first b/w conversion

Dripfaucet

I had been doing some reading on both stitching and black and white conversions but had not had the chance to try either. I took a hike while visiting colorado springs and made this attempt:


the photo stitching was not as easy i had read. i would have definitely benefited from a tripod, but such was not the case. the exposure on my images were different for sky and mountain and it caused problems merging them together. i tried to mask and blend the problem areas, but i can still see the areas i worked on.

i also feel like the bush in the forefront is more distracting than helpful, but i am more interested in the merge and conversion critique. thanks.

Brad

p.s. the "original" image is quite large. a fuller size is available at wormer.smugmug.com if you would like to dig in further for your comments.

hawkeye978

I would suggest trying to lighten the area in the center of the landscape with the pines. They are pretty dark and I suspect there is a lot of detail in there. If you do that I would darken the foreground brush to bring emphasis to the center of the picture and give some more depth.

Dripfaucet

thanks! i'll give that a try.

thapamd

Nice scene! I really like the sky with the beautiful clouds.

Dripfaucet

thanks, the beautiful scenery was the easy part.
it was an awesome hike.

Dripfaucet

img updated based on user critiques. better?

schmoo

Hi Brad,

Definitely better! I like this image in that there are lines moving from the top right corner to t he bottom left and because b/w images really bring out textures, this is very apparent. Awesome!

However other than that there isn't much going for it, subject-wise. I think this is a great first try but I'd love to see you keep shooting and practicing with conversions, stitching, compositions, all kinds of stuff.

Dripfaucet

schmoo wrote:

Hi Brad,

Definitely better! I like this image in that there are lines moving from the top right corner to t he bottom left and because b/w images really bring out textures, this is very apparent. Awesome!

However other than that there isn't much going for it, subject-wise. I think this is a great first try but I'd love to see you keep shooting and practicing with conversions, stitching, compositions, all kinds of stuff.

point well taken schmoo. i was basically flying out to colorado and bought outdoor photography magazine on my way. read an article about stitching and figured i'd try it out. love the technique and will keep bringing shots to the table