DSS #27 Singular or Plural Unofficial Feedback Thread

hawkeye978 · June 15, 2009

Here is the official gallery to give your C&C for DSS#27

Gallery Found Here...

Once more into the fray. This unofficial feedback thread is a catch-all of sorts, lets make it happen:thumb

Anyway, Lets get #27 Feedback started!!

This thread is:

a place to post a list of your top ten favorites. (be heard, and let everyone know what images moved you.)
a place to post your "the making of my image"
a place to ask someone "how did they do that?"(for us all to see:D )

Feedback is an important part of the photographic process. While those selected as finalists get feedback from the judges and those who vote, others are never quite sure where they stand. So share your thoughts both in this thread and with comments in the actual gallery. Constructive criticism should always be welcome.

It's easy to post thumbnails (with help from our Moderator).

With the image selected in the gallery, copy its URL from your browser, add "-Th.jpg" to the end, delete the jumble of numbers and letters preceding the hashtag (#), change "gallery" to "photos" and that's it.

Example

Change this url

http://challenges.smugmug.com/gallery/7821877_VUfQz#508585564_r5YQB

To this

http://challenges.smugmug.com/photos/508585564_r5YQB-Th.jpg

Happy Feedbacking :scratch

bf2015 · June 15, 2009

WOW! Nothing like good old B&W to bring out the masses! 79 entries this round; and all amazing! Way to go Kerry!

Here's my fav10 in gallery order:

Great job everyone!

Brian

Kinkajou · June 15, 2009

Yeah, these have been just great! I think I went a little comment-crazy in the gallery this round... There were just so many striking images I couldn't help myself

My two "how'd they do that?" shots would be Jag's Pair of Pants and Jeff's Singular Catch...

Jag - what's the trick?

Jeff - that is tone - almost metallic-looking. any tips on how to accomplish that?

Congrats everyone, great round

jeffmeyers · June 15, 2009

Kinkajou wrote:

Yeah, these have been just great! I think I went a little comment-crazy in the gallery this round... There were just so many striking images I couldn't help myself

My two "how'd they do that?" shots would be Jag's Pair of Pants and Jeff's Singular Catch...

Jag - what's the trick?

Jeff - that is tone - almost metallic-looking. any tips on how to accomplish that?

Congrats everyone, great round

Thank you! But I'm afraid I don't have a good answer for how I did the tone on that shot. Truthfully, I just played around with the B&W conversion and then the mid-tone contrast until I got what I wanted. The original shot had some GREAT light, so I had a lot to work with.

anonymouscuban · June 15, 2009

My top 5 in no particular order....

divamum · June 15, 2009

Wonderful round! I love bw to begin with (why does it always look more real, somehow? Hmm... not unlike the difference between radio vs television - the pictures are better on the radio

)

A gallery of really excellent shots, but here are a few of my favorites.

And now I have to go and hide for two weeks!! I'll resurrect the Catchall thread, I think....

travelways · June 15, 2009

Wonderful entries!!!

I actually deleted my top 10 because I cannot limit my favorites to only 10, so it was much easier to insert
my comments directly under the photos in to the contest.

Thank you so much though to those who included my entry into their top favorites

If you ever wondered what art gallery I captured on my entry, with the risk of making you jealous, I will tell:

I was so, so lucky to have the opportunity of visiting Dali's museum in Figueres!!! :ivar

I had of course the camera with me and besides other shots I took, some inspired me for the
"Singular or Plural" theme

Here is a link to some of the shots I took there:
http://allbiz.smugmug.com/gallery/8506738_vjWyk/1/559952425_vbDbr#559952425_vbDbr

I hope you will enjoy seeing them

JAG · June 15, 2009

Kinkajou wrote:

My two "how'd they do that?" shots would be Jag's Pair of Pants and Jeff's Singular Catch...

Jag - what's the trick?

Jeff - that is tone - almost metallic-looking. any tips on how to accomplish that?

Congrats everyone, great round

You can find my the answer to your question for me on my blog as I write out alot of "how'd you do thats".

http://photosbyjoycemartin.blogspot.com/

Great work everyone! Ty for those who included my pants in their favs.

michswiss · June 15, 2009

JAG wrote:

You can find my the answer to your question for me on my blog as I write out alot of "how'd you do thats".

http://photosbyjoycemartin.blogspot.com/

Great work everyone! Ty for those who included my pants in their favs.

