Rocky Inlet

NeilLNeilL Registered Users Posts: 4,201 Major grins
edited July 19, 2010 in Landscapes
937552418_6yVbE-XL.jpg











Neil
"Snow. Ice. Slow!" "Half-winter. Half-moon. Half-asleep!"

http://www.behance.net/brosepix

Comments

  • DaddyODaddyO Registered Users Posts: 4,466 Major grins
    edited July 17, 2010
    Very nice composition. Interesting scene. thumb.gif Where the clouds really
    that black and white or did you change them?
    Michael
  • NeilLNeilL Registered Users Posts: 4,201 Major grins
    edited July 17, 2010
    DaddyO wrote: »
    Where the clouds really
    that black and white?

    No, quite a lot of PP in this, including HDR, though the effect of the clouds is mainly due to tone work in the channels. I'm not sure I like the clouds so emphatic. What do you think? There is also film emulation in this via Nik, so they have some grain.

    Neil
    "Snow. Ice. Slow!" "Half-winter. Half-moon. Half-asleep!"

    http://www.behance.net/brosepix
  • TangoTango Registered Users Posts: 4,592 Major grins
    edited July 17, 2010
    I really like everything going on here except the halo effect (or is it brush overlap?) Specifically along the rock mass on the right, it bleeds into the water & clouds too much imo.

    Love the Comp, and the drama in the sky is GREAT!
    Aaron Nelson
  • NeilLNeilL Registered Users Posts: 4,201 Major grins
    edited July 17, 2010
    AaronNelson wrote: »
    I really like everything going on here except the halo effect (or is it brush overlap?) Specifically along the rock mass on the right, it bleeds into the water & clouds too much imo.

    Love the Comp, and the drama in the sky is GREAT!

    I really love it when someone looks as closely as you, Aaron. You've got the pair of eyes to keep a photographer up to the quality mark! Many thanks!thumb.gif

    I went back and had a look at the full size final .tif. Here is a 100% crop of that corner you mentioned. There might be just a hint of haloing from the HDR, but barely visible. I think there is unlikely to be much haloing along the sky edge because of two things: first, a selection was made of the sky, which has feathering along those edges, and second, I manually removed some CA along those edges using desaturation. Both of these would have of themselves reduced any haloing, especially bleeding out of those edges.

    It was pretty horizontal light, so the very faceted surfaces of those rocks create a multitude of stark tone changes, especially where the surface of the rock is angling off from the light. In places that has something of the look of a halo.

    938063563_E89o6-XL.jpg


    There is a bit of a color cast in the bottoms of the clouds in a couple of places, but this seems only to be in the low qual .jpg here.

    Please get back to me when you have a look at the crop and let me know if you still think there is a problem.

    Best.

    Neil
    "Snow. Ice. Slow!" "Half-winter. Half-moon. Half-asleep!"

    http://www.behance.net/brosepix
  • DaddyODaddyO Registered Users Posts: 4,466 Major grins
    edited July 17, 2010
    NeilL wrote: »
    No, quite a lot of PP in this, including HDR, though the effect of the clouds is mainly due to tone work in the channels. I'm not sure I like the clouds so emphatic. What do you think? There is also film emulation in this via Nik, so they have some grain.

    Neil
    Well, its a fine piece of work. Then there's the via the path it took to get to what we see. I agree with Aaron about the nice drama in the clouds. He feels they are fine as is and they probably are just that. Simply for me, and this is just me and a minor opinion, its a color picture and the clouds are no color match BW. Distinct visual difference that's stretching it for the overall. I suppose that I find 3 quarters of the clouds to work form the ocean horizon up where the cloud is mostly strong black tones all across the top. Again, this is just a minor observation from a novice and I am not promoting that any changes be made from my comment. :D:D:D
    Just saying as you asked.
    Michael
  • TangoTango Registered Users Posts: 4,592 Major grins
    edited July 17, 2010
    You give me way too much credit Neil,
    I wasn't looking that deep but I gotta
    say the actual edge at 100% looks great.
    I was looking at it globally and referring
    to a larger area around... so to show you,
    I brushed to blend, basically to darken
    around that dark center area just above
    the horizon... Then I lightened the water just
    below the horizon. While I was at it I added
    a grad to the bottom FG. I think that helped
    in bringing the focus up to center imo.
    Go compare these two images here:

