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05/19/2006 05:12:44 PM · #551
Anybody care to mess around with this lovely flat shot of sea, land, and sky? I've handled shots from here before (those are an all-too typical conditions), but I'm curious to see what someone else might do.

I resampled this down to 640px with IrfanView, but it's otherwise the original. ISO 100, f6.5, 1/1250 second. Looking southeast from Home (Lakebay), Washington, over Puget Sound towards Mt. Rainier.
05/19/2006 07:50:27 PM · #552
The rain finally stopped, so I ran out tonight to get some shots. I was also playing with my new IR filter, so that's what I ended up with for a landscape pic, but I think it breaks a couple rules (horizon is in the middle vertically, and a main leading line on the left of the road is pretty much in the middle horizontally).

small:


Full size
05/19/2006 09:17:43 PM · #553
Originally posted by fracman:

The rain finally stopped, so I ran out tonight to get some shots. I was also playing with my new IR filter, so that's what I ended up with for a landscape pic, but I think it breaks a couple rules (horizon is in the middle vertically, and a main leading line on the left of the road is pretty much in the middle horizontally).

small:


Full size


Your links aren't working... :(

Edit: OK got it now..thank you :)

Message edited by author 2006-05-19 21:51:52.
05/19/2006 09:42:22 PM · #554


My little play with PS on GeneralE's image. Not very easy getting either definition out of it or colour. My crop was perhaps drastic too. I should add that I was not too happy with the sea colour. Most of the visual action seemed to be in the heavens around Rainier.

Message edited by author 2006-05-19 21:53:18.
05/19/2006 09:47:13 PM · #555
That's odd. Everything looks fine here.

Without images, the urls are:

//fracman.no-ip.org/gallery2/d/3275-2/_DSC1218.jpg (small)
//fracman.no-ip.org/gallery2/d/3273-1/_DSC1218.jpg (full)
05/19/2006 10:42:08 PM · #556


Don't know exactly what rules I'm breaking with this landscape but it has GOT to be a bunch!! LOL!

I took this last week when I was in Oregon.
05/19/2006 10:46:56 PM · #557
Originally posted by stdavidson:



Don't know exactly what rules I'm breaking with this landscape but it has GOT to be a bunch!! LOL!

I took this last week when I was in Oregon.


Not the least of them is the rule against added text, jejeje™

R.
05/19/2006 10:49:38 PM · #558
Originally posted by Bear_Music:

Originally posted by stdavidson:

Don't know exactly what rules I'm breaking with this landscape but it has GOT to be a bunch!! LOL!


Not the least of them is the rule against added text, jejeje™

Curses, foiled again! ;)
05/19/2006 10:50:09 PM · #559

My go at it.
05/19/2006 11:04:54 PM · #560
Originally posted by GeneralE:

Anybody care to mess around with this lovely flat shot of sea, land, and sky? I've handled shots from here before (those are an all-too typical conditions), but I'm curious to see what someone else might do.

I resampled this down to 640px with IrfanView, but it's otherwise the original. ISO 100, f6.5, 1/1250 second. Looking southeast from Home (Lakebay), Washington, over Puget Sound towards Mt. Rainier.


That's an incredibly noisy image, General... What gives? Almost the slightest hue/sat bump starts blocking it up big time... Anyway:



R.
05/19/2006 11:09:45 PM · #561

Here's my take on it
05/19/2006 11:16:12 PM · #562
Before:... After:

OK, here is my shot at it. Did not do anything special here except that in honor of it being Mt. Rainier I went with cool tones.

Post:
1-Noise Reduction
2-Standard Levels
3-Curves to increase midtone contrast
4-Curves to create the cool tones
5-Selective color to darken blacks and darken blues
7-50% greyscale layer to burn detail for texture and interest
8-Smart Sharpen

Message edited by author 2006-05-19 23:20:33.
05/20/2006 02:44:55 AM · #563
Originally posted by Bear_Music:

Next Assignment

And for your assignment: Look at the "Truro Motels" above: centered horizon, centered subject, strongly symmetrical compositional elements. Now, go forth and do something like that, please.

By "like that" I don't mean you HAVE to find some motels and duplicate this (that would be silly); I'm not even requiring the strong diagonals, though you're welcome to them. What I want to see is images of landscapes (with or without buildings) that are "spun off" a central point, with a strong subject dominating the image. I especially want to see equal amounts of foreground and sky.


Tauro Motels: ... My craftily constructed assignment image:

To the untrained eye my picture may appear to have nothing to do with the assignment at all and was just stuck in here to show off another Oregon beach picture. Nothing could be further from the truth!

With the sharp eye of a master photographer I carefully composed all the elements requested to meet this specific assignment. I stoically waited for hours, finger on the shutter, for the exact moment when the lighting was just right.

The trained eye can plainly see how I carefully disguised the "central point" as two dull, cement stairways smack dab near the middle of the frame. Damned clever, don't you think?

Further, the "spun off" parts are a combination of both man-made and natural lines. Obviously, I was thinking outside the box. Even Bear_Music did no do that in his image.

