peterneibert

suggest substantial crop on right side, maybe a little off the top.

maybe add some black to the left side.

lots of possibilities

i'm not sure where the rose is.

but these two structures in fading sunlight create a mood of serious reflection. The dark side of the house and the spackled [?] ground cover on the dark grass take us to the somber side, while the smaller brighter garage is strangely optimistic.

the architectural shapes are subtly juxtaposed here -- quite different from your "winnebago" tower photo.

was the original tulip laid on a photocopier? i did some found-object pictures that way (Epson 2450), darkened the back ground to jet black.

I like what you've done with the "background" here -- this prompts me to probably dustoff my photocopier and take another run at it.

thankyou.

I think the original's strong cyan in the water (especially with the grainy-ness) offers more attractive printing prospects.

But, Fred's workup really brought out the color in their beaks. Gotta keep that, no matter what.

Fred,

I've got the dual montior setup now. I stretched your stitched image across two screens and could not detect any seams.

This might not be the technical appraisal you were looking for, but there it is.

Fred,

In Santa Fe I found that 6x17 panorama camera owners had followed your example and sold them on e-bay.

Why? you ask? Because the Canon D-10 (or is it 10D?) provides such usable detail and PS7/8 Raw files work so well in stitching that there is no need, they say, even for stitching s/w -- do it all in Photoshop.

So I didn't buy a panorama camera as I had been hankering to, instead I bought a gitzo series 3 studex and put a bogen 3-way head on it -- all the better to capture stitchable panels. Also, I used the occasion of a recent birthday to get a 2x extender for the hasselblad; it seems to work well with my 150mm zeiss lens on the 3-way bogen head on the studex tripod.

now all i have to do is stitch something.

Yes, the background seems busy but the foreground is terrific.

Presumably you'd want to separate the background/foreground without spending all afternoon using the pen tool and then accentuate the background blur and perhaps also play with the lighting on the foremost branches.

i never tire of gazing at your pictures of these wonderful birds.

looking forward to seeing your weekend's work,

i think the revised crop works better -- both aspects needed attention.

the taller narrower ratio becomes interesting with the duck positioned low in the frame. if you can do anything with selective sharpening to bring out the duck a bit, the overall picture might benefit further.

as noted in earlier comments, the tree(s) really make this picture, but it wouldn't work without the duck.

the subject here saw me take this picture.

now when the 7:30 boat pulls in, he exercises deep in the morning shadows, beyond photographic intrusion.

On earlier viewing I was put off by the store-bought colors -- took me a while to get used to their contemporary authenticity.

Now at last I can focus on the picture as a portrait, and I see it is indeed powerful.

The (north) tower is tilted slghtly to the left. Because the tower is near the right vertical margin, the tilt is obvious to the eye, but easy to fix.

One other thing: the exposure location says "Oakland," which would require an unusual lens to pull this one in.

No matter: it's still a great picture.

Playing with this after posting, I embossed a layer and then merge/multiplied it with the background copy. Not at all sure it's worth the effort, but here it is attached.

Fred, thanks for the thought. I printed this tonight and it held detail up to 11" width -- both in glossy and somerset velvet. I still need to fine tune some of the PS contrast and color controls.

Good thing I took close to 30 of these images. When I went back this morning it was gone.

The copy right line is a bit intrusive. Since your rights are already protected in photo.net notices, I presume you are putting it into your file for protection elsewhere. For general use, a shorter notice will suffice i.e. © 2003 Russel [or your registered trade name]. Also black type would be less jarring -- would detract less from the mood of your excellent picture.

The Ferry Building Clock Tower is the only true vertical in this picture and its sides are parallel, except for the bulging of the clock faces themselves.

The horizontal roof line of the building in front of it slopes slightly due to earthquake damage suffered in '89. Everything else is off the vertical or horizontal grid lines and nothing else is parallel to anything.

I stepped out the back door just long enough to take three shots like

this before the pancakes came.