthetic of an image is most likely not someone who is going to dissect the shot and say "wow, this photo has such a perfect exposure". Instead, the visual impact of the shot is what counts in a fine art piece like this. Technical excellence is a practical skill to know, but in my opinion a photographer elevates the level of their work once they start allowing themselves more freedom to strive for high impact rather than striving for technical perfection. I think this shot has so much going for it, but the highlights just aren't delivering the contrast this photo needs. The composition of the photo is excellent, the colors really work, and overall it evokes the mind to start formulating a story, it just needs that extra bit of overall brightness in the highlights to give it the impact it deserves.


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## kalgra (Sep 4, 2019)

@DanOstergren thanks for your input. The funny thing is I had just calibrated my monitor with a Datacolor Spyderx prior to processing my last two images. I’m on a thunder bolt monitor with the brightness about 1/3 up which would seem like it should look brighter on your screen than mine. I wonder if the calibration did something strange I’m not aware of, or perhaps I should experiment with dodging the highlights a bit.


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## Braineack (Sep 4, 2019)

kalgra said:


> Designer said:
> 
> 
> > Nominated for POTM, Sept, 2019
> ...



I don't see how that's possible:





I'm in MS Paint and grabbed a few colors from the lightning, which I'd expect to see at the clipping point, if not clipped a bit  --  I then painted pure white and i few other colors from the swatches, including a 25% Gray which is still significantly brighter than anything in your image.

I dunno how LR think that's clipped.


If it were me, I'd try a graduated filter on the top third and bump the exposure until the lightning is significantly brighter, or just try moving the whites slider.


Edit: I threw it in polarr (the online editor -- i dont have any software here) and took the whites to 100%, IMHO, it looks pretty good there with no other edits.


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## kalgra (Sep 4, 2019)

@Braineack thats so weird! I really wish I could see what you guys have on your monitors. When I look at this on my wife’s iPad I begin to see what your saying, but this is not how it looks on my “calibrated” Mac. I’m begining to think something went wrong with the monitor calibration and well that just sucks! Thanks for bringing it to my attention.

In general overall as a ball park figure how many stops underexposed would you say it looks to you? That would at least give me a starting point to know what you and Dan might be seeing.

Thanks!


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## smoke665 (Sep 4, 2019)

You may already know this, and I'll apologize in advance if you do, but exposure is not the only way to brighten an image. My workflow is to first set the exposure slider to kiss the right. Then I adjust WB if required. Next up is to either do a slight increase or decrease on contrast as required. Now the highlights slider, which I generally pull down slightly. Hold down the alt/option key and adjust shadows. Hold down alt key and slide the white slider right til they just start to pop up. Do the same on the black slider to the left. If the histogram isn't showing a little red on the right raise the exposure slider just a tad till it does. Go to the tone curve and set a medium tone curve to start. Grab the top right point and move left or down while watching the histogram, you want to kiss the right and, depending on the image have a little red showing. Go to the left bottom corner and slide the point right or up while watching your histogram to set your black point. Now adjust your other points to taste.


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## Braineack (Sep 4, 2019)

here is where I landed with just adjusting the whites with a crummy online editor:


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## Braineack (Sep 4, 2019)

btw, the entire screenshot of your system looks dark here -- i think your calibration is doing something screwy...


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## kalgra (Sep 15, 2019)

I updated the original post after recalibrating my display and re-editing. Im sure those who liked it before will not like it now and those who disliked before may dislike it less. Shrug it is what it is.

For those who care my monitor calibration was way off got it figured out with Datacolor support. To me it seems my images are now looking to bright on other displays but I suppose thats better than looking to dark. IDK.


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## Braineack (Sep 15, 2019)

looks great to me!


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## weepete (Sep 15, 2019)

yup, that's much better!


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