Evaluate My Photo

[The Vulcan]

Your recent submissions and the excellent effects you applied intrigued me.

I have targeted two areas on the attached image which are challenging my ability to correct. As can be seen they are "fuzzy" and out of synch.

I achieved the image via Lightroom. De-saturating the colour, boosting the contrast, adjusting the red and blue channels and further adjusting the tonal curves.

Image shot in B+W with red filter applied - RAW - Canon 5D

What did I do wrong?

[canuckamuck]

Did you do anything specific to those two areas, like mask them or select them in some way? Or were you making adjustments to the whole picture at the same time. If the latter is the case, you have simply come across an area where the hue or tonality reacted differently to your adjustments than the rest of the picture. It seems to me those areas were layers of cloud at a slightly different elevation than the rest of the clouds. If this is so, they are reflecting the light in a subtly different way. Sometimes this is enough to make them stand out. What you are doing is trial and error; just keep tweaking until you get what you like.

[The Vulcan]

Thanks for the response.

Looking at the original the areas I refer to are a very pale blue. I didn't mask; adjusted the total image.

Here it is in its lopsided untouched original

[canuckamuck]

Of course I don't know what you like, so I played around with the image a bit to the way I liked it. I took the original and desaturated it, then I worked only in the blue channel as I played with the levels. This retains some of the original densities in the other two channels so alterations look less contrived. when I got close to what I liked I returned to rgb, desaturated the blue again,and then tweaked a little more in levels. For a final touch I did a bit of shadow burning and highlight dodging.

It is all hit and miss and you might hate my version, so the only real way to do it is to keep adjusting on your own and saving the versions you like so you don't have to start over over.

[astral]

The areas you marked do not detract in my eye.

I find it a very striking photograph.

The whole shot is a good reminder that photos do not have to be in colour.

[The Vulcan]

Thanks Astral for the compliment but to be honest the shot looks horrible when printed!

Canuckamuck; I'll take your advice and keep on playing with the shot - good learning curve for sure but at my age I ain't so sure I got a lot of learning in me!

Happy New Year

[Kan Win]

good learning curve for sure but at my age I ain't so sure I got a lot of learning in me!

Happy New Year

Well I am not a "spring rooster", but the "learning curve" is why I am on here to learn more and more. Will never be perfect, but always trying to do better than yester-years.

Happy Shooting

Yours truly,

Kan Win

[Minburi]

I perfer the color original one myself as I found the b/w to dark but both are good versions of the photo. Maybe consider under exposing the darker areas so the contrast is not so great?

[NordicMan]

Your recent submissions and the excellent effects you applied intrigued me.

I have targeted two areas on the attached image which are challenging my ability to correct. As can be seen they are "fuzzy" and out of synch.

I achieved the image via Lightroom. De-saturating the colour, boosting the contrast, adjusting the red and blue channels and further adjusting the tonal curves.

Image shot in B+W with red filter applied - RAW - Canon 5D

What did I do wrong?

Hi Vulcan, I think most of what can be said has already been said in this thread. The "right" treatment depends on your personal preferences. One aspect is the amount of contrast and details in the clouds, when darkening the clouds they normally lose the darker details as well. Canuckamuck's version seems to keep more details than my attempts.

The two areas you point out have quite high contrast but I do not fully understand what you mean is the problem. I have tried two versions,b&w and colour.

Your photo is only 900x600pixel, it would normally be preferrable to have a larger file size, especially for printing - I assume you work on the raw file, just use this smaller file while discussing/posting on the internet? Could you please try to post the raw file, it seems max file size is 25MB. The raw file, with higher bit depth, will be much preferrable to work on for this kind of high-contrast scenes.

How can you have shot the image in B/W, when the file you posted is colour ?

(I use Nikon myself, but I believe my Adobe Camera Raw will read canon as well)

cheers

nm

Edited January 1, 2008 by NordicMan

[The Vulcan]

Hi NordicMan

Thank you for coming back to me.

Difficult to be more precise as to what I am struggling with. To me, the areas I've targeted are (seemingly) a lot more pixelated (?) than they should be. Hope that makes sense, as I said, difficult to be more precise.

The original image is indeed a 25Mb RAW at 4368 x 2912. The smaller file is as you suggest merely for posting purposes.

The Canon 5D has a B+W mode which loads as colour in Lightroom. I shoot everything in this mode as I prefer to review in monochrome. Also, I can dial in filtration to address the situation. i.e. Red, Orange, Yellow or Green

I'll try to send the original file at some point, but currently I'm travelling and using my mobile for internet connection! 25Mb just ain't on!

Thanks to both yourself and Canuckamuck for your input