Critique Please -- Pigeon Point at dusk

[ian408]

http://ian408.smugmug.com/photos/23456861-M.jpg (http://ian408.smugmug.com/photos/newexif.mg?ImageID=23456861</a>)

[4labs]

Ian lovely shot I wish I could find something helpful to add but it works as is for me.

[rutt]

The sky and water colors are beautiful and the composition is very interesting. The lighthouse looks a tad off vertical to me and I find that a tad distracting. Maybe some sort of lens distortion? No matter, this isn't a huge problem.

I'd really really really like to see more shadow detail, especially around the lighthouse. This shot doesn't look as sharp as it might if you could somehow open this up. Have you tried shadow/highlight followed by some sort of contrast recovery move? Then sharpen to bring out detail in the houses and rocks?

With so little detail in the foreground elements, the viewer has to look at the shot as a silhouette. I think the shot works as such, but it could be more. As is, I took in the sky and water colors and composition in a few seconds and then was done with the shot.

Perhaps the right A+B curves in LAB could bring out the sky color even better. I wouldn't mess with the water, though...

[ian408]

Thank you John.

I'll try some of your suggestions this weekend.

Ian

[Nikolai]

http://ian408.smugmug.com/photos/23456861-S.jpg (http://ian408.smugmug.com/photos/newexif.mg?ImageID=23456861</a>)

I generally like this shot. I f I were in your shoes I'd probably try to take the very similar one.:-)

But since I didn't and we're trying to learn on our mistakes here - well, I have a couple points to comment on.:-)

First, I agree that this picture leaves an impression that the lighthouse is a "tad off" vertical. I decided to test that theory, downloaded this picture, opened it in PS and applied couple of rulers - one (H) on the horizon, one (V) on a center of the lighthouse. Both showed almost ideal match, maybe a pixel or two off. Maybe it has something to do with the lighthouse off-balancing the empty horizon and thus creating an impression that the whole thing is tilted clockwise.

Second - the telegraph/lamppost no the right of the LH creates a little distraction,

Third - and the most important for me: the top of the rock on the front left almost touches the horizon. I would really like to see it either crossing that line or being given some space between them (in which case there is a need to seek a higher ground).

The last but not least: which object is the main one - the light house or the rock? My attention is switching between them constantly, I can't tell what you were shooting.:dunno

As a general comment I would ask to post larger versions of the images here - "M" is hard to work with...

Thanks for a great material..!
Cheers!:1drink

[mercphoto]

http://ian408.smugmug.com/photos/23456861-M.jpg (http://ian408.smugmug.com/photos/newexif.mg?ImageID=23456861</a>)

I actually don't mind the lack of shadow detail. Sometimes not revealing something is more powerful than revealing it. Also looks more "natural" to me this way. Those rocks are backlit, after all. I would want to highlight the light house more, somehow. And the sky, seems to have some hidden color in it you might be able to extract, somehow.

[rutt]

Bill provoked me to show what I think can be done to improve this image by opening up the shadows.

Here is what I ended up with:

[IMG]http://rutt.smugmug.com/photos/25267037-L.jpg

Here is what I did:

1. Shadow/highlight to recover the shadow detail and deepen the colors in the sky.

http://rutt.smugmug.com/photos/25267183-S.jpg

You could sent the highlight amount to 0 to keep the sky a little paler.

2. LAB A+B steepening to increase sky saturation and bring up the green of the vegatation on the rock by the lighthouse.

http://rutt.smugmug.com/photos/25267163-S.jpghttp://rutt.smugmug.com/photos/25267168-S.jpg

Notice that the B curve has not been steepened on the blue side. I love the delicate color of the water and didn't want to change it.

3. Black curve steepening in CMYK.

http://rutt.smugmug.com/photos/25267177-S.jpg

I could have steepened the L curve in LAB, which is what I usually do, but in this particuar image I wanted to make sure to retain the shadow detail I just regained in step 1. Often steepening just the K curve can restore contrast, reestablishing true blacks, while retaining more shadow detail.

5. Back to LAB for sharpening. I used the advanced technique from my tutorial (http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=10409) I had to be careful with the USM values here because it would be easy to introduce noice in the shadow areas I just opened up and made more contrasty.

http://rutt.smugmug.com/photos/25267187-S.jpg

Then back to RGB to set the blending options for the lighten and darken halos. I keep the darken layer opacity at 100%, but the ligthen layer was about 1/2 of that:

http://rutt.smugmug.com/photos/25267173-S.jpg

I may have used too heavy a hand in a few places. Perhaps less A+B sharpening and a paler sky would have been better. Sharpening will work better with full rez. In fact all of it will work better starting with a 16 bit raw conversion with no clipping on either end. With full rez, the USM values will be pretty different, mostly a larger radius.

Anyway, what I did isn't perfect; a pretty quick job. But I wanted Ian to have the tools to make his own aesthetic decisions.

[wanderingeye]

Rutt,

I really like what you've done with this one, IMHO your opened up version is a considerable improvement, though pehaps just a bit overdone. Thanks for explaning your technique so clearly!


Ian,

Now I agree with Mercphoto about the rock and the horizon. I don't mind the dual elements of the shot, in fact I find the balance between them very nice, but I think it would really help if the rock broke the horizon.

[ian408]

I tried Rutt's suggestion and came up with similar results. Though I am
not happy with the way either came out. Opening up the shadows makes
the picture look unnaturally lit.

I do like the change in the sky color.

Thanks to all for your comments.

Ian

[Dee]

I would have moved so that the rocky formation and the lighthouse lined up a bit more (closer to each other) and made sure the rocky formation broke the horizon line.

With the photo as uploaded, I would have tried to lighten the water a bit (selection of the water required, unless some photoshop pro can explain how to do it) because often the water has a silvery blue color at that time of day, the rocks would look dark and there wouldn't be that much detail, but I would have perhaps tried to lighten the lighthouse a little (although it is in shadow) so it appeared lighter.

The sunset pretty much looks like that, with the fog bank almost blending into the water, perhaps a little lighter, maybe a touch more yellow to bring out the pink/orange tones -- just a little bit or a "de haze" unsharp mask values might punch it up a bit without making it look too punchy.

I think the main problem is one of composition. To me, the photo looks too static, not enough movement, and the lighthouse probably needs more air around it. (too far to the right)

So for what it's worth... :):

[Shay Stephens]

I like the photo, however, there is too much sky. Well, I should say, there is not enough visual interest in the sky to warrant all that space devoted to it, unless the empty space is supposed to symbolize something, but I don't see that. Visually, the shore is more interesting, so tilting the camera down would have given more space to show the shore while still maintaining the same feel to the photo.

Try it, hold something up against the sky above the lighthouse to block it out. To me, nothing changes except that the photo looks better, tighter, "more better" :wink

[ian408]

Thanks all for the comments. I do very much appreciate them.

I think the subject matter may require another visit to incorporate a few
of your suggestions. Perhaps on a day with nicer clouds?

Ian

[ginger_55]

I am impressed by Rutt's improvements. It probably helps that I don't know the area.

ginger