Jump to content
© © 2012, John Crosley/Crosley Trust, All rights reserved, No reproduction without prior written permission from copyright holder

'The Light Station' (B&W Ed.) [For Ana G.]


johncrosley

Software: Adobe Photoshop CS6 (Windows)

Copyright

© © 2012, John Crosley/Crosley Trust, All rights reserved, No reproduction without prior written permission from copyright holder

From the category:

Landscape

· 290,305 images
  • 290,305 images
  • 1,000,004 image comments


Recommended Comments

This is the B&W ed. of 'the light station' situated on the San Mateo

Coast of California. Your ratings, comments and critiques are

invited and most welcome. If you rate harshlyt or very critically,

please submit a helpful and constructive comment; please share

your photographic knowledge to help improve my photography.

Thanks! Enjoy! john

Link to comment

John, you have a very high definition image here. There's no element that I can't explore in more detail after initially scanning the image. I wish I could see it in a larger format. Great composition! Did you dip your toes in the water?

Regards, John

Link to comment

This one sat around for a long time until my skills were up to it and same with latest editions of Photoshop.

 

It seems to have been worth the wait.

 

Thanks for the nice compliment.

 

john

John (Crosley)

Link to comment

Great composition -- I like it.  I would have expected the frothy portion of the incoming wave to be a brighter white, just based on my experience, although I'm not sure how much the heavy cloud cover would hold this back (however, our eyes usually give us what we expect to see, unlike a camera).  I've not found a good way to "fix" the distortion caused by a wide angle lens, seen in the angle of the lighthouse.  Just yesterday I was working with a 24mm T/S lens, and I found that even shifting couldn't eliminate distortion in all areas (or it may have been user error).

Link to comment

Thanks for the compliment AND the helpful suggestions.

 

The water highlights were held down because of it being a very overcast, low cloudy day with thick marine layer -- usual for the California coast in summer.  Problem with letting highlights shine is the issue of blowouts, a dance that the post processer plays -- let the whites show whiter at the risk of blowouts in some portions of them?  Or just tone them down a trifle?

 

You anticipated another problem -- the leaning or seeming to lean -- lighthouse.

 

In this case, the 'free transform' packet of tools has one or more tool, such as 'skew' or some such that is just made for such, but when I worked this up I did not know or realize the leaning would show so prominently or I'd have worked it to transform that lightouse to a truly vertical line.

 

That's available in Photoshop CS5 or CS6, a wonderful feature.  It's a little difficult to use and one may have to use 'context aware fill' to help keep the aspect ratio correct in case portions of the photo disappear as the photo distorts in unanticipated ways when one skews the work and see what happens.

 

I try not to use such tools, but it can be done, and if this were in a gallery, I'd work on it.  This is my work and I think I could work out the distortion that is evident without ruining the aspect ratio.

 

Thanks for a helpful critique.

 

Do you understand my response?

 

john

 

John (Crosley)

Link to comment

John, yes I understand.  Your distant sky is quite bright, and the buildings are very white -- I think I'd be looking for a white that is similar to the buildings as long as you could do the editing on just that portion of the composition.  I wonder if a bit of dodging could do the trick.  I'm trying to picture a strong white along the length of beach foam, and my mind's eye likes what it sees.

 

I've used the perspective control tools in PS a bit, but not enough to say I'm comfortable with them.  I recently photographed some grain elevators with my 24mm tilt/shift lens, and even though the shift was able to keep the vertical elevators straight (although some of their roundness seemed to be altered), a horizontal platform near the top was severely tilted toward the middle.  That left me scratching my head -- there is much I don't understand about shifting a lens.  However, I was working with all horizontal and vertical lines.  In this coastal landscape, it's much easier to adjust a few lines, and as long as the horizon is level everything else will still look good.

Link to comment

Thanks for the helpful comments.

 

This is a strong enough composition that it bears rework and reproducing and eventual printing, so I'll try your comments out when I rework it sometime in the future.

 

I have a good idea they'll be very helpful, as they're well thought out.

 

Thanks for spending the time and the effort; it's appreciated.

 

john

 

John (Crosley)

Link to comment

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...