Frustratingly, blogspot is completely blocked in China and I haven't set up any proxies to bypass the "Great Firewall". Did you set it up for a looonngggg exposure, hit the shutter release and then hop out while simultaneously blowing several strobes?

Curious minds and all

VisualXpressions · June 15, 2009

Unbelievable round! There are way too many outstanding images to choose my favorites… it would be easier to post, “my not to favorite but outstanding none the less photos!” I feel for the judges...

bf2015 · June 15, 2009

This is FWD'd from the DSS#27 Official Entry Thread:

Llywellyn wrote:

Well, every so often things cross the line and other times they stand right on it, precariously, or even tow it a little. We've long had the guideline here in the challenges that no nudity is allowed and anything implied would be handled case by case by your beloved mods (ahem). The guideline that's been posted in several threads and answered repeatedly in PMs is "If it belongs in the Go Figure forum, it does not belong in the challenges."

After much discussion, MikeyRocks's entry will be disqualified. Please note that personally we do not have an issue with the image; in fact, it's part of why we created the Go Figure forum here on DGrin. If this image had been posted in the People forum, we would have moved it into Go Figure.

Because this question has come up several times, we've upgraded the guideline to a rule and updated the rules accordingly. We'll still make the call case by case when needed, but hopefully this update will help in the future.

Firstly, Kerry, in regards to MikeyRocks's dq'd shot, I have no problem with you or you having to make the tough decision to dq it because you are just doing what any mod would have to do. You are right; it is a fine line, and I have no issues with you or the rules. So I want to make it clear that I am not "bashing" you for having to dq it.

All I will say is that art is art and MikeyRocks's entry was tastefully done and shows no more nudity than a bathing suit shot or even the multitude of maternity shots throughout these challenges. Yes it pushes the boundries. Network TV (the tamest of all media) would have no problem showing that image (remember Deme Moore's maternity photo?) I would assume that an image that pushes the bounds of nudity would be considered offensive, yet in the smiles page of these post replies, there are smiles of raising the B.S. flag, a smile of someone shooting someone with an assault rifle, multiple smiles of giving the finger, and even one nude smile of a rear-end. <img src="https://us.v-cdn.net/6029383/emoji/headscratch.gif" border="0" alt="" >

It was a beautiful capture and conversion, and I'm sorry to see that it was DQ'd. It remains in my fav 10 in the unofficial feedback thread, and since it is dq'd, I now only have a fav 9. :nah

Brian

whiterice · June 15, 2009

I could have chosen about 25 of my favorites - but that's too much URL cut-copy-pasting! Based on the theme though - here are my favorite 8, no particular order:

Fantastic work everyone!

thumb

bf2015 · June 15, 2009

I came across this amazing technique that I used for my image, so I thought I would share a "How I Did It" with everyone.

The technique I came across is called Median Rendering. It is somewhat like HDR, but different. This is my entry:

Fairytale Rush-Hour: 10 Lanes All to Myself

This was actually taken during rush-hour after a Mariners game. I had never used Median Rendering before, so what better way to see if it works than rush-hour. I think this Smart Object Stacks feature is only available with CS4 Extended. What it does is it takes a series of shots and looks at every pixel to find what is common. I took 102 shots over about an hour period. Every shot pretty much looked like this:

First I syn'd all of the raw shots in Camera Raw and did the raw adjustments. I increased the Sat and Vibrance somewhat since it would be converted to b&w. And I used a raw sharpening technique. Then I batch image processed all of the raw shots to sharpen some more in PS and convert them all into jpg.

Once that was finished, in PS I selected Files/Scripts/Load Files Into Stacks. I selected all 102, and checked Convert to Smart Object. So it loaded all of the shots in one and converted it to a smart object (took about 20 minutes even with a Dual Quad system). After that, I selected Layers/Smart Objects/Image Stack Mode/Median. It took a little while, but now you see the cars...now you don't. I was shocked...it works.

