[SI] Last 90 is posted and ready for viewing!

On 10/29/10 7:35 AM, in article ,
"Bowser" wrote:

On Tue, 26 Oct 2010 13:20:33 +1000, Troy Piggins
wrote:

* Bowser wrote :
A nice collection this month!

http://www.pbase.com/shootin/last90



1 Bowser:
You guys sure do have funny-looking cars over there I'm sure
if I tried taking a shot while riding I'd stack it, big time.

Nah, it's a pretty smooth road, just a lot of other bikers that day. I
took a bunch from the saddle that day with no issues. It was a super
ride around Boston.

Question: Do any roads lead OUT of Boston (besides the tollroad to
Logan?)???

Sorry for my late reply. I had to delete each of my last three attempts
due to my usual failure with diction, so I hope you will forgive this
terse response.

Tony Cooper:
All three are very amusing. Rustoleum is superb, the artistic effect
you added emphasizes the irony (appropriate word) of the product. Guy
with cigar is better than any Hamlet advert I've seen (and they were
good). The security protected watermelons makes me laugh every time I
think of it, which is often.

Alan Brown:
Great stuff. The lighting and colour rendition in 0029 are exemplary.
0079 and 0062 demonstrate, to me, that the "norm" of using all of the
256 levels available is not always appropriate. Initially, 0062 looked
underexposed (I measured -0.4 EV below clipping), but it is your
rendition of this scene that gives it much better mood than the "norm".

Bob Coe:
Perfect timing.

Martha Coe:
I like them, but I gave you all the praise last time so it's Bob's turn ;-)

Paul Furman:
Most enjoyable with bags of atmosphere!

Troy Piggins:
Obviously, I've never seen the baby so I can't tell if the skin tone is
correct, it looks wrong to me. Highlights and strong colours are
rendered exceptionally well, which is not easy to get right, and
suggest that the skin tone is possibly correct.

Bowser:
Loved them. "Cars Only" is a hoot. Your rendition of whites and colours
in 02 make a refreshing change. You've captured the car extraordinarily
well.

Bob Flint:
Many may say the main subject should be "sharp", whatever that really
means. Tell that to oil painter and come away without needing white
spirit as a face wash! Thanks for submitting them.

Tim Conway:
Great eye for composition and the exposure of the house is superb.

Savageduck:
Capturing shiny paint and metal is notoriously difficult: excellent.
The hammer marks on the locomotive drive arm tell something of it's
difficulty to fit: if all else fails, use a larger hammer.

Otter:
Three completely different subjects that each tell a storey. Inspiring.

Peter Newman:
The slow shutter worked very well. Although the dogfight is "not my
thing" I feel that this image shows your mastery of many aspects of
photography. I loved "Infra red pond" and would like to see more of
your IR work.

Walter Banks:
The first two are most interesting because I would not have a chance to
see them myself. Your sunrise has very similar exposure and colours to
one I took last year: I don't know why I didn't like my shot so it
would be unfair to comment on yours.



To those I have not mentioned:
Thank you very much indeed for posting your images. I have not only
enjoyed them, they have helped me along my pathway through life.

--
Pete

George Kerby wrote:

Nah, it's a pretty smooth road, just a lot of other bikers that day. I
took a bunch from the saddle that day with no issues. It was a super
ride around Boston.

Question: Do any roads lead OUT of Boston (besides the tollroad to
Logan?)???

Tollroad to Newton MA, Albany NY (90)

On 10-10-29 0:46 , Troy Piggins wrote:
* Noons wrote :
On Oct 29, 10:34 am, Troy wrote:

I've always applied sharpening at 100% view anyway, never at a
fit to screen scale. I've never noticed GIMP lacking in that
department. In fact, I prefer the results from GIMP's smart
sharpen plugins to PS's. Anywhooooo...

(pssst: for absolutely the best sharpening available, get Focus Magic:
it's not that expensive, works as a plug-in for GIMP, PS, Irfanview,
etcetc. Beats the heck out of any USM plug-in or similar technique.
Never looked back)
snip /

I never take shots that are out of focus or have unintentional
motion blur, so that plugin would be useless to me.

Isn't sharpening (capture, creative, and output) a different
beast to what Focus Magic is intended for?

I looked at focus magic and wondered when I would need it. I would need
it when I shoot OOF or too shallow DOF. I avoid that if I can.

