DSS #101 - First attempt

billseye

Stopped for a few minutes at a couple of interesting locations on a road trip from San Jose to San Diego this weekend. The shop below blend a rail fence with peeling paint and some oil rigs just east of Bakersfield.

C&C Appreciated

Oil-Painted Hills

<a href="http://billseye.smugmug.com/Competitions/Dgrin/14943442_jpPHB9#!i=1808610049&k=5g5b5Zk&lb=1&s=A&quot; title=""><img src="http://billseye.smugmug.com/Competitions/Dgrin/i-5g5b5Zk/0/L/Texture-L.jpg&quot; title="" alt=""></a>

WhatSheSaw

Definitely texture there. It seems a bit washed out and, overall, not very appealing to me as a photo.

Demian

I like it But I would have done a couple things differently. Firstly, bump up local contrast on the photo, and secondly, fade the texture a bit (It's too strong!)

ghinson

Demian wrote: »

...and secondly, fade the texture a bit (It's too strong!)

That's kinda funny since I doubt he "applied" a texture beyond what the scene gave him.

I think it shows natural texture very well. But I do wonder about tweaking the overall down just a hair.

billseye

Well... I'll have some time to tweak it later this week/weekend. Thanks for the comments.

Greg, thanks for the HM in the mini! This one a Photoshopped double exposure. One of the oil rigs and one of peeling paint on a fence rail. The upper half of the image is showing now as primarily a wood texture. There's a big patch of whit peeling paint directly behind the front two oil rigs.

There's lots of room in either image to change contrast. I'm enjoying learning about blending in Photoshop, but as WhatSheSaw notes, I'm not sure overall photo is strong.

ghinson

billseye wrote: »

One of the oil rigs and one of peeling paint on a fence rail. The upper half of the image is showing now as primarily a wood texture. There's a big patch of whit peeling paint directly behind the front two oil rigs.

Well, I guess that the fact that I thought the texture was a natural hillside undermines my suggestion to try changing the blend mode (overall, screen, multiply) and the layer opacity.

Demian

I should clarify; Most of the texture isn't that bad. My biggest problem is with the strong, horizontal lines in it.

travelways

Very interesting, but I think there is a little too much white...

billseye

Thanks Tatiana,

I was really just seeing what I could do with PS blend modes. The more I look at this, the less I like it. Not only the processing, but there's really not any thematic coherence of the subject and the blended texure. I've got another attempt in the works with the same background texture and a new subject that I think will be a big improvement.