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DPChallenge Forums >> Individual Photograph Discussion >> First nature shoot with new lens please look/comnt
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Showing posts 1 - 11 of 11, (reverse)
AuthorThread
 06/18/2006 02:39:46 AM · #1
Here's a couple of photos from today's nature shoot. I hope you like them and comments are really wanted here. Thanks!

//www.loveyour.info/images/jf

EDIT: And I know the sky is blown in a couple but I was lazy and didn't shoot manual on some of them. Canon 300D likes to overexpose the sky a lot.

Message edited by author 2006-06-18 02:40:33.
 06/18/2006 02:42:45 AM · #2
I really like the horse shot, and the corn field. The other landscapes seem to need a bit more contrast. The last one, the toad, is my favorite.
 06/18/2006 07:37:13 AM · #3
I think the black and white images are lacking in contrast. The sky is blown but there is not much you can do about that now. Next time try using a graduated neutral density filter to keep the sky from blowing out. About the toad picture, I can't say much because I only saw it for a fraction of a second and then had a small heart attack. I have a severe amphibian phobia. I am currently having a hard time dealing with the front page of this site because of the frog.

June

Message edited by author 2006-06-18 07:38:12.
 06/18/2006 07:45:47 AM · #4
josh, nice photos composition wise. i would love to see you bump up the contrast on the black adn whites. how did you convert these to b&w? maybe try another conversion method to help with teh flatness of the b&w. i think these could really pop if you work with the conversion a bit more. can't wait to see the edits if you choose to do so.
 06/18/2006 09:53:17 AM · #5
Originally posted by Chiqui:
I think the black and white images are lacking in contrast. The sky is blown but there is not much you can do about that now. Next time try using a graduated neutral density filter to keep the sky from blowing out. About the toad picture, I can't say much because I only saw it for a fraction of a second and then had a small heart attack. I have a severe amphibian phobia. I am currently having a hard time dealing with the front page of this site because of the frog.

June


Hey, I am real sorry June, next time I will have a warning.
 06/18/2006 09:57:49 AM · #6
Originally posted by irishempress:
josh, nice photos composition wise. i would love to see you bump up the contrast on the black adn whites. how did you convert these to b&w? maybe try another conversion method to help with teh flatness of the b&w. i think these could really pop if you work with the conversion a bit more. can't wait to see the edits if you choose to do so.


I desaturate using the hue/desaturation tool in GIMP. I think a lot of my problem is that I don't have a CRT monitor and I am doing all my editing on LCD monitors. Also, the Sigma lens at 300mm isn't too sharp and making things all hazy. I will try to work on that. I really wasnt to get a real smooth look like a lot of the b&w nature photography that's out there like Ansel Adams.

How would I go about making these images look better? Just bumping up the contrast bar? I will try it out.
 06/18/2006 10:25:10 AM · #7
Post up the original on the horses, in color, and let me see what's possible in B/W ok? I like the horse shot :-)

Attaining an ansel-like conversion is not easy...

R.
 06/18/2006 10:59:56 AM · #8
Thanks bear! I converted it from raw to jpg, if you wanted the RAW image, its CRW I can do that too

//www.loveyour.info/images/jf/CRW_2588.jpg

PS: It was taken at 300mm on the Sigma 70-300 dg APO and some people say that's unusable. You might have to throw in some USM. But, thanks a lot Bear, have at it! I am wanting to learn.,

EDIT: I went ahead and uploaded the CRW RAW cause I saw that you use CANON too so I think you might want this file rather than the JPG

//www.loveyour.info/images/jf/CRW_2588.CRW

Message edited by author 2006-06-18 11:05:32.
 06/18/2006 12:01:51 PM · #9
How's this? Green channel conversion, contrast masking to enhance contrast, gradient in foreground, levels, hue/sat to for a warmer tone.



Robt.
 06/18/2006 04:14:50 PM · #10
Hey Bear, that looks great. Too bad I didn't process it! What do you mean by "green channel conversion" and "contrast masking"? and "gradient in the forground?" Sorry, I don't know the terms, but if you explained it I would be greatly appreciative!!
 06/19/2006 11:41:53 AM · #11
Originally posted by jfriesen:
Hey Bear, that looks great. Too bad I didn't process it! What do you mean by "green channel conversion" and "contrast masking"? and "gradient in the forground?" Sorry, I don't know the terms, but if you explained it I would be greatly appreciative!!


The B/W conversion was made using channel mixer and choosing primarily the green channel for the output data. Working in RGB mode, we can use the luminance values from the Red, the Green, or the Blue channels, or any mix of same, to make our B/W. When you use grayscale conversion, it uses equal amounts of all 3. When you use one of the color channels for most of your data, you greatly affect the tones that are rendered. For example, if you shoot a landscape with a blue sky, and use the red channel to convert, the sky will go very dark; there's almost no red light in the sky. If you do the conversion on that same shot off blue channel, the sky will be very bright because it's basically all blue. By mixing the percentages of red, green, and blue you use, you are essentially emulating the use of colored filters in B/W photography. If you're familiar with using red, orange, yellow, green filters in B/W to change the contrast of the scene on B/W film, then you have a head start on this.

"Contrast masking" is described in detail in the Landscape Learning Thread; you'll have to dig back a ways to find it. It involves using cntrl, alt, and tilde keys to generate a feathered highlights mask, then the generation of a new layer using that mask, and changing the layer blending mode to (usually) multiply or screen; the one darkens the highlight areas, the other lightens them. Then you make a second highlights selection from BG and invert it (that becomes your shadows selection) and make a new masking layer from that, and change the blending mode on that layer as well. End result: you can dramatically alter the relationships between highlights and dark areas in the image, and you can play with it by changing layer blending modes and layer opacity until it looks good.

The "gradient" referred to is a sophisticated way of burning in large areas of the image. If you click on the foreground color picker (in photoshop) and then move the cursor over the image, it becomes an eyedropper. You use that to pick up one of the darker tones that you want to use for your gradient, in this case one of the dark tones from the trees in the BG. Then you use cntrl-shift-N to make a new, transparent layer. Set the layer blending mode to "multiply". Select the gradient tool from the tools palette, then in the tools parameters at top left on your screen click the flyout arrow to see a selection of gradient types; choose "foreground to transparent" as your gradient.

Now, with the gradient tool selected, start at the bottom of the image and draw a line straight up to the top of the horses and release; a gradient will flow in that is darker at the bottom and fading to transparent at the end. Finally, you can adjust layer opacity to get the gradient just right; in this case, gradient layer opacity was about 30% I think.

Hope this helps.

R.
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