On the few shots where I need to cheat, USM is enough. If it is more
OOF than I can cheat with USM, then the shot isn't worth it in the first
place.


--
gmail originated posts filtered due to spam.

On 10-10-28 19:34 , Troy Piggins wrote:
* Alan Browne wrote :
On 10-10-27 18:35 , Troy Piggins wrote:
[---=| Quote block shrinked by t-prot: 12 lines snipped |=---]
night under VMWware Fusion. I DL'd and installed The Gimp too. I could
not load my raw files (I would get only the thumbnail). I found that
very odd, because last time I ran the Gimp under Linux I _could_ read my
raw files. Probably some "middle ware" I've neglected to DL and add.
(The Gimp on my Mac under OS X does read my raw files).
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^

You know you can get native for Mac?

What part of "The Gimp on my Mac under OS X does read my raw files"
did you have trouble with? ;-).

Sorry, missed that.

IAC, editing with the Gimp is a painful process compared to PS (elements
or CSn). Even a basic task like unsharp mask is made painful.

I disagree. The most common complaint about GIMP is it's
interface isn't intuitive.

It's just as (un)intuitive as PS is for a first-time user. I had

Horsecrap. The USM on Gimp doesn't preview the entire image. That is
needed for fine tuning (w/o wasting ones life away) USM adjustments.

USM on PS as far back as I remember does instant preview of the whole
image while USM is being tuned. With a preview checkbox to allow quick
before/after comparison.

I've always applied sharpening at 100% view anyway, never at a
fit to screen scale.

Well, as I speak, I have Gimpy (2.6 on Mac and 2.6 on Linux) and PS CS3
running (yes at the same time on the same machine - 'cause I can).

The window in the GIMP USM dialog, of course, does show the preview
effect. But the rest of the whole image (at 100%) does not change at
all as it does in PS (with the "Preview" select on) as you adjust the
USM setting.

It is all and well to USM on one area of the image, but is always best
to see all areas of the image lest the "correct" USM in one area be far
too much for another area. In PS, if the image is too large too see all
of it you can still move the whole image around with the USM dialog open.

Gimp 2.6 (Latest per http://www.gimp.org/macintosh/ ).

Also have to say that for a given operation, the Gimp is dead slow
compared to PS.

never used PS and learned to process files on GIMP. Levels,
curves, masks etc. The whole bit. Then I got PS and took me
ages to find where the different commands were. Same if you go
the other way. Just need to persevere.

Saying comments like "GIMP sucks" is turning people away from a
fantastic, free, powerful alternative to PS that does pretty much
everything PS does.

Good. I'm doing my part for standardization on excellence. And no, the
Gimp has never been as close as 50% at any version to where PS was at
the same time.

I believe you've completely missed my point.

If you had never used PS before, and started learning on GIMP,
you would go a long way. Be able to learn layers, masks, curves,
levels, filters - all of the most powerful features of the best
image editors, all for free. I did it that way. No complaints
about the UI.

I could say in retort that it is much better to start with a standard
than to get tangled in the Gimp and not be conversant with what the
majority of photographers use, day in and day out.

Sorry for getting OT. Don't want to carry on about this.

Likewise. I just don't think that people get much for what they don't
pay for.


--
gmail originated posts filtered due to spam.

On 10-10-29 11:35 , Pete wrote:
Sorry for my late reply. I had to delete each of my last three attempts
due to my usual failure with diction, so I hope you will forgive this
terse response.

Tony Cooper:
All three are very amusing. Rustoleum is superb, the artistic effect you
added emphasizes the irony (appropriate word) of the product. Guy with
cigar is better than any Hamlet advert I've seen (and they were good).
The security protected watermelons makes me laugh every time I think of
it, which is often.

Alan Brown:
Great stuff. The lighting and colour rendition in 0029 are exemplary.
0079 and 0062 demonstrate, to me, that the "norm" of using all of the
256 levels available is not always appropriate. Initially, 0062 looked
underexposed (I measured -0.4 EV below clipping), but it is your
rendition of this scene that gives it much better mood than the "norm".

Thanks. However I don't think you should be measuring exposure as a
tool to evaluating an image. There is no rule that says an image has to
be printed (or displayed) to use the entire dynamic range technically
available (though recording close to peak is often desirable to allow
for more editing range after the fact).

The day was dull, as presented. Perhaps a polarizer could have been
used to enhance the green grass...

