Great post, Marc. Thanks for sharing your stunning photo and awesome back-story along with it.

Thanks Marc, you are right, it is too cyan. I looked back at the raw and it actually had a lil bit of cyan in it but somehow i had enhanced it. So I decided to take your advice and move the aqua slider to +65. It has a more natural look now and I am happy

Originally Posted by Marc Muench Great timing! Fun light! Good composition! The colors are wonderful, and give life to an otherwise normal city scape. I think the sky is too CYAN! Here is my suggested remedy done within Lightroom. If you dont have LR, this can be done with most color tools in most programs Cheers

Ladies and Gentleman,

I'm extremely pleased to announce the opening of Round Seven of Meunch University.

For those new members that are not familiar with Meunch U, this is a chance to have your photograph critiqued by Dgrin's Artist in Residence, Marc Meunch. Marc is a professional landscape photographer, educator, and guide. In addition to getting your photos critiqued by Marc, we can all see and learn from all of his critiques.

We have a new easier way to submit photos on this round. Please see the first post in this thread for a general introduction to Meunch U, and for the new updated procedures.

See you at the U!

-joel

Joel,

I dont see a gallery7?

Link here: Round Seven Gallery

I think this image is caught in the middle of becoming a graphic or a landscape!
This is interesting, but there are too many distractions which detract from graphical impact.

I like the crop, which keeps my eye focused on the footprints.
I like the side light.

The color balance appears to be a bit green or maybe just too much yellow. I would consider converting to black and white.

I believe cropping a vertical through the middle would help focus my eyes on the interesting relationship between the pattern of the footprints, ripples and small bush.



Did you shoot a vertical?

Marc,

Thank you very much for taking the time to critique my image!! I didn't see the green until you pointed it out. Now it just screams greeeeen!!!

I had a hard time with the green. It seems it was created by my processing and in the yellow and orange hue. Just de-saturating the green color did nothing for the tint.

I went a little nuts reworking this image and using your input as well as a more dramatic lighting, exposure adjustment came up with this..

I tend to view the world in landscape mode, so I don't have a lot of landscape images in portrait mode, but it does work with this one.

Again thanks!!

Sam

Sam,

Good work for sure!
The color is improved and the added density helps to add more mood.

I still think the top needs to be trimmed slightly. When I cropped your panorama, I wanted to place the small distant dune in the upper left corner in the very corner. The crop you made in your vertical version leaves a bit of other dune parts that add nothing but distracting detail.

Funny you mention that you see in horizontal, as that happens to many including myself. It is more difficult to find vertical compositions in landscape.

Cheers
Marc

Originally Posted by Marc Muench Sam, Good work for sure! The color is improved and the added density helps to add more mood. I still think the top needs to be trimmed slightly. When I cropped your panorama, I wanted to place the small distant dune in the upper left corner in the very corner. The crop you made in your vertical version leaves a bit of other dune parts that add nothing but distracting detail. Funny you mention that you see in horizontal, as that happens to many including myself. It is more difficult to find vertical compositions in landscape. Cheers Marc

Thanks again!! You have an incredible eye. I will give myself credit for seeing the scene, and you for guiding me to a better presentation.

Thanks!!

When I win the lottery I plan on going on an African photo shoot with you.

Sam

Happy to help out Sam!

Nice composition and potential mood!

There are several ways I think this could be improved.
First, the person is essential in the scene. Might you have another where the person is interacting with something, looking into the water?
If not, I will use this scene.

Second, the contrast of the reflection and deck is too much. Since you seem to be going for more depth by utilizing a vignette, I would make the center of the image less contrasty. The only way to do this is by utilizing masks in either Photoshop or brushes in Lightroom or Aperture.

The overall color cast is fine, nice and warm, but the saturation is too high causing some details to block up. Once again, to improve this it would help to work on saturation in regions rather than globally!

Do you have a RAW file of this scene or one with the person in different place?

I think this is the best composition of the three you posted.

In general all three images were taken in very contrasty light which was directly overhead. This makes it difficult to create mood, color and retain a viewers intrigue.
The question is, do you really like this light? or is this just the time you happened to be there?

I am amazed that so many landscapers first criticism of any scene taken in the mid day is just that. I believe there are many great opportunities during the high noon. However, you must be very precise with your composition!

In hopes of making this point I have cropped your image to isolate the stream leading to the small distant geyser.

In this light, the stream is colorful which could be lost during afternoon and morning hours!
There are several other post processing techniques to apply and make this even better. But, I hope to simply illustrate for now the importance of utilizing “composition” during the mid day hours.

Originally Posted by Marc Muench I think this is the best composition of the three you posted. In general all three images were taken in very contrasty light which was directly overhead. This makes it difficult to create mood, color and retain a viewers intrigue. The question is, do you really like this light? or is this just the time you happened to be there? I am amazed that so many landscapers first criticism of any scene taken in the mid day is just that. I believe there are many great opportunities during the high noon. However, you must be very precise with your composition! In hopes of making this point I have cropped your image to isolate the stream leading to the small distant geyser. In this light, the stream is colorful which could be lost during afternoon and morning hours! There are several other post processing techniques to apply and make this even better. But, I hope to simply illustrate for now the importance of utilizing “composition” during the mid day hours.

Hi Marc,

I very much appreciate you taking the time to offer your comments about this shot.

