Black stairs

Juano

I want to like this but... comments welcome, please. :dunno

Dogdots

I like the lines in this photo and how you composed the shot. I love simplicity.

Since you asked for comments I'll give you mine .. which isn't worth a whole lot

I would start with the white and black balance along with maybe cropping it. Cropping a photo is a personal preference thing, but the white balance is something I really feel this photo could use a boost with.

It certainly is a good photo in my opinion ... just needs a tweak or two

Play around with it

WernerG

I think you should like it. It is very cool. The whole assembly looks like it was designed that way, not a collection of add-ons. Maybe you could talk the building's superintendant into moving the light structure to left a bit, or you could just clone it over! I think it needs the space to the left of the stairs but at the light level it is a bit empty over there. Even the wall texture seems to fade on the left.

konomaniac

I like the shot, but wonder how it would look if the metal components were red or maybe green.

Juano

second try... I played with the WB a bit and tried to darken the lines between the bricks

Dogdots

I like how the lines darkened, but think the white balance needs more work.

Your getting there

Juano

Dogdots wrote: »

I like how the lines darkened, but think the white balance needs more work.

Your getting there

I think I know what you mean, but I don't know how to do it. I would like to brighten the white wall while maintaining the darkened lines and keep the stairs as black as I can. I use lightroom 3 and I'm stuck.

Any suggestions?

Richard

Juano wrote: »

I think I know what you mean, but I don't know how to do it. I would like to brighten the white wall while maintaining the darkened lines and keep the stairs as black as I can. I use lightroom 3 and I'm stuck.

Any suggestions?

If you only have LR, boost the exposure and brightness to raise the whites, give it a little fill light to unplug the blacks a bit, then play with contrast and clarity for definition.

You can do a better job with Photoshop, though: shadow/hightlights to unplug the blacks, lower the white point using a curve, then use a copy of the curve in overlay mode at about 40% opacity to add pop.

HTH.

Oh, and I like the shot.

Dogdots

Juano wrote: »

I think I know what you mean, but I don't know how to do it. I would like to brighten the white wall while maintaining the darkened lines and keep the stairs as black as I can. I use lightroom 3 and I'm stuck.

Any suggestions?

Follow Richards suggestions. I don't have LR .. I just have photoshop.

Juano

Thanks for the guidance!! I will give it a try. I don't have photoshop, I downloaded Paint.Net but not sure how to do things with it.

Richard

Dogdots wrote: »

Follow Richards suggestions. I don't have LR .. I just have photoshop.

I don't have LR either, but ACR--which comes with Photoshop--has the same controls, and you can use them on JPGs as well as raw files. Just select the pic in Bridge, right click and select Open in ACR. Then do your adjustments and save it as a JPG.

Juano

I started from scratch again and followed Richard's advice. I got this:

Dogdots

Juano wrote: »

I started from scratch again and followed Richard's advice. I got this:

Looking much better

Richard

Juano

Thanks for the advice guys. Very helpful!

shawnc

Maybe give an antique or aged treatment with a little grain & vinette?