Harbor View

snapapple

San Diego Skyline from Shelter Island



Sailing off Shelter Island


The Marina

cmr164

snapapple wrote:

San Diego Skyline from Shelter Island



Sailing off Shelter Island

Hmmmm... maybe a little less USM...

snapapple

cmr164 wrote:

Hmmmm... maybe a little less USM...

Interesting you should say that, Charles. I did not use USM at all. As a matter of fact I was wondering if I should blur the water because it looked so choppy. But, I didn't because I don't like the fake look. I used auto levels and a little curves on the sky only in the first one. That's all! Not even curves on the second one. The water was a little choppy. That sail boat showed up here, may not be the same one I saw before. This is all natural. I only cloned out the crane on top of that same building and a couple of white gas tanks on the far right of image No.2.

cmr164

snapapple wrote:

Interesting you should say that, Charles. I did not use USM at all. As a matter of fact I was wondering if I should blur the water because it looked so choppy. But, I didn't because I don't like the fake look. I used auto levels and a little curves on the sky only in the first one. That's all! Not even curves on the second one. The water was a little choppy. That sail boat showed up here, may not be the same one I saw before. This is all natural. I only cloned out the crane on top of that same building and a couple of white gas tanks on the far right of image No.2.

It was not just the water but the windows in the buildings that seemed sharpened to me... Maybe just old eyes but do you have sharpening turned on in the camera? Did you shoot raw?

snapapple

cmr164 wrote:

It was not just the water but the windows in the buildings that seemed sharpened to me... Maybe just old eyes but do you have sharpening turned on in the camera? Did you shoot raw?

Charles,
I did shoot RAW. No extra anything in the camera. I'm not sure about the buildings. I remember thinking it seemed a little hazy around the buildings, but I can't remember what I might have done to them. I know I didn't like the choppy water and certainly wouldn't have wanted it sharper. It was around 4 in the afternoon. I thought the light would be good, but it was not. As the sun got lower it just seemed to get closer and brighter. It was very white and bright. It made white shine on the water. I'll check back on my original and see what it looks like. I normally would not select out just the buildings for sharpening, but I may have.

ginger_55

Snappy, some really nice shots, with a bird, too.


ginger


I can't wait to see everyone's humor shots come in.....


I can only think of sick stuff, like all those boats running into each other.

Or, photographically I couldn't have shown it, but the woman with a baby being baptised, today, she had 3 little boys. Stairs steps, didn't even look like the first was five years old. I had to ask the sex of the baby. Very relieved, she said it was a girl. She and the father both looked quite pleased. I almost asked them if they were going to stop now, then I realized they were catholic, etc. I have a photo of the baptism, even with three little boys, nothing funny. (And it was a day early. The littlest boy was pulling the sweater over his head in about three shots, would that be funny?)

I really like your harbor shots, Snappy!

ginger_55

If it was bright, you could have used a fast shutter speed, stopping all movement, and a small opening with a lot of DOF......

I was going to ask what settings you use, but our cameras are so different.

I do remember whenever I read about RAW, read something in a magazine today, it always mentions that we should turn off the automatic sharpening thing in the camera, something about it interacting with the USM. (I have never turned mine off) If there is one, I keep forgetting to look. It is a Rebel, guys.

But I don't see that it is anything that weird, the photo just looks nice and sharp to me. Maybe it is that 65th birthday coming up.

I can't pick up anything else, not just seeing it here.

Snappy, what are they seeing???? Don't suppose you know either. Good depth of field, etc. Nice compositions, too.

g

snapapple

Don't know what Charles is seeing
I checked my original. If I take it and press auto levels, the water and buildings look just like this one. Auto levels seems to bring up the contrast. I don't see anything else. In my camera, it has a place where you can select a plus or a minus on sharpen or contrast. Both of these are on -0-. The EXIF says f4, 1/400sec. It's pretty fast, so it freezes the motion of the water. If anyone has any ideas on how to smooth out that water, please let me know. About the windows, they look normal to me.

cmr164

snapapple wrote:

I checked my original. If I take it and press auto levels, the water and buildings look just like this one. Auto levels seems to bring up the contrast. I don't see anything else. In my camera, it has a place where you can select a plus or a minus on sharpen or contrast. Both of these are on -0-. The EXIF says f4, 1/400sec. It's pretty fast, so it freezes the motion of the water. If anyone has any ideas on how to smooth out that water, please let me know. About the windows, they look normal to me.

It probably just was my eyes getting old and not used to really sharp shots. Don't worry about it. As for smoothing out the water you might try just a touch of gausian blur prior to reducing in size. The thing I was seeing could also have been the result of a crisp image reduced in size. In the old days I would have experimented with some 5x5 matrix multiplies. Now that kind of fine control is not offered by the software

1.1.1.1.1
1.2.2.2.1
1.2.9.2.1
1.2.2.2.1
1.1.1.1.1

Would produce a smoothing effect that could be modified by playing with the value of the center.