Tracks to Tomorrow

Sam

I'm not sure about this one. If you could just give me a thumbs up or thumbs down I would appreciate it.

Thanks,

Sam

marlof

I'm also not sure. I like the leading lines of the rails, but I don't care as much for the split even division of sky and earth.

Ann McRae

I like it alot - 2 suggestions to try: 1. crop a bit from the bottom - you know, the standard horizon on the lower third and see if that helps. 2. find a black point - pick one of the rocks in the rail bed for example and set it to black.

These are mearly suggestions - see if they work. I love the prairie and photos of it.

ann

Duckys54

I actually like the horizon split in the middle of this because the tracks lead to the sky which I get an epic feel from.

BlueHoseJacket

i like it!

Nikolai

Sam,

Sam wrote:

I'm not sure about this one. If you could just give me a thumbs up or thumbs down I would appreciate it.

Thanks,

Sam

It's a very nice composition.
However, it look a little flat to me, I'd probably try to give it either a nice color pop or make it into a razor-sharp bw....

USAIR

Looks great to me Sam

Fred

Sam

Thank you all for your comments! I really do appreciate the feed back. On second look, it is a little flat. I'll add a little pop and see if a differnt crop works better.

Sam

Angelo

Ann McRae wrote:

I like it alot - 2 suggestions to try: 1. crop a bit from the bottom - you know, the standard horizon on the lower third and see if that helps. 2. find a black point - pick one of the rocks in the rail bed for example and set it to black.

These are mearly suggestions - see if they work. I love the prairie and photos of it.

ann

I agree about setting a bit more contrast but I like the composition very much (you could afford to clone or crop out the little pieces of white paper at the bottom)

jdryan3

I like, even if a little flat. But I would crop the upper half of the sky out.

Nikolai

I agree

Angelo wrote:

I agree about setting a bit more contrast but I like the composition very much (you could afford to clone or crop out the little pieces of white paper at the bottom)

And Vanishing Point is great for cloning out these type of things

Nikolai

Sam,
I gave it a try in CS3, hope you don't mind

1. Original picture by Sam
2. Copy layer, clone out white paper debris
3. Copy red channel as a separate layer, masked out the skies
4. Curve adj layer for the skies, luminance mode
5. Copy cleand layer, convert for smart filter
6. USM 425-0.8-0, darker color mode
7. Save, send to S*E to upload to smugmug

HTH

Alkhemist

I like it as it is. The rules of composition need to be broken occasionally!—though I agree, the color is a little flat.
Definitely try B/W. Some photos gain punch when the color is removed.

Sam

Nikolai,

Good job! I'll try to follow your steps. I need to find out what a smart filter is.

Of course I don't mind you reworking the image. How else are we all going to learn, and progress?

Thanks,

Sam

Nikolai

Sam,

Sam wrote:

Nikolai,

Good job! I'll try to follow your steps. I need to find out what a smart filter is.

Thanks!

Smart Filters are a very essential part of the new PS CS3. In essense, it turns every filter (originally a one time deal type of things) into an editable/maskable/opacitable "layer" akin to adjustment layers.
The obvious advantage is that you can "edit" the settings, change the Z-order and do a lot of things instead of deleting the whole filtered layer and starting from scratch..

Sam wrote:

Of course I don't mind you reworking the image. How else are we all going to learn, and progress?
Thanks,
Sam

Appreciate it, thanks!

Cheers!

SloYerRoll

Nikolai wrote:

Smart Filters are a very essential part of the new PS CS3. In essense, it turns every filter (originally a one time deal type of things) into an editable/maskable/opacitable "layer" akin to adjustment layers.
The obvious advantage is that you can "edit" the settings, change the Z-order and do a lot of things instead of deleting the whole filtered layer and starting from scratch..

Hmmm... I can do the same thing in CS2.. Checks wallet.... Nope, more flashes and glass please.

About the shot.. I dig the center composition. I agree that the distracting white stuff should get cloned out. Careful when making adjustments in pp, you will see the edges of the hills get really sharp lines instead of the soft edges in the shot which make this visually appealing to me.

I dig the shot though. A reshoot on a clearer day at sunset may help allot of your pp problems too....

Nikolai

With all due respect..

SloYerRoll wrote:

Hmmm... I can do the same thing in CS2..

Sorry, you can't. If you apply, say, a bunch of USM filters, and later decided to change your mind about some parameter on one of them, you cannot go back and edit just that parameter. You need to start from the exactly the same original content (hopefully you saved it as a separate layer ) and make sure you remember the settings you've used, which may not be a trivial task if you do some serious multi-pass multi-channel sharpening.. While with the smart filters you can do pretty much almost everything what you can do with the regular adjustment layers...

I may agree that it's not a big deal for a simplistic, layerless retouches. But, for that case, what is? :-) Autolevels and autocolors being around for quite awhile. CS3 gives you a much finer control over practically every aspect of your post process. There are still things left to wish for, but they sure have my vote on this new version already (as opposed to the Lightroom, for instance:-)...