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| Group |
Round |
C/R |
Comment |
Date |
Image |
| 19 |
Jan 18 |
Reply |
People in travel pictures can be good or bad, but a lot of pictures seem sterile without any people. I have been tempted to crop the two on the left but don't want to lose the patterns in the grass. I probably should crop the guy just walking in on the right. I have a general order of what to avoid in people. The worst is a tourist in white faced toward the camera in the foreground. Turn him around, dress him in dark clothes, and move him back. Better yet make him look local. Yes that guy isn't positioned great, but his clothing is dark and he isn't very prominent. If I had been on a tripod set up and watching people walk I might of gotten him out of there, but this is pretty typical of what ends up in many of my travel shots. If I wasn't interested in exhibiting this in PTD, there would be cleanup that I could do, and sometimes I have a PTD and a PID version. |
Jan 9th |
| 19 |
Jan 18 |
Comment |
I think you did a great job of adding to the grit. It looks very nice. Interesting that they had a valve to not show the pressure except when they wanted to read it, hence the "No Pressure Then" title. To me the label of the gauge, lb/in2 rather than psi documents that it is old and in a country that once used this antiquated measuring system now shared by only the USA and two small countries of the world.
Another image where we might want to drop a white stroke to show the edge of the image. At one time I did this a lot, but now seldom do it. I like it the way it is. |
Jan 9th |
| 19 |
Jan 18 |
Comment |
The color looks great to me. This is a well executed shot with a smart phone. The colors in the aquarium look great. The shot is largely of the people and the room and it is well executed. I think I would crop the right a bit. A couple of bright blue areas don't really add and can be distracting. I really like the patterns of light on the ceiling.
It is interesting that you have black or near black going to the edges of the image almost everywhere and many of us would put a white stroke around an image ike this, but in this case shown against a black background I think this just becomes a distraction. In any case, I like it just like it is other than a slight crop on the right, or perhaps just darkening a couple of areas on that side. |
Jan 9th |
| 19 |
Jan 18 |
Comment |
You picked the right place to stay in Cinque Terre. We stayed in the opposite end in Riomaggiore and had a difficult hike up the hill from the train station with luggage. A lady of about 35 to 40 offered to help me with my bag. Shirley said I must of looked old to her, but I said No, she was hitting on me. I was not credible to anyone.
What a great view from your balcony. These shots are very difficult to satisfy our normal processing objectives. You have retained the mood of the shot which is a reasonable thing, but I don't think it will receive an acceptance. You might want to do some selective brightening but it might no longer look natural. I wish the tower did not intersect the horizon, but from your balcony, you probably had no control of that. I doubt you could get the camera high enough or low enough to prevent it. You did a great job of documenting a very pleasing view from your room. |
Jan 9th |
| 19 |
Jan 18 |
Comment |
I like your creativity in creating the scene even if some of your objectives could not be met. While the image has just about everything blue, I think there might also be a blue cast. I would adjust the white balance based on the look of the biscotti which somehow to me doesn't seem quite right. The background seems perfectly in focus and with f/16 at 85mm I would think you would of had good depth of field. I think the lighting is good, but some of the reflections are a bit bright, like the corner of the dish. I am not into this type of photography, but I wonder if a polarizer would help hold the reflections down a bit. |
Jan 9th |
| 19 |
Jan 18 |
Comment |
Beautiful image, I really like it. You prepared for movement on shutter priority 1/3200 second not knowing what you will be shooting, but ended up with a very nice f/6.3. Curious, were you on Auto ISO? You ended up tack sharp with a soft background which I like.
I suspect the bud at the lower left will be controversial with the group and with judges, but I sort of like showing the environment, I do believe it might reduce exhibition success however. I think you should do some selective noise reduction on the background, but the subject seems to be unaffected by the high ISO. Nice job.
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Jan 9th |
5 comments - 1 reply for Group 19
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| 64 |
Jan 18 |
Comment |
I decided you are all correct, this image needs the perspective corrected. I also found that with the 12mm wide angle lens and the sides of the building close to the edge, they were curved and I needed to do a distortion correction. This results in an improved image. I almost entered it into the Grand Canyon Exhibition and then realized I had removed a truck and crane and it is not eligible for Photo Travel. Normally when I do things like this I add something like "Not PTD" to the file name so I don't scare up. Jerry, Shirley and I plan to come to your show. |
Jan 24th |
| 64 |
Jan 18 |
Reply |
Thanks John, I did not know the answer. It sounds like anyone interested in Silver Efex that does not have it should get it now if they want it free. |
Jan 10th |
| 64 |
Jan 18 |
Reply |
Sorry, PTD is Photo Travel Division, and it has a lot of restrictions. I took out a truck and crane, so it can't be exhibited in PTD.
