Blasted

Another from the West Highlands of Scotland. All comments

appreciated.

You know how to catch the beauty. I like your wide focals and that DOF.I am working some images of Scotalnd I took last summer; I hope you like them. .Best regards Simon and congratulations. I am waiting for the next. Eugenio.

Independent of the fantastic scenery you obviously cought the best light of the day. Technically immaculate - top presentation. Compliments, El

That is making art with a camera.Congratulation.

Another great work, congrats Simon.

Preciosa . Un saludo

That is a beautiful picture. sharp, well lit, and nicely laid out. Very rugged terrain.

 

Too beautiful for me! Simon, if you don't understand how can something be too beautiful for somebody - make a trip to my portfolio, ha!

 

PDE

Hello Simon

 

You know that I really enjoy your photos. You've got a very good eye for compositions but I need to be honest with you on this one.

 

First of all your composition looks a bit too crowded to my taste. There are so much compositional elements within the scene that it's a bit overwhelming. To make matters worse the technical side is not the best either. Deep shadows are completely washed out (which is especially visible on that big foreground rock).

 

The positive thing is the beautiful light that one can find in many shots of yours. Hope you don?t mind my critique here and keep on posting

 

Cheers, Piotr

Simon. I somewhat concur with Piotr about the shadows going flat. Kind of has a milky appearance. It would be helpful to offer a suggestion, however. Finding minor flaws in photographs is easy because most photos have them, even particularly good ones. So what to do? I would suggest adding a slight amount of contrast locally to the shaded areas. There is good contrast in other areas, so a global adjustment would create other problems. I think a midtone contrast adjustment would also help. I use unsharp mask to bring this out. Simply apply unsharp mask to a duplicate layer with a blend mode of luminosity. Make sure the setting for amount is low, somewhere between 15 and 25. Then crank the radius to about 30. Leave threshold at zero. This will give the appearance of sharpening, but essentially is providing additional contrast without forcing the whites or blacks to clip. I recommend viewing the results at 100% or actual pixels to see the effect. Its also a great way to sharpen without adding grain or noise. Cheers!

Thanks for the Comments everyone.

Thanks for the help Mark. I just tried this out and as ever it looks like a great technique which could be used in many situations. You should write a book!

This image is a blend of three exposures, I did a slightly lighter one in that area for P.Net because I feel shadows can often look very heavy in small sizes. I may have overdone it for some tastes but I have about two stops of shadow to play with on the bottom layer. Simon

Excellent composure and depth. Thanks

Simon another beautiful photo. I like it very much.

Congratulations for the picture of the week. You deserve it a long time ago.

Very nice shot Simon, you know your camera well, congrats

Overall VERY good. There is a lot to look at here but composition works well. You sure had a clear day as there is no haze at all in distant peaks. I agree with the contrast being slightly flat in the shadows of FG. Very good none the less.

Awesome composition Simon.......Congratulations.

this is excellent - great interest throughout. i do find myself wishing that the tree wasn't there, though - i find it a little distracting! the mid-ground seems strangely soft as well - in contrast to the sharp FG and BG! Minor blips to an excellent photo

Perfect dof and colors

Stunning! Simon. Thanks for the info,I will try it out.Saw this scene on the cover of a book on landscape photography,not nearly as good as this,Hope to fit in a trip to the highlands before I kick the bucket,meanwhile I'll be happy looking at your work.Best regards

Classic work Simon,only fault i can find is that it isn`t mine!

Congratulations .Regards Dan .

7/6 - wonderful image. Great scene and expertly captured. It is one that I would hang on my wall anytime and as you see I have rated it highly. There is, IMHO, one possible area of improvement if I was taking this shot and it is the exposure for the right side of the foreground rock - a really minor thing on the grand scale of things. Could be my monitor. best regards,

Wonderful images, I like the busy composition, but yes the shadows are unnatural in the bottom. It has a yellow cast too. I'm not sure it's a good idea to post images in Adobe RGB as this one is.