Balconies

Angelo · March 1, 2005

Comments welcome and encouraged. Thank you.

Harryb · March 1, 2005

Angelo wrote:

Comments welcome and encouraged. Thank you.

Hey Angelo,

I love the building and the perspective you used on it. That palm tree though is a distraction. I know you would probably need a cherry picker and a large machette but I think the shot would be better without the palm tree.

Angelo · March 1, 2005

Harryb wrote:

Hey Angelo,

I love the building and the perspective you used on it. That palm tree though is a distraction. I know you would probably need a cherry picker and a large machette but I think the shot would be better without the palm tree.

Well that's a different approach. I guess I thought the tree was needed for clarity and scale, otherwise it would be totally abstract?

I'll rethink this. Thanks Harry.

canonguy · March 2, 2005

Really like the shapes, but I think the sky could be bluer and the tree greener to contrast the grey of the building.

Mongrel · March 3, 2005

Actually,
I kinda dig this Angelo.

At first I was wondering about the tree branches (alright 'palm-fronds' lol), myself but after going back and looking at it, I don't think they are really hurting anything.

The perspective is pretty cool, and it's one of your better shots that I've seen.

I do however agree with canonguy, that the colors could stand a bit of punching up. Or, wait for a day with a better sky (wait, you're in LA right? Does the sky get any better there? JOKE).

Another thing you could try might be a dusk\dawn\night shot using a tripod.

DVDR · March 3, 2005

I would like to have seen a little more of the tree or a little more of the building.

Nothing like looking up. Looks like a picture I would have taken too.

canonguy · March 3, 2005

Mongrel wrote:

I kinda dig this Angelo.

At first I was wondering about the tree branches (alright 'palm-fronds' lol), myself but after going back and looking at it, I don't think they are really hurting anything.

The perspective is pretty cool, and it's one of your better shots that I've seen.

I do however agree with canonguy, that the colors could stand a bit of punching up. Or, wait for a day with a better sky (wait, you're in LA right? Does the sky get any better there? JOKE).

Another thing you could try might be a dusk\dawn\night shot using a tripod.

I didn't realize you were in LA. Asking for a bluer sky might be asking the impossible.

In that case GREAT SHOT!

Angelo · March 3, 2005

Mongrel wrote:

I kinda dig this Angelo.

At first I was wondering about the tree branches (alright 'palm-fronds' lol), myself but after going back and looking at it, I don't think they are really hurting anything.

The perspective is pretty cool, and it's one of your better shots that I've seen.

I do however agree with canonguy, that the colors could stand a bit of punching up. Or, wait for a day with a better sky (wait, you're in LA right? Does the sky get any better there? JOKE).

Another thing you could try might be a dusk\dawn\night shot using a tripod.

I'll keep an eye on the bldg. This facade faces east so I might be able to get an interesting early moning shot (I have to check neighboring buildings for shadows). Thanks for the input.

Angelo · March 3, 2005

DVDR wrote:

I would like to have seen a little more of the tree or a little more of the building.

Nothing like looking up. Looks like a picture I would have taken too.

There really wasn't anything more there. Revealing more in either direction would've exposed some ugly billboards. :cry

Angelo · March 3, 2005

canonguy wrote:

I didn't realize you were in LA. Asking for a bluer sky might be asking the impossible. In that case GREAT SHOT!

You have any idea how much work I did to turn brown to blue????

rutt · March 3, 2005

Not too hard to fix with LAB curves, really:

Just because I could, I opened up the shadow in the palm tree with adjustments->shadow/highlight 21/55/30. Skipping this step keeps the palm tree in shadow, which might be what you want. Then I converted to LAB and wrote these curves:

(If you skip the shadow/highlight step, you'll have to write a different L curve, but the A+B curves will still work.)

What's going on here. The real work of getting the sky blue is in the b curve. I anchored the yellow side of the curve and pushed the blue side until the little bit of blue in the original sky became a lot of blue. The a curve just was symetrically steepened to make the palm tree leaves greener (this is almost always a good thing to try with vegatation.) The L curve tries to be steep where the building has interesting texture. There are parts in shadow and parts in sun, hence two steep sections.

The low res original you posted is unsuitiable for sharpening, but I think you could probably improve this image by playing with USM for the FM sharpening action.

Angelo · March 3, 2005

rutt wrote:

Not too hard to fix with LAB curves, really:

Just because I could, I opened up the shadow in the palm tree with adjustments->shadow/highlight 21/55/30. Skipping this step keeps the palm tree in shadow, which might be what you want. Then I converted to LAB and wrote these curves:

(If you skip the shadow/highlight step, you'll have to write a different L curve, but the A+B curves will still work.)

What's going on here. The real work of getting the sky blue is in the b curve. I anchored the yellow side of the curve and pushed the blue side until the little bit of blue in the original sky became a lot of blue. The a curve just was symetrically steepened to make the palm tree leaves greener (this is almost always a good thing to try with vegatation.) The L curve tries to be steep where the building has interesting texture. There are parts in shadow and parts in sun, hence two steep sections.

The low res original you posted is unsuitiable for sharpening, but I think you could probably improve this image by playing with USM for the FM sharpening action.

Rutt: I'm going to try and figure out what all this means and translate it to my programs (I don't have PS) and my original hi-res image (doesn't everyone post lo-res here? Thank you for the lesson. I hope to mimic or improve upon it.

rutt · March 3, 2005

Angelo wrote:

Rutt: I'm going to try and figure out what all this means and translate it to my programs (I don't have PS) and my original hi-res image (doesn't everyone post lo-res here? Thank you for the lesson. I hope to mimic or improve upon it.

This is going to be hard without PS. LAB is really really somthing. I know PS is expensive, but there are less expensive ways to get it and if you are going to get serious, it's a must.