Since it's a little like HDR, the sky was smoothed out as well as the shadows and trees. It looked like this:

So I copied one of the images I liked and put it in a layer and sent it to the back. On the front layer (without cars), I added a mask, and then just used the brush tool with Black selected and anything I painted brought the bottom layer forward. So nice sharpened sky, shadows, and trees...and the one car. I cloned out the tree on the left, and then saved it as a TIFF and went back into Camera Raw and added a gradient to darken the sky alittle. This is what it looked like before the b&w conversion:

I just used the B&W Adjustment for the conversion because of the "arrow hand" feature. Once you click it, you can point to any part/pixel/etc of the image, move the mouse from left to right, and it will adjust just that part of the image. So I don't need to worry about moving the individual sliders for the different colors. It makes it super easy and fast! So this is the final entry after the conversion:

I tried this at Pike Place Market, but didn't have enough shots to completely be able to remove all the people.

Brian

travelways · June 15, 2009

bf2015 wrote:

I came across this amazing technique that I used for my image, so I thought I would share a "How I Did It" with everyone.
.................
Brian

Wow... fantastic technique!!!

Thank you for sharing

cgmcdonald · June 15, 2009

Great Technique

bf2015 wrote:

I came across this amazing technique that I used for my image, so I thought I would share a "How I Did It" with everyone.

The technique I came across is called Median Rendering. It is somewhat

Brian

Cool technique I can't wait to try it!!!:ivar

Katmitchell · June 15, 2009

Well,,, that round was intense.. I love black and white, but made a mistake thinking it would be easier.. all it did was make me appreciate color..that's for sure.. I think in the back of my head the whole time, I was still shooting with color in mind, instead of black and white in mind.. I learned a lot this round...

You guys put out some amazing stuff...very proud to know you all, and to be able to converse with such a passionate and talented group of guys and gals... you all are teaching me so much each and every round..

As always, I will put my comments in the gallery... I don't like picking a top 10, I like to comment in the gallery and try to appreciate where each artists was coming from.... but that's just me...:D

There were so many great photos and eye candy too... but If I had to list which ones impressed me the most with technical black and white conversion
""skill"" in mind..
There were "4" that stood out to me as extremely impressive on a technical level...and They are:

sherstone - solitary confinement
bf2015 - Fairytale Rush-Hour: 10 Lanes All to Myself
jeffmeyers - A Singular Catch
weela - Circles

Nice work everyone..

Kat

JAG · June 15, 2009

michswiss wrote:

Frustratingly, blogspot is completely blocked in China and I haven't set up any proxies to bypass the "Great Firewall". Did you set it up for a looonngggg exposure, hit the shutter release and then hop out while simultaneously blowing several strobes?

Curious minds and all

From my blog...
Monday, June 8, 2009

PARADOX: A Pair Of Pants

There is tons of room for the imagination with this one. How to make the pants filled out is the easy part! In this set up my model was wearing a black turtleneck shirt and black socks with the blue denim stonewashed jeans. By using a black background and an old chair, an illusion of a pair of pants with not body is simple.

The lighting was simple. Two hotlights with umbrellas, one to the left of the subject and one to the right. A SB800 to the imediate left of the camera with a white umbrella for diffusion. First a picture of the chair alone was obtained for layering purposes. Then the model sits with his arms up over his head. It is important that you keep the focal length and chair in the exact same position for both shots.

The Nikon D300 was set on monochrome b/w and the iso 200. The SS was 1/125, F/10.0, FL 22mm. In pp the contrast up was bumped a tad and a clarifying filter was added. Also a black vinette was added to the model image. The contrast and clarifying filter were run on both images. Next the pant layer was copied and pasted on top of the chair layer. Using the eraser tool, in psp or a masking layer in ps, remove the unwanted body parts to reveal the chair in those parts. Be sure to erase completely to the edges that are not going to be removed. Merge the layers when done. Because its sometimes hard to see the differents between black pixel shades on some monitors...you might need to make a copy of the image and paste it as a new image...then on that new image LOWER the contrast to the point of seeing shaded whites. If there is a difference in your background pixels they will show up as a 'halo' around our image.

Using the paint brush with black....paint over these areas on your ORIGINAL image using the copy for reference only. You can do the copy and paste as new image again when you think you have it all to be sure. The reason it is done this way is because some editing programs will not copy your exif info when you copy and paste as new layer. It is important to keep that info with the image. You can delete the copied image when you don't need it anymore. Save the original under a new file name and you will still have the original originals of the jeans and of the chair while keeping your exif info.

Next, if you would like to accentuate your highlights on the folds of the jeans...then use the dodge brush on the highlights and burn brush on the shadows of the folds in the fabric. Do this to your tastes.

