About photography Number 2

[Horus]

Excellent Kiya you are getting very good at this photo manipulation

[Kiya]

I know the flower in this 1 looks misshaped but I sort of like it

[Horus]

Keep straying away from the norm Kiya, do your own thing

[LovelyLadyLux]

I totally and completely agree with Horus Kiya - do your own thing! Your purple flower is GREAT. It makes you look a few times to try and figure the perspective and that is always terrific cause you've captured the interest to look.........kinda Mona Lisa-ish - is she really smiling? Is your flower really straight or ? You are zooming along and progressing fantastically well!

[Kiya]

Heres another couple of old pics I came across, again views I'd taken through castle windows..........this time at Conwy Castle in Wales.
I had just come back from 2wks in Luxor to do some sight seeing in Wales before returning to Scotland.

[Grandad]

No stopping you, is there Kiya?
Comparing these older pictures with your recent ones it would appear that you have switched off the 'date in picture' function. : for that.......

Can I make a friendly critical observation about your Conwy pictures. I know you were using the window opening as a frame and to add depth, and that is fine The problem is that there is such a pronounced difference between the exposure for the scene and that for the detail in the wall. The result is that the camera has metered the brightly lit scene and the wall detail has been lost and is a totally black space.

We should try to have even the smallest amount of detail in the darkest shadows and the brightest highlights so that there is a balance across the full range of shades, and areas are not blacked out by underexposure or burnt out by overexposure.

In situations like this a burst of fill-in flash will illuminate the dark spaces. Another option is to move back a little from the window, tripod mount the camera and set a small aperture and longer exposure. Another situation where a bit of trial and error and bracketing are called for.

I hope you accept this comment as it is intended; objective and not critical.
Grandad


PS. Just looked at your last 5 pics above and noticed that the last one has some detail in the shadow which I think illustrates my point.

[Kiya]

Grandad well spotted about the dates been seen on old photos, I've been going through many old pics using the brush/spot healing tool getting rid of the dates glad to say I'm doing a not bad job with the results.
To be honest I've never thought of using the windows/doors etc as a frame to pic its always been the view through that has caught my eye but now it has been taken to my attention recently I will think in future of using windows/doors etc to enhance any pics.
The pic below is similar to the 1 above I've added brightness/contrast,hue/sat then went & tried the gradient tool (had great fun with that 1) then "enhance - unsharp mask" no idea what that was for but could see it ws sharpening my pic..........really I'm slowly learning by clicking on any buttons to see what there function is
I never take anything from you as critical but good sound advice & from everyone else that contibutes here its much appreciated & I'm sure LLL will agree with me

[LivinginLuxor]

OK - you have more detail in the 'frame' here, but I think to some extent it detracts from the view - you are not so drawn to the main subject. It's a matter of taste I guess, but I do prefer an almost black 'frame'.

[Horus]

I agree, I would have gone for cropping out a bit of the frame to give more of the central picture

[Grandad]

'Almost' black frame yes Stan, but if there is too much of it, it would be better to crop some away otherwise the picture is overwhelmed by a black frame.

I still maintain that some detail, even the slightest hint, should be visible in deep shadow. And the same applies to the strongest highlight areas which will otherwise appear burnt out with no detail at all.

I would suggest that in Kiyas latest picture the shadows in the extreme of the picture should be blacker, agreeing with you that too much detail detracts from the view. I firmly believe in using the full range from black to white in a mono picture. I have always tended to print 'harder' than some who prefer softer prints. It's the Ansell Adams in me.

Framing or foreground detail of any kind adds perspective and depth to a landscape picture.

[LivinginLuxor]

I reckon the photo competition should provide some good examples of B/W this month - just reset my manual adjustments on my camera to start with B/W and we're off to Karnak tomorrow!

[Grandad]

Well, you get SO close Stan, what was it, beaten by 0.03 points last month? I envy you your opportunity to go out and shoot mono tomorrow

Expanding a little on the shadow/highlight detail discussion. I don't believe that a digital colour picture 'reverses' too well to mono but this picture is my entry in Helens 'Egypt in Black and White' topic for this month.



The bottom left corner is the darkest shadow with some detail just visible. Perhaps I should have cropped some of the left edge away. The highlight area is in the column to the right and detail of the hieroglyphs are just visible.

Without this detail I believe that those areas would just be black or white blobs. I think the same argument applies to colour pictures.


Edit: Just noticed 1400 posts, only another 100 and I can get rid of being 'pink'

[LivinginLuxor]

Not sure what program you use, Grandad, but for the main (Photoshop Paintshop Pro), if you google for tutorials, there are many ways of getting a good b/w image from a colour photo - and none of them use the grayscale function.

[Grandad]

I have PSP x2 Stan but tend to be a bit lazy and used picassa to reverse the above picture. I have actually found that picassa gives a better reversal than PSP. Stronger blacks....

[Kiya]

B/W conversion in camera raw, I think the b/w is really sharp when using camera raw

[Horus]

Yes but you have also done as I suggested and cropped it closer and I think it looks a lot better

[Grandad]

You got it Kiya

Better cropping, better shadows, much better picture.

[Kiya]

Can I have my gold star now

[Horus]

Yes you can

[Kiya]

Fantastic ! & a lovely looking award it is too :tu: