I think this forum is great!

[Mike Lane]

Okay so here we go, my first photo up for critique...

http://www.mikelanephotography.com/photos/23530701-L.jpg (http://www.mikelanephotography.com/photos/newexif.mg?ImageID=23530701)


This was taken in Oregon and converted to b&w using the channel mixer with an aggressive negative blue value. Will post the color version for comparison if you'd like.

[Khaos]

Ah, one I can do from work. Smug Mug is blocked here, so I can't see many pics. Thanks to cname I can see yours.

I like the sky and those little clouds. Mountain pics can be tricky to do where you don't get stuck with, hmm, yeah, another mountain. Bringing the sky into it like you did is good.

The foreground should be eliminated. If I scroll it out of view it looks better.

I would of gone down -0.67 at least on the exposure. The snow is too exposed.

I would of desaturated in raw, if it wasn't taken in raw then desat in PS, I then would of used Shadow highlight to bring out the cloud texture a little and also help with the blown out snow areas. Again, a lower exposure bias setting could of helped. Then I would of used curves to get the best contrast.

The trees almost look blurred to me, so I'm not sure if your B&W conversion did that or if they really didn't get in focus. Did you use a tripod?

For as far away as this shot was, I may have considered going to an even smaller aperture, possibly f/22.

Overall I like the comp if the foreground part is eliminated, but the snow is overexposed and the overall focus seems off. Next time I would drop the exposure down a few clicks and use a smaller aperture.

[Khaos]

I just thought of something.


I should probably wait until I get home to do these. My 22" flat screen Sony will better show these things than this old curved screen 17" Dell.:wxwax

[mercphoto]

The foreground should be eliminated. If I scroll it out of view it looks better.

No, but something should be done with it to separate it from the mountains more. With the foreground present you are developing layers in the photo. Foreground, mountains, sky. But the foreground doesn't appear spatially distant from the mountains the way it should be.

I don't know how to improve upon that, but that is what I would aim to do.

The sky is great. Nice gradient, crisp clouds.

[a later edit...] Just after I posted this I realized... the layering... that is what this photo needs. The foreground, and then there is not one layer of mountains but several layers of mountains. Problem is, the image appears too flat.

Find a way to give the impression of depth and this photo will take a big step forward. How does one do this?

[rutt]

Yes, please post the color version. This is a very dramatic view and the picture should be more interesting. Maybe the B&W is just losing too much of the drama? Ansel Adams did these B&W mountainscapes so well that you have to have something very special to add. Else, you end up just going head to head with him and you lose.

http://rutt.smugmug.com/photos/25269313-M.jpg

[Mike Lane]

No, but something should be done with it to separate it from the mountains more. With the foreground present you are developing layers in the photo. Foreground, mountains, sky. But the foreground doesn't appear spatially distant from the mountains the way it should be.

I don't know how to improve upon that, but that is what I would aim to do.

The sky is great. Nice gradient, crisp clouds.

[a later edit...] Just after I posted this I realized... the layering... that is what this photo needs. The foreground, and then there is not one layer of mountains but several layers of mountains. Problem is, the image appears too flat.

Find a way to give the impression of depth and this photo will take a big step forward. How does one do this?
I deliberately kept the foreground in the shot (I could have gone up to the edge of the foreground that you see and gotten all mountain). However the shot is a bit flat now that I look at it. I think taking the shot when the sun was lower in the sky would have helped immensely. Alas, that was not in the cards since the gondola stops running at 1700 and I'll be snookered if I'm going to climb the mountain I was on.

Anywho, I agree with Khaos about the exposure and the trees being blurred. I used a Scott Kelby method of getting the shot to this high contrasty black and white, namely aggressive negative blue and high red and green in the channel mixer. I in fact used Kelby's method (-200blue, 160red, and 140green) and found that it really did odd things to the foreground and the trees. This was the best compromise that I found. I think that a lower exposure setting would have been a great first step in making this photo better (because of the snow).

[Mike Lane]

The color version is attached. Of note is that I did not have this in jpg format so I did a cursory raw conversion and curves. The colors may not be exactly like the would if I had spent more time on it. I did not take the time to remove the obvious dust spots with the healing brush so please ignore those. I did a save for web and used 60 as the quality so that may affect what you see as well.

[rutt]

Try following the instructions here: http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=9805 Maybe you can recover some of those blown highlights.

[Mike Lane]

Try following the instructions here: http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=9805 Maybe you can recover some of those blown highlights. Maybe a quick shadow/highlight instead?

It may not have been enough, but some detail was recovered. I could use the exposure in raw to get some of it back too I suppose.

Anyhow, I gather that color is better than b&w?

[rutt]

I almost always think that color is a more interesting challenge than B&W, but that's the point. Before you convert to B&W, fix the color. In this case, recover the details using all the tools you can find in color. Only then, do your conversion. If you do this, you might end up with enough quality to make a good B&W version interesting.

Look at the detail in the Adams image I posted. Look at the dynamic range he is getting in the sky, river, and mountains. He also has a fantastic composition, but without that great image quality, his shot would be far less dramatic and far less interesting.