If you look at the histo for 29, it is clear there was some clipping at
recording time (right edge of each RBG channel falls abruptly) and that
there was little information at the low end of the dynamic range. This
is common in high key shots or shots like I took of a very pale scene -
you can't record what is not there. I really wanted to catch the pale
soft shadow of the sculpture - most critiques of this photo are negative
(here and elsewhere) as the shadow is so soft that many people don't
"get it".

--
gmail originated posts filtered due to spam.

On Fri, 29 Oct 2010 15:44:31 -0400, Alan Browne
wrote:


If you look at the histo for 29, it is clear there was some clipping at
recording time (right edge of each RBG channel falls abruptly) and that
there was little information at the low end of the dynamic range. This
is common in high key shots or shots like I took of a very pale scene -
you can't record what is not there. I really wanted to catch the pale
soft shadow of the sculpture - most critiques of this photo are negative
(here and elsewhere) as the shadow is so soft that many people don't
"get it".

I forget what my exact comments about 29 were, but I thought it was
one of the more interesting shots of the whole group. I didn't come
away with the impression that the shadow was too faint or just right
or anything else. I just took in the whole image and how the main
subject seemed to float in a supporting field.
--
Tony Cooper - Orlando, Florida

On 10-10-29 16:14 , tony cooper wrote:
On Fri, 29 Oct 2010 15:44:31 -0400, Alan Browne
wrote:


If you look at the histo for 29, it is clear there was some clipping at
recording time (right edge of each RBG channel falls abruptly) and that
there was little information at the low end of the dynamic range. This
is common in high key shots or shots like I took of a very pale scene -
you can't record what is not there. I really wanted to catch the pale
soft shadow of the sculpture - most critiques of this photo are negative
(here and elsewhere) as the shadow is so soft that many people don't
"get it".

I forget what my exact comments about 29 were, but I thought it was
one of the more interesting shots of the whole group. I didn't come
away with the impression that the shadow was too faint or just right
or anything else. I just took in the whole image and how the main
subject seemed to float in a supporting field.

Thanks.

On another forum it got disparaging remarks, and here I think Paul was
mildly enthused but didn't like the abundant white space.

The shot needs some editing in any case (remove the labels on the
pedestal and other 'noise'. I'm just too lazy.)

--
gmail originated posts filtered due to spam.

On 10/29/2010 02:35 PM, Alan Browne wrote:
On 10-10-29 16:14 , tony cooper wrote:
On Fri, 29 Oct 2010 15:44:31 -0400, Alan Browne
wrote:


If you look at the histo for 29, it is clear there was some clipping at
recording time (right edge of each RBG channel falls abruptly) and that
there was little information at the low end of the dynamic range. This
is common in high key shots or shots like I took of a very pale scene -
you can't record what is not there. I really wanted to catch the pale
soft shadow of the sculpture - most critiques of this photo are negative
(here and elsewhere) as the shadow is so soft that many people don't
"get it".

I forget what my exact comments about 29 were, but I thought it was
one of the more interesting shots of the whole group. I didn't come
away with the impression that the shadow was too faint or just right
or anything else. I just took in the whole image and how the main
subject seemed to float in a supporting field.

Thanks.

On another forum it got disparaging remarks, and here I think Paul was
mildly enthused but didn't like the abundant white space.

The shot needs some editing in any case (remove the labels on the
pedestal and other 'noise'. I'm just too lazy.)


I, too, wasn't too enthused about the white space but I think mostly
because I was interested in the sculpture (a shepherd?) and wanted more
of it. I hadn't even noticed the soft shadow on the wall. Going back an
looking at it again I think I appreciate better what you were after. It
is definitely an appealing photograph.

Russell

On 10/29/2010 11:35 AM, Pete wrote:
Sorry for my late reply. I had to delete each of my last three attempts
due to my usual failure with diction, so I hope you will forgive this
terse response.



Peter Newman:
The slow shutter worked very well. Although the dogfight is "not my
thing" I feel that this image shows your mastery of many aspects of
photography. I loved "Infra red pond" and would like to see more of your
IR work.

thank you.
Dogfight. I discarded about 20 images. I saved about 15 that have no use
except for possible future montaging. The only post processing on the
posted image was some levels adjustment and a bit of sharpening, using USM.

What you saw was the only shot that worked, out of about 60. NO, they
were of different subjects.

--
Peter