ocean edge

[tegan]

Not all shots work. The light at dawn can and does change very quickly. The water is soft here because of the necessary slow shutter speed but what I found rather interesting was the straight edge of the water at the shoreline, which I never would have predicted. You will notice also that straight lines are not as visually attractive as curves.

By the way, this is as shot with no post processing whatsoever, and the colours matched what I was seeing.

Tegan

http://i207.photobucket.com/albums/bb176/ocophoto/straightedge.jpg

[Marko]

I really like the sky and water here tegan but I'm not sure about that blackish waterline. Because it is so dark it contrasts quite a bit with the sky and is competing for my attention... and when I look at it there is very little to see in all that black.

You are 100% correct though, in the rock paper scissors of lines and curves, curves win everytime.

Just curious do you also have a shot of just the sky and water without the shoreline?

[tegan]

Well, Marko, here is the one with the curves and the curves are the centre of interest.

Tegan

http://i207.photobucket.com/albums/bb176/ocophoto/wateredge_sunrise.jpg

[Marko]

See, curves win.:)

Overall this shot is superior to the last one in my opinion though I like the sky and clouds better in shot 1.
In this shot the shoreline is 'interacting' with the water/sky instead of dividing them....if that makes any sense.
I would still try to get a bit more detail in the less intense(dark bluish) blacks though.

[cdanddvdpublisher]

the curves definitely work a lot better; both shots are pretty noisy though

[tegan]

See, curves win.:)

Overall this shot is superior to the last one in my opinion though I like the sky and clouds better in shot 1.
In this shot the shoreline is 'interacting' with the water/sky instead of dividing them....if that makes any sense.
I would still try to get a bit more detail in the less intense(dark bluish) blacks though.

Thanks Marko, I agree that the curves make this a better shot. The dark bluish blacks by the way are blue beach chairs which would be distracting I think, if I selectively improved the levels in that area. (The beach chairs are not in any organized set up either and I was too far away to go about readjusting them.)

Tegan

[tegan]

the curves definitely work a lot better; both shots are pretty noisy though

Thanks cd, you are right, but that is solvable, and I have not done any postprocessing yet.

Tegan

[tegan]

Well, Marko, here is what you suggested,..I think. What is your take on this version?

Tegan

http://i207.photobucket.com/albums/bb176/ocophoto/wateredge_sunrise_f2_e.jpg

[Travis]

I like the first shot better..... from my dell laptop the correction on the beach now appears posterized...

[tegan]

I like the first shot better..... from my dell laptop the correction on the beach now appears posterized...

I think you need a better quality monitor :) but I think I agree with you about the first shot.

Tegan

[Marko]

Whoa dude whoa!

This does not work for me at all...I think you might actually playing be playing with me here. Are you?

This was the phrase I used - " I would still try to get a bit more detail in the less intense(dark bluish) blacks though."

I wanted you to coax some of the detail out of the blacks by dodging, not give it some crazy L.A. plastic surgery.....

I think someone's yankin' my chain...:p




Well, Marko, here is what you suggested,..I think. What is your take on this version?

Tegan

http://i207.photobucket.com/albums/bb176/ocophoto/wateredge_sunrise_f2_e.jpg

[tegan]

From Marko:

Whoa dude whoa!

This does not work for me at all...I think you might actually playing be playing with me here. Are you?

This was the phrase I used - " I would still try to get a bit more detail in the less intense(dark bluish) blacks though."

I wanted you to coax some of the detail out of the blacks by dodging, not give it some crazy L.A. plastic surgery.....

I think someone's yankin' my chain...

:D, LOL, Photography is full of surprises. No L.A. plastic surgery at all. I just selected the dark area using the magic wand, brought up the exposure, and cloned out the beach chairs. The grass and other stuff on the beach as well as differences in colour are typical and realistic.

Feel totally free to demonstrate your concept of bringing a little more detail out of the blacks by editing my work.

Tegan

[kiley9806]

the beach actually shows up really weird on my pc too. very noticably altered, kind of like the posterizing effect. it doesnt look like sand anyway.

on the 1st shot, if maybe you can 'clean' up the dark beach - clone out that lawn chair & smooth some of the other clutter - it would be much better.