    http://riparian.smugmug.com/Other/Dgrin/12970737_yWqkz#938144070_5UY49

    I dont want to host these images to long so I will delete them after you post any new adjusted images with changes you see fit.
    Aaron Nelson
  • kdogkdog Administrators Posts: 11,681 moderator
    edited July 17, 2010
    Good effort, but I'm going to be a bit more critical. You've got too much light inversion in the shot. The foreground is lighter than the sky, which is a physical impossibility in the real world. My eye is drawn to that bush in the lower right that's on the verge of being blown out. If you used Photomatix, I would try more light smoothing. I'm guessing you were around medium in this shot, when high or even very high would probably have sufficed.

    Regards,
    -joel
    Moderator of Landscapes forum
    Link to my Smugmug site
  • NeilLNeilL Registered Users Posts: 4,201 Major grins
    edited July 18, 2010
    DaddyO wrote: »
    Well, its a fine piece of work. Then there's the via the path it took to get to what we see. I agree with Aaron about the nice drama in the clouds. He feels they are fine as is and they probably are just that. Simply for me, and this is just me and a minor opinion, its a color picture and the clouds are no color match BW. Distinct visual difference that's stretching it for the overall. I suppose that I find 3 quarters of the clouds to work form the ocean horizon up where the cloud is mostly strong black tones all across the top. Again, this is just a minor observation from a novice and I am not promoting that any changes be made from my comment. :D:D:D
    Just saying as you asked.

    Yep, thanks, I see what you mean. Interesting question whether IRL clouds are neutral gray, or at least can be at times. The water is also (almost) neutral gray. I aimed for that in processing because for the water to have had a lot of color while the clouds were neutral gray would have really shaken things up, and probably you too!:D

    My main goal in processing was to create a color effect, not to be faithfully naturalistic. Here it's the earthy colors offset by the neutral sky and sea, warm and bleak at the same time. Whether it appeals or doesn't is of course a matter of personal taste.

    Neil
    "Snow. Ice. Slow!" "Half-winter. Half-moon. Half-asleep!"

    http://www.behance.net/brosepix
  • NeilLNeilL Registered Users Posts: 4,201 Major grins
    edited July 18, 2010
    AaronNelson wrote: »
    You give me way too much credit Neil,
    I wasn't looking that deep but I gotta
    say the actual edge at 100% looks great.
    I was looking at it globally and referring
    to a larger area around... so to show you,
    I brushed to blend, basically to darken
    around that dark center area just above
    the horizon... Then I lightened the water just
    below the horizon. While I was at it I added
    a grad to the bottom FG. I think that helped
    in bringing the focus up to center imo.
    Go compare these two images here:

    http://riparian.smugmug.com/Other/Dgrin/12970737_yWqkz#938144070_5UY49

    I dont want to host these images to long so I will delete them after you post any new adjusted images with changes you see fit.

    Very generous of you, Aaron, to do that, thank you! Yes, I wondered if you were referring to the lighter tones in the sky, and it is not good if they cause the doubts that you had. However, I didn't touch those areas because I guess I was acting on the principal that if something is not broken don't fix it. But you are right that something could appear here to be broken, even if it's not. I'll follow your example and treat them.

    The real stroke of genius in your editing of the shot is the grad filter on the FG and the lightening of the water at the horizon. Together they solve a problem that I couldn't quite see I had, but knew was there. It answers Joel's crit of the FG, too, to a large extent, I think. thumb.gifthumbthumb.gif

    I like the texture of your site pages, nice grit!

    Neil
    "Snow. Ice. Slow!" "Half-winter. Half-moon. Half-asleep!"

    http://www.behance.net/brosepix
  • NeilLNeilL Registered Users Posts: 4,201 Major grins
    edited July 18, 2010
    kdog wrote: »
    Good effort, but I'm going to be a bit more critical. You've got too much light inversion in the shot. The foreground is lighter than the sky, which is a physical impossibility in the real world. My eye is drawn to that bush in the lower right that's on the verge of being blown out. If you used Photomatix, I would try more light smoothing. I'm guessing you were around medium in this shot, when high or even very high would probably have sufficed.