I struggle with how much to correct perspective. I might of done some on this, but I don't recall. Sometimes getting it "right on" eliminates more of the image than I would like and I just try to get the slope about the same on both sides. You have shown that there is enough here to get it right. Good argument to not fill the frame with architecture shots. Lightroom can do a very good job in most cases of this. I sometimes feel that perspective is something real. We seem to ignore it when we look with our eyes, but focus on it in a picture. I think you are right, I should get this as close as I can. |
Jan 9th |
| 64 |
Jan 18 |
Reply |
I think your reply covered the territory very well. Yes, judging can miss a lot of great images. I recall in Jon Fishback's critique class he puts in a fine art image of a lot of faces looking to the left. They are all interesting, but there is no one face or anything that is a center of interest. I am sure he puts this in to invite the comment from students about lack of a center of interest and then he tells them that it is fine art to make them think, but I bet that image would not do well in may exhibitions. There are various objectives for our work and not all images do well with every objective. |
Jan 9th |
| 64 |
Jan 18 |
Comment |
I think you did an excellent job of the conversion and you are not using any of the special software for this such as NIK Silver Efex which is still free and I recommend it. I like that you left the small leaves at the bottom and made the petals light and the leaves darker. I think the image would be improved if you could keep the leaves coming toward you in focus. Going to f/16 might of done that and there is nothing really wrong with f/22. Shutter speeds will get very slow, but I assume you are on a tripod and not in wind. Perhaps there are things in the background that would then become distracting, but I would like to get those leaves in focus. |
Jan 9th |
| 64 |
Jan 18 |
Comment |
Whatever you did was pretty extreme, but it worked very well. The extreme processing created noise that is pleasing in this case. The towers and their shadows make the image. I also like the bright junk or rocks on the hillside. I think the right hand tower and shadow is close enough to pure black. sometimes I wander around in Photoshop with "info" showing and if an area comes up lower than about 25, 25, 25 or so,I consider that good enough. Small areas or unimportant large areas like skies can go further than that without any problem. A great example of what extreme processing can do to a relatively ordinary looking image. |
Jan 9th |
| 64 |
Jan 18 |
Comment |
I agree, I would take the background to basically pure white. I would also experiment with various crops from the left. I often see things in my images that I think are important and leave them in, but after the comments of others or just another look, I find the image gets better leaving something out. In this case, the long trail of birds is impressive, but the image might get better cropping down a bit.
I think it is unfortunate that the birds are flying out of the right of the image. If this is not to be a nature exhibition image, I would add some background to that side of the image. |
Jan 9th |
| 64 |
Jan 18 |
Comment |
I think you picked a great crop out of the original. I studied it to figure out what you cropped out and this seems to provide the story with a very pleasing composition.
On this image, I really like the white stroke. I seem to be struggling with when to do this and when not. This one I like.
I can't but wonder how mother nature created this art piece. |
Jan 9th |
| 64 |
Jan 18 |
Comment |
I great composition to tell the story with the rows of cells at least three or four high. I enjoyed that the image tilts a bit. I don't think this needs to be or maybe should be level. I like that we get a glimpse in one of the cells.
At Grand Photos, our club, we are blessed with a digital darkroom in our clubroom. I had fun yesterday, one of our club members was working on a Silver Efex conversion using the presets. She is a great photographer, but is learning processing. I sat down with her asking if she would like to see what I would do with the image. She said yes, I took her through a process to put a few of the presets she liked with the image into "favorites" and then compare the favorites to pick which one she liked best. Then we went to making global adjustments, and then we started putting groups of control points all over to do local adjustments. She got excited and said I really like it and clicked OK to go back to Photoshop. I asked why she did that and she said, didn't you like it, and I said of course I did, but we were not through yet. We went back and checked the zones and adjusted the black and white points and did a few more things. Presets are great, but it is fun to go a lot further. |
Jan 9th |
| 64 |
Jan 18 |
Comment |
While I consider myself something of a monochrome guy, I continue to not be able to predict in a lot of cases when I will like the conversion. In this case, I like the "Original 2" image the best. I appreciate the comments of both Jerry and Don, and perhaps together they point to what I might like to do with this. It is easy to play with tones in an image like this. Perhaps drawing attention to what was the bright area in "Original 2" by lightening it and darkening the right might focus us a bit. I appreciate Don's comment. We seem to insist that there be a strong "center of interest", but some images are designed to wander around in and enjoy all the details. This works best in prints where we have the opportunity to do this as we wish, but I am not sure these images do as they should in exhibitions where judges are moving fast. |
Jan 9th |
7 comments - 3 replies for Group 64
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12 comments - 4 replies Total
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