Picture Of The Day

JoshK · « **Reply #440 on:** 25 Apr 2008, 02:00 am »

Quote from: ooheadsoo on 24 Apr 2008, 01:49 am

I'll be posting some pics from my Death Valley trip last weekend over the next few days. Advice on how to better them either in the composition or post processing would be appreciated. I have tons of trouble getting a nice sky. These were probably taken with a 2 stop ND graduated filter, which I did not find easy to use to GOOD effect at all. The toughest part was managing the graduated transition. Photoshop tips for improving the sky also appreciated.

Stovepipe Dunes Mudscape

Another one

Largest dune at Stovepipe Dunes

Mill at Skidoo, used for

Damn good eye... I don't think I could take pictures like that. Maybe my wife could...don't know, she won't learn the camera I got...but her prior work is fanscinating...

JoshK · « **Reply #441 on:** 25 Apr 2008, 02:01 am »

Never actually been to DV, been past it many many times (on way to Mammoth Mtn Ski Resort from SoCal)....didn't expect that. Makes me want to go.

ooheadsoo · « **Reply #442 on:** 25 Apr 2008, 05:43 am »

There's a lot of stuff in DV that are not photogenic but very impressive to the naked eye. These pictures don't begin to capture DV's essence. The last thing we did before leaving DV was take the Titus Canyon road, most of which is not particularly photogenic at all (at least, at my level of shooting/eye) but is an extremely impressive way to cap off your DV trip.

JB, that's a killer shot. Did you plan the location and everything? Being a casual shooter, by the time we got out to the dunes to start looking for good places, the kind of light I see in your picture was long gone. We slept in the car by the road to try to get there as early as possible, but after not arriving until 1am and then shooting some awful night pictures until about 3am, we were pretty beat. There were also footprints just about everywhere we looked.

jeffreybehr · « **Reply #443 on:** 25 Apr 2008, 06:07 am »

"JB, that's a killer shot. Did you plan the location and everything? Being a casual shooter, by the time we got out to the dunes to start looking for good places, the kind of light I see in your picture was long gone. We slept in the car by the road to try to get there as early as possible, but after not arriving until 1am and then shooting some awful night pictures until about 3am, we were pretty beat. There were also footprints just about everywhere we looked."

TYVM. We planned generally to be on the dunes before sunup, but that's all. That was my 1st (and last) trip there. Here's one called Dunes Arrowhead' from that morn...

...and one I call 'Trudging to Heaven'.

goldlizsts · « **Reply #444 on:** 25 Apr 2008, 12:14 pm »

Quote from: JoshK on 25 Apr 2008, 02:01 am

Never actually been to DV, been past it many many times (on way to Mammoth Mtn Ski Resort from SoCal)....didn't expect that. Makes me want to go.

Josh,

U.S. National Parks are the best vacation deal one can have. Your taxes hard at work, you'll be hard at having fun, and the sceneries will work hard at pleasing you. First class vacations all the way. You will not get such rewards on a cruise boat, etc......

nathanm · « **Reply #445 on:** 29 Apr 2008, 06:29 pm »

A rickety old swing bridge, made extra cozy with Lightroom.

ooheadsoo · « **Reply #446 on:** 30 Apr 2008, 07:14 am »

I love the fine details and textures in your pics, Nathan. What is the green fringing on some of the lumber? Weather treatment or some lens aberration?

I take it this was MF/LF?

nathanm · « **Reply #447 on:** 30 Apr 2008, 02:29 pm »

Thanks! The green is mold on the wood which was accentuated by color enhancements and sharpening. (Oversharpening? Well, maybe.

What looks crisp on my CRT at home usually ends up a bit too wiry on the Cinema Display.). It's a digital shot from my Fuji S9100. That shot I posted earlier of the waterfall is about the only halfway decent color film 4x5 I have. I might shoot more color large format if we ever get any spring weather around here.

ooheadsoo · « **Reply #448 on:** 2 May 2008, 11:25 pm »

Mind sharing your sharpening settings for that shot?

Rasta · « **Reply #449 on:** 3 May 2008, 01:44 am »

nathanm · « **Reply #450 on:** 4 May 2008, 12:58 am »

Sharpening depends on the type of photo, what you want to enhance in the photo and also how the image will be viewed (screen or print) A lower radius enhances fine surface detail and a larger radius enhances the coarser edges in the photo. Lightroom has a cool feature where holding down the Option key while moving the detail sliders will show you the mask it is generating. It's a subjective thing, you just have to experiment and see what looks good.

PeteG · « **Reply #451 on:** 4 May 2008, 06:12 pm »

Its spring! we are starting to get some nice weather.

ipy · « **Reply #452 on:** 7 May 2008, 10:47 pm »

Inspirational Happiness - Buthanese brother & sister which we met during a hike at Phobjikha Valley.

Rasta · « **Reply #453 on:** 9 May 2008, 02:43 am »

Great shot Ipy! Nice to see pure joy! I almost forgot what that is all about. I guess the role of art is to remind us.

Tubes 4 Ever · « **Reply #454 on:** 11 May 2008, 11:47 pm »

Well maybe not much of a picture of the day, but a thrift store find. Always wanted one, now I got one. Hope to put to use real soon.
Image Hosted by ImageShack.us

drphoto · « **Reply #455 on:** 12 May 2008, 01:10 am »

Regarding the color fringe issue. Sometimes this is caused by the channels getting missaligned (for some unknown reason) You can use the move tool and your arrow key to nudge the offending channel, often the green one, into place. Unfortunately sometimes this works for one side of the image, but makes the other worse. If the fringe really bugged me and I couldn't fix any other way, I'd just recolor it to match the adjoining surface w/ a brush in color mode.

Nathan offers good advice, in that it's always good to experiment w/ the settings of any filter to meet your needs. That being said, since most of my work is for print, I'm almost always building the images at 300ppi, my default unsharp mask is 1.5 radius, 100% and zero threshold. I use very little unsharp mask during the RAW conversion itself.

As the blue channel usually carries the most noise, you can experiment w/ applying different amounts of sharpening to the channels if noise is an issue. Beware of high levels of sharpening though as this can lead to the color fringe problem too.

If you really need to save an image w/ lots of sharpening but you get excessive noise in your smooth tone areas, just use the history brush trick and paint in the sharpening only on edges. (or create a copy layer that is sharpened, a layer mask and paint the edges)

SET Man · « **Reply #456 on:** 12 May 2008, 04:39 am »

Quote from: Tubes 4 Ever on 11 May 2008, 11:47 pm

Well maybe not much of a picture of the day, but a thrift store find. Always wanted one, now I got one. Hope to put to use real soon.

Hey!

Cool! That is a very neat camera.... a Half-frame type.

But I'm not sure if any mini-lab today with modern machines are set up for printing the smaller frame on 35mm film you get from this camera.

But have fun and keep us posted on this.

Take care,
Buddy

BobM · « **Reply #457 on:** 12 May 2008, 12:18 pm »

Here's a picture I took yesterday, Mothers Day at Fire Island Lighthouse on Long Island (unretouched).

Enjoy,
Bob

BobM · « **Reply #458 on:** 12 May 2008, 12:20 pm »

And a second one that I played with a little to make it look somewhat like a watercolor print.

Enjoy,
Bob

SET Man · « **Reply #459 on:** 17 May 2008, 12:31 am »

Hey!

Nice shot of the Lighthouse Bob/BobM

You know I've never been to Fire Island before but it sound like a good place to check out for New Yorkers.

Take care,
Buddy