    Regards,
    -joel

    Really appreciate your crit, Joel. I understand about the light inversion, but wonder if it's universally true. While I was standing there on that spot the low sun behind me was, through the moving clouds, alternately lighting the foreground and the background hundreds of meters away. I was waiting for the rare moment when the whole scene took fire. It didn't really happen as I imagined. But there were certainly times when the sun opened onto a specific small area of the scene with full force for that time of the day, while the thick low clouds were very dim, with no direct light on them, and no light from the sky behind them. You can see a more extreme example in my post "Contrasting Headlands" below.

    I agree with you that there is a problem with the FG nevertheless, and as I said to Aaron, I think he has the inspired solution with a grad filter on that area.

    I don't know what the light smoothing control in Photomatix is for at this time, so I just accepted the default setting. If you could briefly describe the rationale it would be appreciated.

    The HDR part of the processing of this shot was not the major one. Tone work in channels, and Nik and onOne plugins had more of an influence on the final appearance.

    Neil
    "Snow. Ice. Slow!" "Half-winter. Half-moon. Half-asleep!"

    http://www.behance.net/brosepix
  • kdogkdog Administrators Posts: 11,681 moderator
    edited July 18, 2010
    Well, I could be wrong. Maybe that's what the scene looked like, but it doesn't look natural to me. Aaron's suggestion is great as a bandaid, but I'm skeptical why it's needed. Maybe you could post the middle contributing image without any processing for comparison? mwink.gif

    The light smoothing control is Photomatix just does what I said. It makes light areas dark, and dark areas light. The lower the setting, the more dramatic the inversion. If I want a realistic HDR, I use either high or very high. The best way to learn about it is to around with it.

    Cheers,
    -joel
    Moderator of Landscapes forum
    Link to my Smugmug site
  • NeilLNeilL Registered Users Posts: 4,201 Major grins
    edited July 18, 2010
    kdog wrote: »
    Well, I could be wrong. Maybe that's what the scene looked like, but it doesn't look natural to me. Aaron's suggestion is great as a bandaid, but I'm skeptical why it's needed. Maybe you could post the middle contributing image without any processing for comparison? mwink.gif

    The light smoothing control is Photomatix just does what I said. It makes light areas dark, and dark areas light. The lower the setting, the more dramatic the inversion. If I want a realistic HDR, I use either high or very high. The best way to learn about it is to around with it.

    Cheers,
    -joel

    Thanks for the extra info, Joel. The phase I'm in, I'm pushing the envelope (for me) towards something more commercially appealing, so out the window with natural faithfulness, let eye-catching impact and the wow factor overwhelm this very willing victim!eek7.gifDrolleyes1.gif

    Neil
    "Snow. Ice. Slow!" "Half-winter. Half-moon. Half-asleep!"

    http://www.behance.net/brosepix
  • NeilLNeilL Registered Users Posts: 4,201 Major grins
    edited July 18, 2010
    Repost of the image, edited on the suggestions of Aaron and kdog. Many thanks guys. I think it has much more finesse, and a micro-scale increase in impact and wow (limitations entirely mine)!:D



    939438281_hzfvt-XL.jpg










    Neil
    "Snow. Ice. Slow!" "Half-winter. Half-moon. Half-asleep!"

    http://www.behance.net/brosepix
  • grimacegrimace Registered Users Posts: 1,537 Major grins
    edited July 19, 2010
    Nice repost. The lighting is perfect.
    -Adam
    www.adamstravelphotography.com

    Facebook
  • NeilLNeilL Registered Users Posts: 4,201 Major grins
    edited July 19, 2010
    grimace wrote: »
    Nice repost. The lighting is perfect.

    Phew!!! You don't know what a relief it is to hear that!:D

    Neil
    "Snow. Ice. Slow!" "Half-winter. Half-moon. Half-asleep!"

    http://www.behance.net/brosepix
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