My four "spokes" are so cleverly composed outward from the central cement stairways that some of you might not even see them. Two are man-made diagonals going to the left. The other two are natural diagonals going to the right. Damn, I'm good!

The first diagonal is the seawall to the left foreground. The second goes upward and to the left onto the roof of the house. The top right diagonal follows from the cement stairs away and into the misty beach below the distant hill. The last diagonal is toward the lower right following along the driftwood downward to the right corner of the frame.

Lastly, you can easily see how I carefully measured both foreground and sky to insure they are both EXACTLY the same size. Yes, I did have to do a lot of extra measuring to get it right but for me no amount of effort is too much in order to achieve perfection.

I know... I know what you must be thinking. How can you compete against such greatness? But, please, do not be intimidated. I'm just like you. I slip on my pasties and silk, lacy women's undies one leg at a time like anyone else.
05/20/2006 01:02:20 PM · #564
Originally posted by stdavidson:

I know... I know what you must be thinking. How can you compete against such greatness? But, please, do not be intimidated. I'm just like you. I slip on my pasties and silk, lacy women's undies one leg at a time like anyone else.


NO... SOUP... FOR... YOU...! Even IF we accept your insane, off-the-wall attempts to spin-doctor every other element of the image into submission, we cannot accept your "meticulous remeasurement" of the sky/foreground ratio with a straight face? Why? Because only in Chicken Little's world are jumbled stones & debris part of the "sky", and WE all know you are, in reality, Foghorn B. Leghorn, ESQ.

However, we'll send you a petrified Bear-Paw pastry in acknowledgment of your entertaining exposition; you demonstrate better-than-average skills with the English language :-)

Now go forth and sin no more! This was not a wildly-popular assignment, BTW...

R.
05/20/2006 04:11:42 PM · #565
Originally posted by Bear_Music:

NO... SOUP... FOR... YOU...! Even IF we accept your insane, off-the-wall attempts to spin-doctor every other element of the image into submission, we cannot accept your "meticulous remeasurement" of the sky/foreground ratio with a straight face? Why? Because only in Chicken Little's world are jumbled stones & debris part of the "sky", and WE all know you are, in reality, Foghorn B. Leghorn, ESQ.

I'm shocked that a photographer of your high esteem could forget to account for the middleground of a typical landscape when calculating the sky/foreground ratio.

Obviously, after taking the middleground deduction and recalculating you will see that sky and foreground dimensions are within .7386 pixels of each other in my textbook example. I realize that is not exact, but it is hard to do any better without severely degraded cost benefits.

Bet you are sorry you opened this discussion up to everyone now, aren't you? ;)
05/20/2006 04:33:04 PM · #566
Originally posted by stdavidson:

Bet you are sorry you opened this discussion up to everyone now, aren't you? ;)


Nah, nobody's paying any attention anyway :-) That'll change when Professor Dy-Liacco gets off his duff and steps in for his guest-lecturer stint.

Regarding "middlegrounds" and their relationship to foregrounds & skies, there might be some validity to your calculations if your "middleground" were less of a "muddleground"...

(runs for shelter)

R.

Just for the heck of it, I did some quick playing in PS for a completely different look. Had to crop out the illegal text, dontcha know, and got carried away:



Message edited by author 2006-05-20 16:54:04.
05/20/2006 05:07:43 PM · #567
Originally posted by Bear_Music:

Regarding "middlegrounds" and their relationship to foregrounds & skies, there might be some validity to your calculations if your "middleground" were less of a "muddleground"...


Think I'll see if I can patent the "muddleground" concept.

Like what you did with the image for a moodier look. What were the steps?
05/20/2006 05:14:37 PM · #568
Originally posted by stdavidson:

Originally posted by Bear_Music:

Regarding "middlegrounds" and their relationship to foregrounds & skies, there might be some validity to your calculations if your "middleground" were less of a "muddleground"...


Think I'll see if I can patent the "muddleground" concept.

Like what you did with the image for a moodier look. What were the steps?


Ummm.... I wasn't paying attention... The dog ate my processing notes...

Contrast masking, 2 phases: first round multiply brights and vivid light darks, flatten, second round multiply lights and screen darks

selective color work to cool/neutralize sky

sky gradient on an empty layer in multiply mode

dodge foreground foliage and saturate same

slight vignette applied

USM

I think that's it...

R.
05/20/2006 05:29:33 PM · #569
Originally posted by Bear_Music:

That's an incredibly noisy image, General... What gives? Almost the slightest hue/sat bump starts blocking it up big time... Anyway:



R.

I don't know -- that sensor seems to just be pretty noisy in areas of flat color. I thought maybe I had Exposure Compensation on or something, but re-checking the EXIF (pasted below) I don't see anything unusual except maybe underexposure due to the lack of any highlight areas.

Thanks to all of you for having a go at it -- it's interesting to see how other people approach it. Now I guess I'll have to work on it : )

Did anyone use any masks, or just work with global corrections?
I left you each a brief comment.

