Wednesday Landscapes, 20 September 2017

[Leslie Reid]

You are invited to upload one or more of your landscape photos and, if you’d like, to accompany your image with some commentary: challenges you faced in making the image? your intent for the image? settings? post-processing decisions? why you did what you did? the place and time? or an aspect you’d like feedback on? And please feel free to ask questions of others who have posted images or to join the discussion. If you don’t feel like using words, that’s OK too—unaccompanied images (or unaccompanied words, for that matter) are also very much welcomed. As for the technicalities, the usual forum guidelines apply: files < 1 MB; image size <1000 px maximum dimension.

 

Note—we had a problem last week with one photo file being over the size limit, so it wasn’t visible to some. If you want your images visible to all, please remember to keep the file under 1 MB, and the image less than 1000 px in the maximum dimension.

 

Now, the image. This was what sunrise looked like last Wednesday, and it pretty much sums up the summer: on the left is mostly fog, on the right is mostly wildfire smoke. The raw file had mere hints of the colors that I’d actually seen, so I took one copy of the file into Photoshop to bring out the color with Lab-mode curves. I worked on the other copy in Lightroom, mostly as an experiment to see if I could get a similar effect there, and couldn’t. When I had the two versions side-by-side, though, I found I wanted more color and less contrast than the LR version, and less color and more contrast than the PS version. So I loaded both versions back into PS as layers and reduced the opacity of the top layer by 50% to average the two.

 

Michael Linder started an interesting thread a few days ago in Casual Conversations that asked whether there is a tendency to oversaturate colors in landscape images. I’d be very interested in your opinions on the topic and your approach to color in your images (and whether you think this image is oversaturated—I really can’t tell at this point because I’ve been working with it so much).

 

[Norman 202]

can't really comment on saturation in landscapes generally but your photo doesn't look oversaturated at all. not by a long shot.

[andy_szeto]

Leslie, the color of your photo looks pleasing and not over saturated. I just came back from Silk Road trip and one of the attractions was ZhangYe DanXia Geopark. It is known for the unusual colors of the rocks, which are the result of deposits of sandstone and other minerals that occurred over 24 million years. I did a Google search on that place before I went on the trip and I couldn't believe the color of those images were real. Not only I thought the colors were way over saturated, some colors were even fake (or maybe not fake; I just don't see how the rocks can be in green, blue or purple colors).

 

I was blessed with perfect weather when I visited the Geopark. It was sunny, low afternoon sun with blue sky. My camera was in neutral setting (as always) and a polarizer on the lens. First picture was normally exposed with minimal level adjustment using PS Elements 14. Just for fun. The second image was a HDR composite of the same picture but also two pictures with one stop over and under exposure. Then I use Corel AfterShot Pro to merge the three pictures. After that I use PS Elements 14 to "desaturate" some to make the colors acceptable to my taste.

 

 

 

Which one do you think people will like more?

[Glenn McCreery]

Andy - I definitely like the unsaturated version for the rocks. However, I like the saturated, but not overly saturated, blue sky in your lower version better.

 

Here is my contribution, which I took just yesterday near Swan Valley, Idaho. The landscape may look peaceful enough, but what is not apparent is that it just rained and the wind was blowing at least 25 mph. The storm clouds were fast approaching up the valley. Often the worst weather for comfort is the best for photography.

[jcosyn]

Clambering around the rocks in the small fishing village of Peggy's Cove, Nova Scotia, a couple weeks ago, I was really intrigued by this rotting carcass of an old long boat sitting on the rocks beside the harbor. I shot it in a number of ways, from many angles, and was very pleased with this particular effort. But I'm usually not the best judge of my own efforts, since the emotional aspect of the time spent working the scene tends to affect my feelings about the final image. So any comment is welcome, regarding the choice of subject, perspective, composition, exposure, post-processing, or whatever. Shot with a Nikon D7000, 28mm @ f/22, 1/100", ISO-500, in early morning light as the fog and mist over the cove were just lifting.