[Marko]

I meant something like this which took me less than 60 seconds (so it's not perfect of course - but illustrates the point)





Feel totally free to demonstrate your concept of bringing a little more detail out of the blacks by editing my work.

Tegan

[Marko]

version 2 - this one is dodged quite a bit more (again - very quickly)

[tegan]

I like the first shot better..... from my dell laptop the correction on the beach now appears posterized...

I discovered that the posterization is due to the file size compression. A 78K file is definitely too small to handle the subtle blend of colours in various areas of this particular photo particularly given the size of the original.

Since many LCD monitors handle fewer colours than my CRT, it shows up on some/all of your monitors, but not on mine.

Tegan

[tegan]

version 2 - this one is dodged quite a bit more (again - very quickly)

The foreground then becomes distracting. It seems to me it would be better with one person sitting on one beach chair or no beach chairs at all, either through cloning or darkening. What is your view?

Perhaps I should have set my camera on a timer and ran full tilt to get on the beach chair. :D ..mmm I guess I wasn't thinking fast enough at 5:00 am in the morning.

Thanks for your effort.

Tegan

[Marko]

The foreground then becomes distracting. It seems to me it would be better with one person sitting on one beach chair or no beach chairs at all, either through cloning or darkening. What is your view?

For me the chairs are a distraction and I would clone them out or darken them. If you really wanted to play and were adventurous, the chairs do match some of the tones in the water and sky. It might be fun if the chairs themselves were the focal point. This could be done by duplicating some of the chairs and lightening them. Just a thought...

thx
m

[AcadieLibre]

Why are your foregrounds look so soft and your photos seem to have a lot of noise to them. Your shorelines also look odd, not sure what is wrong they just look like something is not right? On the first photo why did you leave those lawn chairs in the shot? Could you not walk over and move them, they really add to the softness/fuzziness of the photos and for a small piece of land they just should not be in the shot. The second one looks underexposed and not sure what the final look you were going for in the edit but it looks really odd and very blotchy. The lawn chairs should just not be in either photo.

What was your aperture and what were the shutter speeds? Also did you use a tripod? If you were going for the curves what was the thinking about with the angles of your shots? What made you decide to shoot from those angles, just curious, not what I would have thought until I read the thread, the curves just really don't seem to be the focus of either shot. The first one your sky line looks at a third then you have that small piece of land with clutter, not really sure what the focus point of the photo is supposed to be? Why if no one was sitting in the chairs why you didn't take a few minutes to move them?

[Travis]

Why are your foregrounds look so soft and your photos seem to have a lot of noise to them. Your shorelines also look odd, not sure what is wrong they just look like something is not right? On the first photo why did you leave those lawn chairs in the shot? Could you not walk over and move them, they really add to the softness/fuzziness of the photos and for a small piece of land they just should not be in the shot. The second one looks underexposed and not sure what the final look you were going for in the edit but it looks really odd and very blotchy. The lawn chairs should just not be in either photo.

What was your aperture and what were the shutter speeds? Also did you use a tripod? If you were going for the curves what was the thinking about with the angles of your shots? What made you decide to shoot from those angles, just curious, not what I would have thought until I read the thread, the curves just really don't seem to be the focus of either shot. The first one your sky line looks at a third then you have that small piece of land with clutter, not really sure what the focus point of the photo is supposed to be? Why if no one was sitting in the chairs why you didn't take a few minutes to move them?

lol.... judging from the first few words of the op's post "not all shots work" I think Tegan was posting this as failure with an interesting aspect.... maybe it's home is Show Photo to avoid confusion....

[tegan]

It seems that I need to repeat myself, but any blotchyness is due to the small file size of 76K, due to compression. The colours blend very well in the original multimegabyte file, 300 pixels per inch at 14 inches by 9 inches.

You should also be aware that water is often shot at slow shutterspeeds in nature and scenic shots rendering it soft, as it is here. At 5:00 am in the morning, at 450mm at 5 seconds, you do not get sharp edges to the water. :p. On a boardwalk, over a swamp, with the light changing very quickly, moving the beach chairs is also just NOT an option either. They are too far away. :D

To repeat myself even further, noise can easily be processed out as well, so that is not a major problem either.

Although not perfect, this is an example of a common style, acceptable to many publishers. I will have no problem with publishing this photo.