St Andrews Parish Church, Somerset

[taffy]

I entered the attached photographs of a nearby church in a local competition. They are both single RAW images which have been tonemapped through Photomatix Pro and then desaturated in Elements 6. I then worked on the sky, building and foregrounds separately. Finally I put a very small hint of colour back into the image by increasing the saturation very slightly. Comments would be welcome. Many Thanks

[tomorrowstreasures]

I appreciate the mood that these are conveying. I prefer the right one. IMO- the left one has too many hot spots...

[tirediron]

Interesting effect; I like the way these work, but much prefer the bottom one (Close-up) as the headstones make a nice lead-in for the eye, and the other image seems just a bit too cluttered.

[Marko]

I like both images and the effect is interesting to me.

For me the first shot (with foliage on 3 sides) is the more interesting one though it needs a wee bit more work. I love the point of view in this shot (peering into a place from the bushes) I also really like the majority of tones here. The central part of the photo has an 'etching feel'.

For me some of the headstones are too white and could also use more sharpness. The sharpest elements in this shot seem to be the foliage. I would have done the reverse here - I would have focused on the headstones and let the foliage go soft. JMO.

I like shot 2 as well but there is a lack of sharpness throughout. I would like to have seen either the headstones or the front part of the church be really sharp.

I like the hint of colour in the foliage shot - I'm not sure it works in the other shot.

Hope that helps,

Marko

[AcadieLibre]

Very nice, I shoot lots of old churches and like what you have done to these.

[taffy]

Thanks for the comments.

Marko your specific comment re sharpness made me go back at look at my original editing work., The reason for the lack of sharpness seems to be my failure to sharpen the JPEG after I converted and resized it from the original PSD file in Elements before posting on the web. Having reviewed the original PSD file with the JPEG I posted, it has lost some of the detail. Repeating the conversion and resizing of the PSD file to a JPEG but this time sharpening it has restored the detail that was lost in the previous conversion. I hope that makes sense. A lesson learned.

Since I posted the photos, I found out that they won a second and first prize respectively in the competition I entered.

Cheers

Taffy

[mindforge]

I love the mood that these set with the desaturated colors.

If you wanted to do some more editing you could go so far as to remove the pole that juts up. To me, it kind of feels like a bad element in an otherwise great HDR.