Addressing the lighting: I chose to shoot this scene in mid-afternoon light. I had been to this area ( Painters Pot ) previously....but at a later time in the day. Shots taken at that time lacked the " pop " I was looking for. As you note in your remarks, this stream just seemed to have a more colorful presence in strong lighting....so did some of the other hydro-thermal features present at that site. Incidentally, I noticed this same set of dynamics when shooting at the Mammoth Springs area: mid-day direct light seemed much better at bringing out the subtle color shades that exist. I was using a circular polarizer which helped in dealing with extraneous light bouncing all around. I do usually seek a softer light, but, in shooting many of Yellowstone's features, I just had better results in stronger, more direct light.

I think the crop you offered does result in a more concise presentation. I concur wholeheartedly with your comments about the value of good composition. I'm constantly trying to improve my work in that regard. It sure has an impact to hear someone of your stature drive that point home.

Thanks again for your critique. I value it highly.

Tom

This looks like an incredible moment!

I want to recommend three improvements, of which two are in the capture and one is in post processing.

First, the camera could be pointed a bit right in the hopes of containing more of the rainbow. Cropping into the distant buildings would not hurt.
Second, it looks like the swells are quite large. The extra "piece de resistance" would be if there were a crashing wave on the rocks below. This would require the rainbow to last long enough to capture though!

Regarding post processing, the sky should be darker. This will bring out the great rainbow colors as well as texture in the clouds.

I can show you how to do #3 in Lightroom if your interested?
I only wish I could fly to whereever this was taken and help you re-shoot

Originally Posted by Marc Muench I can show you how to do #3 in Lightroom if your interested?

There is much more to be done if the RAW file were available. However, here I have darkened the sky just past the water line to add texture to the clouds and some density to the rainbow. This also helps guide the viewers eye to the bow.
The crop was a bit off the top and left side.

Once again, if you have the RAW file let me know.

Hi! I just noticed that you had selected one of my images! Thanks! The island I was on is called Madeira, and the town is called Funchal, Portugal. It is a small speck of an island off the coast of Africa. It was our last stop on a month long cruise before crossing the Atlantic to head back to Fort Lauderdale.

When I was framing this image, I couldn't find the rainbow in my view finder or on my preview screen. So basically what your seeing here has been drastically enhanced in Bridge and in PSPX2. I have other versions I will post tomorrow when I get to my big computer where they are loaded, that I had done even more work on it with my my new PSPX4. Some awesome new filters.

The unfortunate is that during this trip, because I only have 7 gigs of cf cards, I could not shoot in RAW. I take way too many pictures. However, since I have learned paint shop pro first, I prefer (dare I say) it over my CS4. I just never could get a grasp of any of the Photo Shops. I did do a trial of lightroom and did not see the benefit in it over what I could do even easier with PSP. Also bridge is a pretty good little organizer.

Please don't hold that against me. I can duplicate pretty much anything you ask with psp. I use bridge as a quick pre edit for most of my portraits and anything where my levels were bad from the camera because I wasn't paying attention or it was a quick shot.

So until I get to my big computer tomorrow, I will leave the gallery that the rest of the Madeira shots are in. There are lots of rainbow shots as I saw this rainbow when we were on the tallest mountain road Madeira had and took a shot of it through the window of a moving bus! That one I will post here.

The gallery is HERE.

Ok, I have simulated the masks as your calling them, but darkening the upper layer and playing with midrange values as well as high and low contrasts.

Although I am close to what you have posted in your edit, I feel that I have lost the fluffy cloud quality of my clouds. I tried to smooth them out and removed the noise that was brought on by the higher contrast, but the tonal contrasts are to stark and make them look fake. Although the process has made the rainbow really stand up and take notice. Any suggestions?



Click on the image to see it in a larger format.

Originally Posted by JAG Although the process has made the rainbow really stand up and take notice. Any suggestions?

First, that is one outstanding location! I took a minute to browse your gallery and realize, I must go

There are many fish in the ocean, if PSP works it is perfect!

I would like to still get the sky darker!
Does Paint Shop Pro offer masking? If so, what I suggest is creating a mask of the sky only. Then, if there is a way to edit the edges of the mask, gradate the bottom edge from the top of the rainbow to the bottom. This will eliminate any hard edges where we might see the luminance differences between the future darker masked areas and the wrest of the image.
Photoshop is a very comprehensive software program with too many options. But, what it does very well is create and edit masks. I normally create an adjustment layer with a mask. This allows complete flexibility of not only editing the mask but the adjustment itself. If I make the sky too dark, I go back into the curve or sliders of that adjustment layer to update. As long as I have the layers I can update until the cows come home

It also appears you have added quite a bit of sharpening.
I would like to see this image with less sharpening.

BTW, the sky in this second version, appears to have better tonality, still too bright, but much better tonality than the previous.

Let me know if you can create the masks in PSP first and we can go from there.

Thanks Marc for your suggestions! Yes I can make masks and layers in PSP. Actually what I did on the revised image is I made two layers of the original. On layer one I went in and changed all the tonal ranges and contrasts. I selected the sky and rainbow area and darkened them considerably. Then ran a digital noise removal filter to tone down all the noise. Next on the top layer 2, it was the original image, all I did was fad it some to bring back some of the natural intensity of the image as it was shot.

I also did some cropping and removed some trash in the forground that I had not noticed in my other shot, as well as added a few more houses and took a few distracting dark trees out of the hillside in the distance.

Edit: Ok I have reworked and tried to do as you said Marc. Hows this?



actually, on my monitor, there is a very faint hint of a double rainbow further up following the first rainbow. But mainly I see the very slight green hue to it. I was surprized when I saw it after darkening the sky using a mask layer of the same image!