 

[jcosyn]

Leslie, I don't think there's anything amiss in the saturation. The pastels seem quite soft and easy on the eye, very appealing.

[bnelson]

First time on Wednesday Landscapes. This is a shot of a blood moon as it sets in the west. 150-600mm lens at 600mm grabs the atmospheric aberrations

[dcstep]

The main challenge here was waiting for the clouds to break to reveal this wonderful light that I knew was there, waiting to be unleashed:

 

Infinity View - Versaille Garden by David Stephens, on Flickr

 

Handheld with Canon 5D MkIV and Canon EF 14mm f/2.8L II. Hmm, looks like I should rotate it a bit CCW.

[dcstep]

[ATTACH=full]1210232[/ATTACH]

 

Which one do you think people will like more?

 

I much prefer the less saturated, first version; however, I suspect that the second one would sell more quickly in a gallery.

[Leslie Reid]

Which one do you think people will like more?

I'm with Glenn on liking the sky in the second and the hills in the first, and I really appreciate your posting both versions. That prompted me to post a poll over in Casual Conversations (here) to try to get a handle on what levels of saturation people find most attractive. I'm loving the concept of a Geopark, and you've conveyed it well as a very beautiful site.

[Leslie Reid]

early morning light as the fog and mist over the cove were just lifting

I like the photo a lot, Jerry. I think the colors work beautifully here—soft enough to convey the weather and mood, clean enough to tickle the eye. It’s also a very effective composition. The arc of the boat focuses my eye on the red building, but the colors in the boat keep me bouncing back to the boat, so the building doesn’t hijjack the scene. I particularly like your positioning of the boat’s reflection in the frame. There, too, the arc draws me to the center of the frame, and also draws attention to those beautifully detailed rocks. I think you’ve hit the sweet spot with the processing—light enough in the background to convey the feel of fog; contrasty enough in the foreground to give a lot of depth to the scene.

[Leslie Reid]

Hmm, looks like I should rotate it a bit CCW

Definitely a quandary, since the foreground looks horizontal. I wonder...is France tilting north here?

[bnelson]

dcstep: Hmm, looks like I should rotate it a bit CCW

 

Actually, it's the 14mm lens. Play with it in PS - Lens Correction Filter. You can do all sorts of tilting, rotating, etc.

[Ray House]

Late evening

 

[Robin Smith]

Andy's number 2 is quite ghastly. I think number 1 would be improved by more contrast, though. Edited September 21, 2017 by Robin Smith

[jcosyn]

I like the photo a lot, Jerry. I think the colors work beautifully here—soft enough to convey the weather and mood, clean enough to tickle the eye. It’s also a very effective composition. The arc of the boat focuses my eye on the red building, but the colors in the boat keep me bouncing back to the boat, so the building doesn’t hijjack the scene. I particularly like your positioning of the boat’s reflection in the frame. There, too, the arc draws me to the center of the frame, and also draws attention to those beautifully detailed rocks. I think you’ve hit the sweet spot with the processing—light enough in the background to convey the feel of fog; contrasty enough in the foreground to give a lot of depth to the scene.

Leslie, thank you so much for the very kind words. I wasn't sure whether a "dead" long boat was a good subject, but the I really found the scene compelling. It's very good to hear I'm not the only one who likes it!

[Wayne Melia]

[Sandy Vongries]

Urban - Nocturnal

[JDMvW]

(Μυκῆναι) Mikine- Ellas

[charles_stobbs3]

Dory?

[sjmurray]

I prefer pretty natural look with the saturation. Sometimes the sky needs a little more to bring out the blue and accentuate clouds, but if it is too saturated it looks unnatural and "photo-shopped" IMO. In this one of the Mississippi at dusk, I wanted to retain the feeling of the misty quality of the sunset in the distance.

[sjmurray]