I had a lot of fun shooting at the Cedar Creek Grist Mill but found myself using a variety of techniques to deal with the lighting that day. Here is a before and after shot and one strategy I used. There is some finishing I need to do on it where I missed a couple spots but you get the idea.
Before:
Intense sunlight on the Mill taken through the heavy shadow of the forest.
The after:
There are many ways of dealing with this and this is just one. This is a single exposure. I used Topaz adjust to bring out the shadows. I like using an exposure that leans toward the underexposed side even in the bright areas. I believe you can always take out color data but can't add it.
Then I duplicated that layer in Photoshop. Then applied a gaussian blur to the layer and gave it a little bit of transparency so there is blur but can see a hint of detail through the blur. I also applied a mask to some of the layer so the mill and background forest is clean and sharp. I wanted to give the feeling of depth by driving your eye to the mill. If you look you can see an area that I should have masked out near the stream where it is blurred and should be clear.
Before:
Intense sunlight on the Mill taken through the heavy shadow of the forest.
The after:
There are many ways of dealing with this and this is just one. This is a single exposure. I used Topaz adjust to bring out the shadows. I like using an exposure that leans toward the underexposed side even in the bright areas. I believe you can always take out color data but can't add it.
Then I duplicated that layer in Photoshop. Then applied a gaussian blur to the layer and gave it a little bit of transparency so there is blur but can see a hint of detail through the blur. I also applied a mask to some of the layer so the mill and background forest is clean and sharp. I wanted to give the feeling of depth by driving your eye to the mill. If you look you can see an area that I should have masked out near the stream where it is blurred and should be clear.
The 3rd photo down. Post #2.