sheep herd fence in Provence Alps

"And verily, where such trees stand beside one another, there areHappy Isles!

But one day will I take them up, and put each by itself alone:that it may learn lonesomeness and defiance and prudence."

-- F. Nietzsche

Looks like it was an hour or two before sunset!

Hello GD,thought I would make a few comments if you do not mind.I think your composition is sound and you have followed the rule of thirds well.I think if you shoot your images at either sunrise or sunset you will achieve better color balance with a much warmer feel overall.The blue cast is overpowering and could have been avoided by using a warming filter or shooting when the sun is lower...maybe a combination of both.Hope this is of some help...

Hi, thanks for your comments!

> if you shoot your images at either sunrise or sunset you will achieve better color balance with a much warmer feel overall.

photo was taken in winter just before dawn.

> The blue cast is overpowering and could have been avoided by using a warming filter or shooting when the sun is lower...

the blue cast was introduced by automatic saturation correction. maybe I should not have it,but it gave a warmer yellow and maybe the shadow on the mountain is blue.

> or shooting when the sun is lower...

in this location, to have the trees in the sun,this was the very last moment to shot them.

look how long the shades are on the mountains.they are still fully in the sun because these are almost 3000m high.

I'll upload the same photo without saturation correction and would appreciate your comment again. Thanks!

I add another image where I applied color cast removal.

and now color cast removed and sharpened

just replaced the original photo with the one of the last attachment above - maybe you'll need: view image/reload.

If you do not mind GD I am going to make some further comments and bear in mind that these are just my opinion and we are having some good interaction here.Shooting in high elevations will almost always produce the blue cast especially with filma such as Velvia,Using a warming filter such as an 81A is much more effective than some of the tools in PS.I cannot tell a big difference between any of the images that you uploaded as far as color cast goes and on further inspection maybe a 2 stop ND grad in conjunction with the warming filter would help balance out the exposure ranges.Notice how the tops of the mountains are washed out?An ND grad would solve this issue for you.It is my experiance in similar situations that unless you have really dramatic lighting conditions such as alpen glow images such as this tend to fall flat in contrast and color density.I am sure this image looked pretty good on the light table but remember raw scans will almost always require some work with levels and curves and possibly even selective color adjustments to bring back the pop.This is just the nature of digitizing images.Here GD,there is not enough drama in the lighting conditions to make this image outstanding probably no matter what filters or post processing was used...just not enough of good foundation to build on IMO.I think you have done pretty well here with what you had to work with but maybe next time this conversation will help you with your end product.Looking at your portfolio I see some cool images with great light so I do know that you understand where I am coming from.Keep shooting!!!

> I am going to make some further comments

you are welcome!

> Shooting in high elevations will almost always produce the blue cast especially with filma such as Velvia,

almost all my photos are shot in higher elevations. the cast you saw is slight reflectioneventough I used the shade. the light at the horizon was simply not better. it was a very cold afternoon. the view direction is south-east. there is always a bit of cast in the south. air is not always filterless. Looking at the horizon the photo might be a bit overexposed, but if I close a stop the tree surroundings will be even more underexposed.

> Using a warming filter such as an 81A is much more effective than some of the tools in PS.

I never used filters. I used PSP not PS, but did only very little processing. only automatic correction.

> I cannot tell a big difference between any of the images that you uploaded as far as color cast goes

that's too bad. the difference are clearly visible on my Trinitron screen. do you have a LCD screen?

> remember raw scans will almost always require some work with levels and curves and possibly even selective color adjustments to bring back the pop.

I could still try another scan, but this is extreme light condition.

I still can go back to the tree in 6 months. it is less than 1 km from where I live.

> ... understand where I am coming from.

just looked at your portfolio. your landscape photos are great; some photos remind me of Peter Lik, Australia.

If you allow me to comment on - I found one problem though: I was unsuccessfully trying to degauss my monitor on this photo; there is much much more cast on middle left in your photo than in my photo above and it received 7/6 rating. something must be wrong with my monitor. (I'm tempted to send it back to sony. ;)

otherwise you seem to like sunsets a lot.

thanks for sharing your opinions with me and keep up the good work! I did not expect to get such qualified expert critique.

a different photo, same cast:

http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=3394692&size=lg

GD,thanks for stopping by my portfolio and your comments are kind.Interesting comments on my Polish landscape image and would like to say that I should have used a warming filter there but did not.The blue cast you see is mostly caused by the polarization effect that is common with such filters.I have a warming polarizer that I use with my D70 and it really helps in certain situations especially where there is lots of shade present.I choose to shoot mostly in the magic hours when the sun is low on both ends and the color temperature is warmer(Kelvins).Warm light is much more conducive to appealing landscape imagery GD mainly because the harsness of contrast is not so overpowering.I would suggest you might try a warming polarizer for your Lieca and see what you think?

 

Regarding the ratings game here...stay out of it unless you are prepared to deal with idiots.Learning curves happen during conversations like this with all of us as long as they stay civil as you probably know.Most people do not want constructive criticism but only 'wow's'from others so be careful how you rate or comment.Talking with you is great and what PN should be all about IMO.

 

I have attached an image taken with Velvia after the sun had gone down to show you how film records different color temperaturs.The Magenta cast is normal using Velvia at this time of day...if it had been taken pre sunrise then the cast would have been a deep blue,not always a bad thing.I think you must deal with color casts on an individual image basis..if there is enough drama that has been light induced elsewhere in the image then it tends to counteract an offensive cast somewhat.

Hi again, Thomas!

Congratulations, you got theyour photo of the week reward!

Thanks again for your reply.

You talked about blue cast, but when I mentioned the cast above in your photo here, I was talking about the brown-reddish cast, middle left and on the horizon.

I love your magenta-photo Image7.jpg. the brightspots on the river side look like snow spots which is impossible. What is it? My total impression is: this is a great painting of an inspirative landscape.

Did you try to increase gamma a bit to make the flowers in the foreground more detailed?

When I said above I did never use any filters, that was wrong. I remember having tried a polarizing filter on some mountain photos, but instead of getting more warmth as you say, I get harder contrast eliminating the cast of warm air. I did as recommended: 1) sun from right angle to shot direction and 2) not in combination with extreme wide-angle lenses. Maybe I should try polarizing filters only in the morning or evening.

I'd be interested in learning more about P-cir filters. Thanks again!

Hello again GD and thanks about the POW.The image I uploaded for you is of a golfcourse in China..this is how I make my living.The white areas are sandtraps which contain a very white silica sand.The detail you see in the foreground flowers are a combination of tripod,Zeiss lens and proper hyperfocal distance to maintain sharpness from front to back.

There are two basic polarizing filters made..linear and circular with linear being the most common.Circular polarizers were developed for early SLR cameras that had built in metering because the linear ones would sometimes effect the metering adversly.Nowdays with all the advancements in cameras this is not really a problem anymore but some still prefer the circulars because they do have a different color palette.

 

Within the line of both types of polarizers manufacturers such as Singh Ray,Cokin and B+W make polarizers that have different functions.One type is a warming polarizer which I suggested you might try and another type is called a blue/gold polarizer which Tiffen and Singh Ray both make and do strange things around water.Polarizers do work best at 90 degrees to the sun and are especially helpful in the tropics to reduce glare and saturate colors.I would think that a warming filter and ND grads would be more useful for your type of photography.

Warm tone polarizer image