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#1
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Request: A Brutally Honest Critique in Exchange for Viewing My Photos
On Wed, 23 Jun 2004 05:53:00 -0500, "No Pork Byproducts"
wrote: Per your suggestions, I uploaded 3 new versions of some photos that you commented on. (I'm starting to really see the limitations of this ancient 15" monitor that I'm working with). I think I brought out enough detail back into the "longtailedskipper" photo. And I cropped out some of the black silhouette around "sunfire", but not all. I think it looks a little better. I reverted "buffalovista" to the original photo, without that drastic multiplier trick to the sky. Now the eye is not fooled into expecting more from the scenery and to give it back the original melancholic subdued feeling as intended (my take on it anyway). I may reconsider this in the future though. It might still be a little too dark or low contrast/saturation (it's so difficult to judge that on this monitor). The problem that changing the sky caused in this one (to the more intense colorful edited version) reinforces my belief that just because you *can* do something with digital editing, doesn't mean you should. And also reinforced my apprehensions to just leave them alone more times than not. Will play with the other suggestions you gave, as time permits. I'm still not too sure what to do with "pelicanframes", as any of the utilities that I've played with to adjust for contrast or color balance changes the feeling and mood of the photo drastically. With it being a natural duo-tone to begin with (what you see now is what it looked like originally), nearly anything can be done with it... I'll think on it and play with it 'til I find something I might like better.... but you're right, it needs tweaking of some kind, I'm just not sure "what" (kind). I can balance for the grays (making the sky into richer blue clouds), but then I lose the near-sunset yellow highlights in the water, which I feel gives it its realism. Too much contrast and I lose the feeling of the cold overcast evening weather. It's an odd balancing act. Maybe I should just leave it alone? :-) The others with luminosity (gamma problems) might (or should) wait until I get a better monitor perhaps. Which could be years away with my financial limits. :-) Thanks again for your input. Comments like yours have proven to be a valuable learning experience for me. |
#2
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Request: A Brutally Honest Critique in Exchange for Viewing My Photos
Is your site down?
"Keoeeit" wrote in message ... On Wed, 23 Jun 2004 05:53:00 -0500, "No Pork Byproducts" wrote: Per your suggestions, I uploaded 3 new versions of some photos that you commented on. (I'm starting to really see the limitations of this ancient 15" monitor that I'm working with). I think I brought out enough detail back into the "longtailedskipper" photo. And I cropped out some of the black silhouette around "sunfire", but not all. I think it looks a little better. I reverted "buffalovista" to the original photo, without that drastic multiplier trick to the sky. Now the eye is not fooled into expecting more from the scenery and to give it back the original melancholic subdued feeling as intended (my take on it anyway). I may reconsider this in the future though. It might still be a little too dark or low contrast/saturation (it's so difficult to judge that on this monitor). The problem that changing the sky caused in this one (to the more intense colorful edited version) reinforces my belief that just because you *can* do something with digital editing, doesn't mean you should. And also reinforced my apprehensions to just leave them alone more times than not. Will play with the other suggestions you gave, as time permits. I'm still not too sure what to do with "pelicanframes", as any of the utilities that I've played with to adjust for contrast or color balance changes the feeling and mood of the photo drastically. With it being a natural duo-tone to begin with (what you see now is what it looked like originally), nearly anything can be done with it... I'll think on it and play with it 'til I find something I might like better.... but you're right, it needs tweaking of some kind, I'm just not sure "what" (kind). I can balance for the grays (making the sky into richer blue clouds), but then I lose the near-sunset yellow highlights in the water, which I feel gives it its realism. Too much contrast and I lose the feeling of the cold overcast evening weather. It's an odd balancing act. Maybe I should just leave it alone? :-) The others with luminosity (gamma problems) might (or should) wait until I get a better monitor perhaps. Which could be years away with my financial limits. :-) Thanks again for your input. Comments like yours have proven to be a valuable learning experience for me. |
#3
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Request: A Brutally Honest Critique in Exchange for Viewing My Photos
