View Full Version : Comments on my first attempt at a landscape
neilwood
08-28-2007, 11:43 PM
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1188/1260621703_fe16e90c1c.jpg
Feel free to browse (and comment on) the rest of them as well. They were all take on the same evening.
The file size has been cut dramatically when uploading from 3mb
TrickWild
08-28-2007, 11:48 PM
Nice, I like the shadows.;)
I think this photo would also look nice b & w.
Skyline is a nice subject, and you got great sidelight on the faces of the building. Gives nice colours and contrasts on the terrestrial parts of the photo. You got some good clouds (the more landscapes I take, the more I think they should be called cloudscapes), though there are so few of them, and they look so benign, you will have trouble persuading anybody that this was taken in Edinburgh.
Good choice -- I think this is one of the best if not the best of the bunch up on Flickr (though I think the bridge in 105 has potential if you got closer).
How are you with layers in post-processing? You solved the dark dirt/bright sky problem by having the sky a little bit overexposed and the land a bit under. I would like to see you work on land and sky layers separately (lightening the one and darkening the other) and then combine then with a mask.
Also consider investing in a circular polarizer -- it will instantly improve your skies, especially when you are perpendicular to the sun like in this shot.
EL
EL
neilwood
08-29-2007, 12:35 AM
that one was straight of the camera - no post processing at all.
I am considering a polariser though - but i might need to wait a wee while until my bank balance recovers from the camera purchase.
i did do a bit of processing on some of the images - the ones with the "a" suffix.Just did some tweaking with curves mainly.
Sorry, wasn't suggesting that you had done post on this shot.
My reference to your solving the dark/light problem was to your in-camera solution -- I meant to suggest that if you felt like diving into post, you could try working up the sky and land differentially and then combining them.
EL
GaryMoffat
08-29-2007, 03:07 PM
Only one obsevation - Its not raining ;)
Nice pictures Neil. Edinburgh captured very nicley.
I also enjoyed the others posted on Flickr.
Gary.
pcarfan
08-31-2007, 03:32 AM
I was working with the image with curves to darken and give more contrast to the sky (it can be made much more vivid but I settled on this for a change). The blue yellow shift is interesting and can be tweaked to various levels, but could not lighten the land without ruining the original colors. Finally did the curves in the LAB mode to the Luminance channel and it brightened it without much change to the color. I am posting it as this is the first image that made a difference by working in LAB luminance channel. I did not use any masking, only curves (RGB curves for the sky and LAB curves for the land) and saturation (lightroom).
http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e381/pcarfan/london1.jpg
windrider86
08-31-2007, 04:59 AM
wow what a difference
That is a very effective bit of post-processing, pcarfan - like holding up a giant golden reflector just out of the frame :D
You have managed to reduce the contrast and warm the colours without it looking artificial and the result lets the original picture shine.
Wulf
pcarfan
08-31-2007, 03:38 PM
Thanks for the compliments. Having seen most of your works in this forum, it means a lot coming from you guys.
It is a good exercise for anyone to really see the difference in LAB curves vs RGB curves.
The original image was well captured with great colors, curves brings them out.
I have read suggestions that curves adjustments be done on the L channel to avoid colour shifts, but have never tried. Based on your results, I think I'll have to give it a try.
By the way, looking again at your edit, I see some artifacts in some areas of transition between land and sky -- probably most evident on the spire at left. I am guessing that this is probably due to jpeg compression -- do you see them when you look at the photo in your editing program?
EL
pcarfan
08-31-2007, 05:27 PM
I have read suggestions that curves adjustments be done on the L channel to avoid colour shifts, but have never tried. Based on your results, I think I'll have to give it a try.
By the way, looking again at your edit, I see some artifacts in some areas of transition between land and sky -- probably most evident on the spire at left. I am guessing that this is probably due to jpeg compression -- do you see them when you look at the photo in your editing program?
EL
I am at work and the monitor sucks. I see the fuzziness around the spire and around those tiny flags. I have to go home and look at it. When I did the masking there were numerous artifacts along the transition even when working at a pixel level zoom. So, I abandoned that. I initially did the shadows/highlight, screen in the blending mode for layers and mask etc, none worked.
I only used curves. The sky nicely falls in the top half of the curves and the land at the bottom half with no pixels in the middle. So, I worked with RGB channel for the sky with keeping the lower curve intact and sacrificing the mid non-pixel area, and then opened another layer and worked in LAB luminance channel (I had to compress and save before doing this) for the buildings. So, if there are artifacts it most likely is because of the compression. With such a small file there was a lot of combing/almost posterization with the histogram. It will certainly work better with the original file.
LAB luminance is interesting, you can probabaly get similar results in RGB curves by choosing "luminance" only. I was so excited when I saw the results with LAB as compared to RGB, I stopped and posted it and never tried RGB-Luminance only (I save all these images in a folder and compare in windows piucture viewer by toggling back and forth and the LAB mod was worlds apart). It was great to see the theory fall into place. I hear even Lab luminance and choosing luminance only in RGB as being not ideal in only changing luminanace. There are fancy gamma corrected (??) algorithms to get it even closer.
odark30
09-01-2007, 12:15 AM
Terrific work, now rotate the pic just 1 degree CW and it will be perfect!
pcarfan
09-01-2007, 03:14 PM
Terrific work, now rotate the pic just 1 degree CW and it will be perfect!
Damn, I must have gotten that wrong!.....I rotated it to the Pi/10th to the millionth decimal
(0.314159..........) CCW :D
odark30
09-01-2007, 06:57 PM
:eek:ROFL!!!
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