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Do you mean something like this?


by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Fri Mar 21st, 2008 at 04:49:39 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Yes! What did you do?

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by In Wales (inwales aaat eurotrib.com) on Fri Mar 21st, 2008 at 04:51:47 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Well, if you'd been paying attention in class last week, you'd have seen me muttering about histograms: in the case of these images, the histogram was compressed into the bottom 2/3s of the range. I just let Aperture's auto-colour-levels control expand it out to fill the whole range.

I also changed the tint towards the green a bit because the pink in the clouds didn't seem natural.

by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Fri Mar 21st, 2008 at 04:57:20 AM EST
[ Parent ]
I did pay attention. I know a bit about histograms and usually refer to them directly after taking a shot, but I get confused with the RAW file manipulation in CS2 since it separates the histogram into RGB and well... y'know?

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by In Wales (inwales aaat eurotrib.com) on Fri Mar 21st, 2008 at 05:00:45 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Does it not give you a luminance histogram as well?
by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Fri Mar 21st, 2008 at 05:06:42 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Is the white area the bit I need to work with?

Photobucket

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by In Wales (inwales aaat eurotrib.com) on Fri Mar 21st, 2008 at 05:16:27 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Not sure: I think so, but the yellow and cyan ones are confusing me.
by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Fri Mar 21st, 2008 at 05:19:16 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Well if you're confused....

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by In Wales (inwales aaat eurotrib.com) on Fri Mar 21st, 2008 at 05:48:23 AM EST
[ Parent ]
The white line at the extreme right indicates that your highlights are going to pure white. If this is not a specular reflection, this might not be what you wish.

The white area under the other colors is just an indication of the proportion of black in the image.

Personally I dislike this tool since one can't tell what is really being changed. I would suggest you try to get the same corrections with the curves tool in the main area of photoshop.

There are way to achieve white balance as well as fixing the overall brightness and contrast. Unlike this tool the curve shapes give you a visual indication of what is being modified.

It takes a bit of time to master, but it is worth it, for images you want to look their best.

Policies not Politics
---- Daily Landscape

by rdf (robert.feinman@gmail.com) on Fri Mar 21st, 2008 at 09:54:50 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Using Curves you can get this:

Clicking with the middle (50% grey) eyedropper on the blue-ish hills in the distance tells Photoshop to white-balance to the opposite of blue-ish, which is this sepia, and then clicking with the white eyedropper in the brightest area, which is the cloud centre-left top. It's not quite the same as using a sepia filter or colorize.

If you try to find a more usual mid-grey you'll get a more accurate colour balance. There are auto-mask methods for finding the 50% level in a shot, but it's usually more fun to click around with the eye droppers at random to see what happens.

This is almost a photo magazine shot. You'd need an even longer exposure on the waves to make them even wispier, an even wider lens, and ideally you'd also need to take it at sunrise or sunset to make everything look dramatically pink or orange. This should be followed by even more dramatic Photoshop colour enhancement, until you get something that looks like a rather poetic episode of Star Trek, where the sky is bright pink and misty and the clouds are made of hydrogen.

I'm not suggesting any of these are a good thing, but it's the kind of style the mags seem happy to print rather a lot of.

I'd rather:

which is a slightly less familiar crop, but I think it still captures some of the essence of the scene.

by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Fri Mar 21st, 2008 at 03:11:34 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Thanks for that. I'll have a go and see if I can reproduce something similar.  It is amazing what you can do with photoshop when you know how.  I like the alternative crop a lot too.

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by In Wales (inwales aaat eurotrib.com) on Fri Mar 21st, 2008 at 03:21:16 PM EST
[ Parent ]
That's what happens when the real experts come out of the woodwork.
by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Fri Mar 21st, 2008 at 03:38:21 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Lack of time has been the main reasons for not getting to grips with photoshop a bit better.  There are probably digital photography classes somewhere. I'll have to see if I can get onto one that looks at using photoshop.

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by In Wales (inwales aaat eurotrib.com) on Fri Mar 21st, 2008 at 03:32:43 PM EST
[ Parent ]
I've got lots of tips on my web site and you don't have to pay a dime.

http://robertdfeinman.com/tips

Policies not Politics
---- Daily Landscape

by rdf (robert.feinman@gmail.com) on Fri Mar 21st, 2008 at 04:41:48 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Oooh!  Consider yourself paid back with happy vibes.

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by In Wales (inwales aaat eurotrib.com) on Fri Mar 21st, 2008 at 04:52:45 PM EST
[ Parent ]
I prefer, as in this case, to work in Photoshop layers. What I do is make some basic assumptions about the image - what i it that I want to emphasize.

Then I make layers that emphasize these differences - such as a layer to bring out the detail in the rocky cliffs by lifting brightness just in these areas that I have selected by the magic wand. Or distinguishing between the sea/sky and the beach/rocks and making one cooler and one warmer. I used about 6 layers here and then played with the transparency of the layers - most of them just a few percent opacity. So I make raw decisions and then fine time them interactively.

