Wheat fields

This is the original file - the processed version is on my Kinda Horrigans journal.

Used f/10 for this as a good in-betweeny 'doesn't matter too much' aperture setting, a low ISO of 100 because it was a bright day and a fairly fast shutter speed because of the bright conditions. Spot metered for the sky (although that top right hand corner still looks a little over-exposed to me!) because it's easier to rescue the darker foreground than try to save the burnt out bits later.

The end processing on this image was as follows - well, the original was over-exposed in the sky and exposed correctly on the wheat, or exposed correctly for the sky and under-exposed for the wheat...

So, I took the RAW file and adjusted it so that the exposure was right for the sky. Then, opened it in Photoshop. I then processed the RAW file a second time, making sure the exposure was right for the wheat and opened that in Photoshop too. I then copied the second version of the shot and pasted it into a new layer on the first version (still with me?). I then used a layer mask on the top layer and a 80% (ish - was tweaked to suit so it was kinda subtle!) black brush to paint out the bits I didn't want on the top layer to let through the bottom layer's exposure. The result is an image that's properly exposed for the sky and the wheat. I then flattened that image, and used Silver Efex Pro to convert it to b&w choosing an over-exposed setting to lighten the whole shot. Then, the image was flattened and sharpened the edges, cropped a teensy bit and that was it.

It sounds more complicated than it is - but the processing of the RAW files takes seconds as does painting out with a black brush to reveal the layer below.