This standing image was done the exact way except instead of a chair...the second image was the back of the pants. Pretty much done the same way...only the back of the pants layer was on top and resized to fit after erasing the background.

Posted by Photography by Joyce Marie Martin at <A class=timestamp-link title="permanent link" href="http://photosbyjoycemartin.blogspot.com/2009/06/paradox-pair-of-pants.html" rel=bookmark><ABBR class=published title=2009-06-08T09:38:00-07:00>9:38 AM</ABBR>

CWSkopec · June 15, 2009

bf2015 wrote:

I came across this amazing technique that I used for my image, so I thought I would share a "How I Did It" with everyone.

The technique I came across is called Median Rendering. It is somewhat like HDR, but different. This is my entry:

Fairytale Rush-Hour: 10 Lanes All to Myself

This was actually taken during rush-hour after a Mariners game. I had never used Median Rendering before, so what better way to see if it works than rush-hour. I think this Smart Object Stacks feature is only available with CS4 Extended. What it does is it takes a series of shots and looks at every pixel to find what is common. I took 102 shots over about an hour period. Every shot pretty much looked like this:

Brian

Very cool entry, Brian!

Thanks for sharing the "How-to!" I've used a couple of the other scripts rendering techniques, mainly the addative ones before but hadn't really worked with the Median function yet. (It's also available in CS3 Extended) It's nice to know that with enough shots we'd be able to make tourists "disappear" from images with this technique!

Both of these shots, Press Room Motion and Energy Drink, were assembled with the additive scripts function. Just set it to Maximum instead of Median.

travelways · June 15, 2009

JAG wrote:

From my blog...
Monday, June 8, 2009

..............

Thank you for sharing - Outstanding!!! :wow

Llywellyn · June 15, 2009

bf2015 wrote:

I came across this amazing technique that I used for my image, so I thought I would share a "How I Did It" with everyone.

I have to say you win for the most EXIFs I've ever had to check for a single image.

HoofClix · June 15, 2009

Katmitchell wrote:

.. all it did was make me appreciate color..that's for sure..

Once was a time that I was made to appreciate b&w when I was trying to figure out color. Then I was trying to figure out slide. Then came these little pixel thingies. Now I'm just constantly trying to figure everything out...

Really everyone, this was a really great round. It was like one of those rare albums where none of the cuts is a throwaway. All of the images were quality efforts. It gave you all a chance to work with lines and shapes and tones in a much different way than you may have been used to. The poll will be out soon enough, but in the meatime, Fantastik job everyone!!!

MarkR · June 15, 2009

There were some absolutely astounding images this round! A quick thank you to those who enjoyed my photographic "eggsperiment," and those who've commented in the gallery.
I've left some feedback in the gallery as well.

And to answer the question no one's dared ask, yes, I shot Raw.

Good luck to all!

silversx80 · June 15, 2009

Narrowing it down to ten is just too hard. They are all great images.

There are a few, however, that just keep resonating in my mind's eye. In gallery order:

I cant help but to think of Chevy Chase in "Memoirs of an Invisible Man" when I see this shot. It's such a cool idea.

I can't really say much other than just, this photo clicks with me.

I laughed, I cried, I threw up because I hate anchovies... but I love this shot.

I love the panoramic of this shot. I makes me feel like I am really there... in B&W

There is something about the simplicity of this shot that keeps my eyes focused.

I don't want to look, but I can't help it.

Another unique idea for the challenge... and makes me reminisce about one of my favorite shows.

Kinkajou · June 15, 2009

silversx80 wrote:

I laughed, I cried, I threw up because I hate anchovies... but I love this shot.

ahahahahahaaaa!!!!

bf2015 - that is some serious work! i'm glad you learned something from it and were able to share it with us. i am now much more impressed by your image

cbsnet · June 16, 2009

and then there were two...
Thanks for all the wonderful comments made about my photo!:D

Several folk commented on the use of a wide angle lens which caused the distortion of the mare's head. This stall is about 12x14 which is larger than an average stall. Here's a photo from a few feet away.

If I used a wider lens say a 50mm and stood where I needed to stand to get the shot, this would be the result.

This lens wouldn't work. I wanted to capture the whole body language between the foal and mom and in the confined space only a wide angle lens would work.

