Old House with Drive, Alleghany County, NC (Please click on picture to view LARGER.)

Shot on the headwaters of the New River in NC. Shot wide ("leveling"the hills and "lengthening" the drive), then cropped. Commentswelcome.

Nice rural scene. Very well done!!

Thanks, James. It was too dark. Now it might be too bright.

 

--Lannie

Can you find it? (Hint: lower center, south side of 221)

 

This is marvelous country, a lot like West Virginia, but higher above sea level. Google Alleghany County, NC, Mabe Rd. for more details on the surrounding area, including the headwaters of the New River some miles to the west--but before Jefferson and W. Jefferson. Boone, NC is to the southwest on this high plateau near the Tennessee and Virginia borders.

 

The New River, of course, flows across western Virginia and into West Virginia, creating the New River Gorge before it empties into the Ohio River.

 

This old country is sparsely settled and off the beaten path of tourists, even though the Blue Ridge Parkway is only six air miles south (at NC 18) of this old abandoned farm. Tobacco is grown at this altitude, which surprised me. Much higher mountains surround this valley, and are particularly impressive to the west and southwest along the Tennessee-North Carolina line. The Appalachian Trail across Roan Mtn. is particularly impressive but requires a bit of hiking for the best views. (GOOGLE "Roan Mountain (Roan Highlands" for the Wikipedia entry if you are interested in seeing some of the best country in the eastern U.S. A paved road does cross the Appalachian trail just west of some of the most extensive balds in the East.)

 

--Lannie

I saw this one in NW forum, and liked it very much. I like the diagonal path leading to the old? isolated house with some trees around, but no human beings., the soft sky vs. the vast accentuated landscape Is very beautiful, and well done.

 

( btw, I exepectes a lot more from you ,commenting on my last uploads of the duo motherhoods, ....;-))

Thanks, Pnina, and sorry for not being a better commentator, but I am teaching a double load this semester (just like I did last spring) and find myself running in circles all over again.

 

--Lannie

;-)) OK Lannie.

Good to hear from you, Lannie. From the tranquility and peacefulness evident in the above landscape, I have a feeling that things are going pretty well for you despite your hectic schedule.

Thanks, Jack. I am at peace.

 

--Lannie

Lannie: I like this photo, good composition, and color saturation. I do think that you have brighter. I see that your resolution is 72; I would suggest that you work your images in the 240 t0 300 range, they will appear a little sharper. Tom

Thanks, Tom. I like your somewhat darker version better, but I am a bit confused about your comments about resolution. To the best of my recollection, I worked the file at full size as a TIFF, then resized to the size shown here, then converted to JPEG. If I were printing, I would certainly print it at much higher resolution, but I am not sure how you can tell what resolution that I worked the file at. I resized it so that it would almost perfectly fill my screen at a screen resolution of 1024x768. What am I missing here in what you are saying? I am a bit puzzled.

 

Since I wrote the preceding, I went back and started over. The file was a big JPEG, not RAW, but I converted to TIFF to work on it. The size is a bit different, but what I did do differently to make it look more like your version was to reduce brightness a bit and add more contrast. Please let me know what you think. It is now if anything a bit darker than your version, though not as dark as the version I originally had posted--before I brightened it in the version that you saw. Now the brightness is somewhere between the two extremes. It seems to be that any added sense of sharpness is due in this case to added contrast.

 

I'm not sure when the new version will show up on screen, but it will probably not be until tomorrow.

 

--Lannie

Lannie: While I think you are technically correct. I believe it’s better to work a high resolutions, TIFF does retain all the information you are correct. I do find that working with images at 240-300 does naturally result sharper photos. See my photo French & Indian War 2009; I resized this in PE7 to fit the PN requirements, but kept the resolution high. Sharpening a digital photo, really only increases the contrast on the edges, based on your settings. Given that you started with a JEPG, you have already lost some information. Remember the each camera has it own algorithm for saving a file as a JEPG; so some of the information is lost that the sensor may have detected. Going to TIFF from JEPG, you likely gain nothing. I take all photos in RAW, then using PE version of Camera RAW, correct the exposure, etc. then in PE do any other alteration. I then resize for PN using the higher resolution. Hope is helps? Tom

 

Not sure about the new version vs. old, did you complete replace the old one?

Yes, Tom, the newer version is up. The version you commented on was lighter and I had added no contrast to it.

 

You are certainly right about JPEG v. RAW. I usually do shoot RAW but I was almost out of card space that day and had only carried one card for two cameras. (Talk about being prepared. I had charged all the batteries but did not even check my cards.)

 

As for the other, I don't understand some of it. What is PE, for example? In addition, how are you able to tell what I am using? I thought the EXIF data was gone after saving to TIFF, and so I am puzzled as to what kind of data you can get from the screen at Photo.net. (I am using only CS2, by the way.) Sorry for so many questions.

 

Thanks for writing, Tom. You are a great help.

 

--Lannie

Tom, I did go back and look at your French and Indian War photo. ( http://photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=9918821&size=lg ) That is incredibly good resolution compared to what I typically see on photos that size on the screen.

 

For a resolution freak, I obviously am not getting the most out of my equipment, although I have managed to get some very good prints, even with the old Olympus E-20 with 5 MP.

 

--Lannie

Lannie: My first digital was a Olympus C4040 at 4.2mp and there are times I am sure that my 10mp doesn't do as well. While pixels count, the glass in front of the sensor is very important. By the way cards are so cheap now, I have 6 or 7 for vacations and always carry a spare with me. PE=Photoshcop Elements, I currently have PE8 which has some really nice feature that allows you to do High Dynamic Range photos, panoramas and scene cleaner. Tom