On Thu, 24 Jun 2004 08:33:33 -0500, "No Pork Byproducts"
wrote: Is your site down? No, I just checked it, the index page re-loaded fine (I erase my cache to double-check things like this). It could be they have some bandwidth limits in place that I don't know about. I've no idea how much traffic it might be getting after posting it publicly here. Someone else this morning in a chat room reported not being able to access it too, but it loaded fine from my end at that time too. Might be a net-glitch too. |
#4
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Request: A Brutally Honest Critique in Exchange for Viewing My Photos
"Keoeeit" wrote in message ... I think I brought out enough detail back into the "longtailedskipper" photo. And I cropped out some of the black silhouette around "sunfire", but not all. I think it looks a little better. Excellent work on the longtailedskipper! I hope to learn how to do that with PS. I would come in a little bit more on the right of sunfire to remove the uneven angle of the tree. Otherwise it looks great! I reverted "buffalovista" to the original photo, without that drastic multiplier trick to the sky. Now the eye is not fooled into expecting more from the scenery and to give it back the original melancholic subdued feeling as intended (my take on it anyway). I may reconsider this in the future though. It might still be a little too dark or low contrast/saturation (it's so difficult to judge that on this monitor). The problem that changing the sky caused in this one (to the more intense colorful edited version) reinforces my belief that just because you *can* do something with digital editing, doesn't mean you should. And also reinforced my apprehensions to just leave them alone more times than not. I think it looks better with the original sky, too. I'm still not too sure what to do with "pelicanframes", as any of the utilities that I've played with to adjust for contrast or color balance changes the feeling and mood of the photo drastically. With it being a natural duo-tone to begin with (what you see now is what it looked like originally), nearly anything can be done with it... I'll think on it and play with it 'til I find something I might like better.... but you're right, it needs tweaking of some kind, I'm just not sure "what" (kind). I can balance for the grays (making the sky into richer blue clouds), but then I lose the near-sunset yellow highlights in the water, which I feel gives it its realism. Too much contrast and I lose the feeling of the cold overcast evening weather. It's an odd balancing act. Maybe I should just leave it alone? :-) This is a tough call. . . you might be right and just leave it be. Either that or do an Andy Warhol kind of thing!!! LOL |
#5
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Request: A Brutally Honest Critique in Exchange for Viewing My Photos
On Thu, 24 Jun 2004 10:33:50 -0500, "No Pork Byproducts"
wrote: I would come in a little bit more on the right of sunfire to remove the uneven angle of the tree. Otherwise it looks great! Good spotting. I didn't want to lose the trunk of that tree because it helped to frame and accent the circular pattern of the sun and smoke. I just now used a perspective-correction tool (in PSP 8) to make that tree-trunk vertical, instead of having to lose it altogether. (Which inadvertently exaggerated (elongated) the rayed-light/shadows in the smoke, causing even more lead-in to the sun. A surprising unexpected plus.) I kept the left side cropped to the center of the large vertical tree trunk because I liked the way it seamlessly allowed the photo to go from image and natural patterns to solid-black edge/border (as well as those branches again mirroring/framing the circular smoke patterns). I argued with myself on where to crop the top, and almost cut off the bit of smoke that bled off the top (just above the bright puff near the top left-center), to make the image more self-contained and more circularly symmetric -- but then reconsidered and wanted to leave that slight superfluous bit, to suggest what was really there, much more smoke and haze above it in the sky. To lead the viewer off the image to let the mind's-eye visualize the "much more". Giving the mind even more to subconsciously process. (Isn't it strange -- how when doing these things, how much goes on over such minor changes being made? I usually do this in the camera in a split-second, never considering nor realizing all the multitudes of thought-processes taking place in the blink of an eye. Re-editing some of these has been an interesting slowed-down investigation of that process.) |
#6
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Request: A Brutally Honest Critique in Exchange for Viewing My Photos