-cbsnet

sherstone · June 17, 2009

Thank you so much
I am absolutely tickled that so many of you put "solitary confinement" into your top picks - Some of the comments were hilarious and put a great big smile on my face.

Thank you so much.

Here are my top picks (yes more than 10

)

A very hard round to narrow down to be sure!

I started out this round with the idea of a solitary fish but was unable to find a brand of sardines that came with the heads still on the fish. Unwilling to actually kill a fish just for a photo I eventually found my model floating around a tank of live fish at a pet store and offered them the same $ to buy the dead one as a live one. After many strange looks and having to explain why I wanted a dead fish I came home with a "comet goldfish" that sort of remotely looks like a sardine but just not long like one.

Since this was a black and white round it was easy disguise the orange of the fish through the conversion but I still had the problem of the fish being too short and looking more like a goldfish than a sardine. I ended up stretching the last 2/3's of his body in PS and crossed my fingers that it was convincing enough to pass as a real sardine.

Thanks again
Sean

nightpixels · June 18, 2009

I thought I’d share some of the techniques I used for my entry “One Basket of Flowers for Every Fallen Hero”
If you have a PC, just replace “command” with “control” and “option” with “alt”. I am using Photoshop CS4 on a mac.

1) After I extracted the umbrellas and the baskets (using the quick selection tool and the lasso tool) from their respective images, I made sure to match their colors to the overall tone of the destination image (cemetery) so that they blend in nicely once inserted. I used the “match color” feature in Photoshop CS4 to accomplish that.

2) I moved the flower image over to the basket image and using a clone tool started filling in the basket with some flowers.

3) I spent some time on creating and placing shadows to add some realism to the image. The way I did that, say for the umbrellas, I duplicated the umbrella layer, filled it in with black (option-delete if black is your foreground, otherwise, command-delete), applied some Gaussian blur to it, then reduced the opacity level. The farther the object, the higher the blur, and lower the opacity. Once I had the shadows layers created, I started using some common sense placing them on the image.

4) I used the “fibers” in PS CS4 to create the god rays. Before doing that, I used the polygon lasso tool to draw a cone-like shape, filled it in with black, applied the fibers filter to it, then applied radial blur to it to make them come out shining the way they do. The blending mode was set to overlay. I softened the edges, and kept flipping the god rays layer horizontally back and forth while applying the fiber filter until I was happy with the way both sides of the god rays filled in and looked.

5) The way I darkened the sky and the trees was I kept duplicating my main background layer, and set the blending mode to multiply, this way I got a great contrast for the black and white conversion as well. If I overdid something, I fixed it with curves.

6) Like I always do, I sharpened my image using unsharp mask on the lightness channel after I converted the image to LAB mode.

7) I am sure I did some other little stuff here and there that I can’t quite recall at the moment, but I am pretty sure I covered the major parts of the work.

Katmitchell · June 18, 2009

Thanks for the share Allen.. I am especially interested in the God Rays...
I am still a little confused on that.. but then I don't see the fibers.. I am on PC with CS3.... The only method of God rays that I know of is using the white line tool on a separate layer and then using motion or radial blur.. It works but it takes a lot of trial and error and I can never seem to get them right.....

scratch

. Yours came out so strong.....

Kat

Katmitchell · June 18, 2009

HoofClix wrote:

Once was a time that I was made to appreciate b&w when I was trying to figure out color. Then I was trying to figure out slide. Then came these little pixel thingies. Now I'm just constantly trying to figure everything out...

I know..isn't technology a pain.. you learn something and then you have to turn around and relearn it.. I guess I am lucky here having avoided the film age altogether.. I have only trained on digital.. I was raised on computers way back in the commodore 64 days.. man I feel old......huh

nightpixels · June 18, 2009

try filter->render->fibers

Katmitchell wrote:

Thanks for the share Allen.. I am especially interested in the God Rays...
I am still a little confused on that.. but then I don't see the fibers.. I am on PC with CS3.... The only method of God rays that I know of is using the white line tool on a separate layer and then using motion or radial blur.. It works but it takes a lot of trial and error and I can never seem to get them right.....scratch. Yours came out so strong.....

Kat

Katmitchell · June 18, 2009

Super.. Found it.. Thanks Allen.. I was looking under patterns.. no wonder..

I would really like to master this effect..

Thank you for the share and the help..

Kat

DSS #27 Singular or Plural Unofficial Feedback Thread

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