The decisions are always based on telling a story that the audience will accept. The better you know the particular audience, the better you can tell the story.

IMO there is no such thing as a 'true' photograph.

You can't be me, I'm taken

by Sven Triloqvist on Fri Mar 21st, 2008 at 05:14:09 PM EST
[ Parent ]
IMO there is no such thing as a 'true' photograph.

Did someone say there was?
by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Fri Mar 21st, 2008 at 05:15:23 PM EST
[ Parent ]
No. I see your aim as to perfectly express the recorded image, whereas the recorded image is already a distortion of the original experience. Whatever you do, you will 'impose' on that distortion.

Acceptance of distortion (starting from the framing) is entirely dependent on the audience - even if the audience is you ;-)

You can't be me, I'm taken

by Sven Triloqvist on Fri Mar 21st, 2008 at 05:26:55 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Which of the possible uses of "your aim" did you have in mind in that first sentence?
by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Fri Mar 21st, 2008 at 05:37:13 PM EST
[ Parent ]
I am referring to your entirely reasonable pedagogic aim of giving people the gestural tools to ensure that a picture at least conforms to their own aims for the picture.

Art is, after all, a very precise coordination of mind + eye, plus tool and medium. Serendipity can also play a part - like Japanese calligraphy - but serendipity born of the tools, not of the mind.

You can't be me, I'm taken

by Sven Triloqvist on Fri Mar 21st, 2008 at 05:50:28 PM EST
[ Parent ]

I managed to bring out some details not seen in the original ;-)

You can't be me, I'm taken

by Sven Triloqvist on Fri Mar 21st, 2008 at 03:07:13 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Now, if you just drop in a Viking longboat and maybe a few Grays you'll be done.
by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Fri Mar 21st, 2008 at 03:16:24 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Well I do regard raw photographs as artist's sketches - if I've experienced the event myself, I use the sketch/es as a basis for finding a visual interpretation of what I felt I saw, as opposed to what the camera saw.

You can't be me, I'm taken
by Sven Triloqvist on Fri Mar 21st, 2008 at 03:34:36 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Like my failure to see any difference between drugs from outside or outside the body, I also don't see ANY difference between all manipulations of subjective experience of reality - including the original framing of the photograph.

When you frame a shot you are translating your total experience of an event, or moment in time, into a narrow channel that not only excludes all the other senses, but also excludes 95% of the spherical moment that you inhabit.

The camera, lens and image capture system that you pick up, is already an intrusion into the total reality of theat moment. If you then make a slight adjustment to contrast and colour of that image, you have already further distorted sensual 'reality'. You can add a lightning strike - that is also distortion. This addition is obvious here, since the original from which it is derived is presented also. But in another situation - sitting in a photo library? Is it real or is it not?

The key is, of course, the audience. What do they accept? How do they react? What have they seen before? Have they had a similar experience to which they can compare?

Just taking a photograph is manipulation. I don't see any difference between the moment (the sketch) and any manipulation that may come later (the work)

You can't be me, I'm taken

by Sven Triloqvist on Fri Mar 21st, 2008 at 05:00:10 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Sure. I just don't feel I experience scenes in the exaggerated manner you feel you do.
by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Fri Mar 21st, 2008 at 05:04:12 PM EST
[ Parent ]
And if you're doing art (broadly), rather than commercial work, should you be considering any audience other than yourself?
by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Fri Mar 21st, 2008 at 05:08:16 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Well that is a whole diary ;-)

It is all art. The story depends on you if the audience is zero (just yourself), and also depends on you if the audience is one million. I don't see how the money comes into it.

You can't be me, I'm taken

by Sven Triloqvist on Fri Mar 21st, 2008 at 05:22:02 PM EST
[ Parent ]
But my argument depends on your acceptance of the idea that the framing of the picture from the very start is a distortion or manipulation, let alone any manipulation that would be 'emotion recollected in tranquillity'

You can't be me, I'm taken
by Sven Triloqvist on Fri Mar 21st, 2008 at 05:30:03 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Looking at the scene is a distortion and a manipulation, if mostly an unconscious one, never mind pointing a camera at it on top of that.
by Colman (colman at eurotrib.com) on Fri Mar 21st, 2008 at 05:34:23 PM EST
[ Parent ]
And here we enter the Russian Doll zone. I absolutely agree. The selected matrix is always a compromise.

You can't be me, I'm taken
by Sven Triloqvist on Fri Mar 21st, 2008 at 05:39:46 PM EST
[ Parent ]
lol!
Ah yes, I wondered what had happened to that streak of lightning. I almost thought I had imagined it.

Ad astra per aspera
by In Wales (inwales aaat eurotrib.com) on Fri Mar 21st, 2008 at 03:17:36 PM EST
[ Parent ]

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