"Keoeeit" wrote in message ... On Thu, 24 Jun 2004 10:33:50 -0500, "No Pork Byproducts" wrote: I would come in a little bit more on the right of sunfire to remove the uneven angle of the tree. Otherwise it looks great! Good spotting. I didn't want to lose the trunk of that tree because it helped to frame and accent the circular pattern of the sun and smoke. I just now used a perspective-correction tool (in PSP 8) to make that tree-trunk vertical, instead of having to lose it altogether. (Which inadvertently exaggerated (elongated) the rayed-light/shadows in the smoke, causing even more lead-in to the sun. A surprising unexpected plus.) I kept the left side cropped to the center of the large vertical tree trunk because I liked the way it seamlessly allowed the photo to go from image and natural patterns to solid-black edge/border (as well as those branches again mirroring/framing the circular smoke patterns). I argued with myself on where to crop the top, and almost cut off the bit of smoke that bled off the top (just above the bright puff near the top left-center), to make the image more self-contained and more circularly symmetric -- but then reconsidered and wanted to leave that slight superfluous bit, to suggest what was really there, much more smoke and haze above it in the sky. To lead the viewer off the image to let the mind's-eye visualize the "much more". Giving the mind even more to subconsciously process. (Isn't it strange -- how when doing these things, how much goes on over such minor changes being made? I usually do this in the camera in a split-second, never considering nor realizing all the multitudes of thought-processes taking place in the blink of an eye. Re-editing some of these has been an interesting slowed-down investigation of that process.) That is perfect. I like the unexpected change to the shadows. Really, really nice. I picked up Scott Kelby's "Photoshop CS Book for Digital Photgraphers" yesterday and seeing your results is making me drool. I may have to go to Seoul next month for a couple of weeks and I'll sure be bring the camera and this book with me. (I was stationed in S. Korea 19 years ago and am hoping I get the assignment. One of the most scenic places I've ever been!) |
#7
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Request: A Brutally Honest Critique in Exchange for Viewing My Photos
On Thu, 24 Jun 2004 14:10:32 -0500, "No Pork Byproducts"
wrote: That is perfect. I like the unexpected change to the shadows. Really, really nice. Thanks, but wouldn't have thought to reconsider any of that had I not had your feed-back. (So many other photos I had to weed through in the last couple months, 5500+ photos from a 9-month, 23-state, kayaking/camping trek, some of which are in that art-gallery collection now. (Putting up this collection for a critique was an after-thought from doing those.) Spending this much time on any single one of them was not in the cards, but is paying off handsomely in learning. If you are curious or bored, I have the trek-gallery up online at http://www.intergate.com/~keoeeit/trek.html that I haphazardly threw together, for all the people I met along the way that wanted to see the adventure. Please don't critique those though, as most were posted as-is right from the camera. I have my hands full just from the suggestions you made so far. :-) Considering the intended audience I chose more travelogue/post-card type photos for that gallery than what I considered as more creative use of film (urgh... I mean photography, not film, I switched to digital for that trek). But there's still a few goodies there that you might enjoy that I didn't port over to the "for critiquing" art-gallery page. I had fun assembling some panoramas for that trek collection too, another side of the digital coin that's fun to explore and play with. I'm only just beginning...) I picked up Scott Kelby's "Photoshop CS Book for Digital Photgraphers" yesterday and seeing your results is making me drool. I may have to go to Seoul next month for a couple of weeks and I'll sure be bring the camera and this book with me. (I was stationed in S. Korea 19 years ago and am hoping I get the assignment. One of the most scenic places I've ever been!) A pleasant and safe travels to you! I hope you get to enjoy as much in this process as I have and have been doing. It's never too late to learn and try new things, as I'm doing that all the time. I think you'll get much more out of just playing with a good digital-darkroom collection of software than any old book though. (It might be good advice however, I've never read it.) Your comments already show me that you know what needs to be done. You just have to play with the software now to see how to do it. Sometimes the best ways are the ways you discover on your own -- surpassing anything that anyone's ever done or thought of before. (...reflected in one of my more favorite quotes, "Innovators and creative geniuses cannot be reared in schools. They are precisely the men who defy what the school has taught them." - Ludwig von Mises) Thanks again, very much, for all your input and time. It has been most helpful, and appreciated. |
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