======= Image EXIF ===========
File: - IMG_2102.JPG

Make - Canon
Model - Canon PowerShot S1 IS

ExposureTime - 1/1250 seconds
FNumber - 6.30
ShutterSpeedValue - 1/1244 seconds
ApertureValue - F 6.30
ExposureBiasValue - 0.00
MaxApertureValue - F 3.08
MeteringMode - Center weighted average
Flash - Not fired, compulsory flash mode
FocalLength - 32.22 mm
ColorSpace - sRGB
ExifImageWidth - 2048
ExifImageHeight - 1536
SensingMethod - One-chip color area sensor
FileSource - DSC - Digital still camera
CustomRendered - Normal process
ExposureMode - Auto
WhiteBalance - Auto
DigitalZoomRatio - 1.00 x
SceneCaptureType - Standard
Quality - Superfine
Focus mode - Single
Image size - Large
Easy shooting mode - Manual
Digital zoom - None
Contrast - Normal
Saturation - Normal
Sharpness - Normal
ISO Value - 100
Metering mode - Center weighted
Focus type - Auto
Exposure mode - Program
Focal length - 5800 - 58000 mm (1000 mm)
Subject Distance - 4118
Image Type - IMG:PowerShot S1 IS JPEG

Message edited by author 2006-05-20 17:44:06.
05/20/2006 06:02:36 PM · #570
Original:... stdavidson version: ... Bear_Music version:

This reminds me that in future DPChallenge landscape entries I need to go overboard with post processing again. I used to think I pushed the limits to the point that I risked making the image unrealistic. DPC voters are not as devoted to absolute realism as they used to be. These days DPCers are very accepting of total surrealism in landscape imagery and reward them with high scores as long as it is well done and unambiguously meets the challenge.

I "earned" a 4.4 with this one. LOL!!!
05/20/2006 06:22:46 PM · #571
Originally posted by GeneralE:

Originally posted by Bear_Music:

That's an incredibly noisy image, General... What gives? Almost the slightest hue/sat bump starts blocking it up big time... Anyway:



R.

I don't know -- that sensor seems to just be pretty noisy in areas of flat color...

Noise in flat color and dark underexposed areas is to be expected. My camera is very noisy but I changed the way I determine exposure and that has helped a lot.

I used to spot meter everything like I did with my old film SLR. Now I almost exclusively use my histogram display when adjusting the exposure and only check the exposure meter numbers if there is something special in highlights or shadows that I specifically need to capture. This has reduced my noise problem. As long as I get the histogram display centered with the highlight and shadow spikes muted I get a better balanced exposure with less noise.

There is a lot of talk in the literature on the pros and cons to offsetting the histogram either toward the highlights side or the shadow side. Balance it toward the shadow end if there is stuff in the highlights you don't want to lose. Balance it toward the highlights end if there is more in the shadows you want brought out. Sometimes I might take one balanced both ways and later chose the one I like best.
05/20/2006 06:28:07 PM · #572
With the settings that was shot at, there shouldn't have been much noise, though maybe it is an under-exposure; 1/600 second might have been better ...
ISO 100
f 6.3
1/1250 sec exposure

Message edited by author 2006-05-20 21:59:24.
05/20/2006 09:59:43 PM · #573
OK, here's my edited version (steps listed below):

Original: Edited:

I made a noise-reduced copy of the image, and imported it into my PS file (above/in place of the noisy Background layer).

I made two gradient masks in opposite directions, overlapping right around the treeline.

Used each mask to apply RGB and Blue channel Curves separately to the sea and sky areas.

Created a mask for the mountain area using a tablet and painting on a new alpha channel; used that mask to apply an additional RGB Curve to the mountain.

Saved to a flattened TIFF, resized to 640px wide, cropped to 1.5:1 aspect ratio.

USM at 12%/48 dia/TH=0 applied two times

SaveAs JPEG at quality 9/10 = 179kb
05/20/2006 10:40:18 PM · #574
Originally posted by GeneralE:

OK, here's my edited version (steps listed below):

Original: Edited:

I made a noise-reduced copy of the image, and imported it into my PS file (above/in place of the noisy Background layer).

I made two gradient masks in opposite directions, overlapping right around the treeline.

Used each mask to apply RGB and Blue channel Curves separately to the sea and sky areas.

Created a mask for the mountain area using a tablet and painting on a new alpha channel; used that mask to apply an additional RGB Curve to the mountain.

Is the blue channel curves adjustment what brought out all the nice image detail in your update?
05/20/2006 10:56:39 PM · #575
Originally posted by stdavidson:

Is the blue channel curves adjustment what brought out all the nice image detail in your update?

I think it's more the RGB Curves that bring out the detail; I added the Blue just as a way of adjusting the color ... I just have a tendency to use Curves of one kind or another for everything.

I'll try to take and post a series of incremental screenshots so you can see the effect of each adjustment in turn. Not sure if I'll get to that tonight though ...
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