peterneibert

San Francisco's aging past holds out here. Sometimes I see it in the second floor periodicals room (window above). Sometimes I find my way from there up the narrow back stairs and ladderways through the library stacks to the Chess Room on the fourth floor.
Up there the languages are Ukranian and Spanish. But the language really doesn't matter because the old men's game is all in the eyes.
Do you feel lucky, punk?
Well, do you?

Lamar,

this is an excellent color portrait made better by your addition of the color background.

I tried desaturating and converting it to various B & W and duotone treatments, but none were nearly as good as your original submission here.

Fred,

Great bird picture.

Even greater: your guidelines on taking bird pictures.

Thanks,

Wayne,

Be careful here. If the bird is walking on ice and you're supposed to get down on your tummy to meet the bird at eye level, well, do you get the picture?

You and the cannon d60 seem to have no end of great pictures.

OK, here's how I trained the bird:
I was standing by the lagoon with my camera set at low res, when this big white egret swooped down from a tree and I clicked the shutter from waist high and without aiming as the bird flew by. When I got home and looked at the image, the colors of the flowers on the opposite bank had gotten compressed into a square tartan (see attached).
So, I worked on it a short time with curves and saturation -- whose combined effect was to ball-up the tartan and bring out the dramatic contrast in colors.
OK, so it's not such a great story, but that's the only story I have for this picture.

Some day I'll tell how I trained the bird to do this,

Wayne,

This one works, blue, bend in the rails and all.

As for the Noise in the sky, yes, it's there and the picture would be better without it. In the regular version of Photoshop the top menu has a button called "FILTER" with a drop-down that includes "Noise," which in turn has a drop-down which includes "Despeckle" -- you might fool around with your PS to see if it has something like that.

If you get into a regular edition of PS, then you might want to follow-up on some of Stephen Lau's website suggestions for anti-noise software.

BTW I once used another PS filter, what they call a texturizer, to impose a canvas effect on the image and thereby disguise some of the Noise. A canvas texture would probably interfere with the mood in this image -- just keep the technique in mind for another time

This is a horse of a good color.

If the complete shadow were in the frame I would stay with this crop and edit from there. If you think the cutoff of the shadow is spoilsome, then maybe crop the left side of the photo and consider means to emphasize the dust-up from the horse's hooves on the right.

Really good subject, go with it!

Nothing to get bored with here. The chiaroscuro effect is in fine form and especially difficult to grow tired of.

 

Fred's comment piqued my interest: herewith, an alternate crop for your consideration.

OK: as sugested above, the original image with a minor crop to take the blue off the top is probably the best solution, emphasizing the red and raising the cheerfulness factor.

The second image is indeed somber, the lower branch browns may be a bit too heavy here.

otherwise they're both very attractive images.

tony,

will it look better in blue? have to try it and see. often, the more effective toning is very subtle, just enough of a second color (perhaps grey as the second color) to lift the picture and let it pop.

when I see the word "toning" I wonder if the term is used to mean a traditional "wash," usually in sepia or blue.

the more specific term is duotone (PS7 Menu >Mode), in which a dialog sets up the first color as black -- and provides a curves-like facility to emphasize the black ink in the high-light and shadows of the image; at the same time it provides another curve to enable you to adjust the second color curve to bring out the midtones with the second color ink.

Blue? sometimes the term "cyanotype" is used to distinguish this when it is done with black and blue inks.

High-end "duotones" sometimes use black and multiple greys (think about those curves!) -- these might also be called "tritones" or "quadtones" -- not sure because I never got that far.

Let us know how it goes.

Yes, I have printed it on my proof printer at roughly 8" x 10" and the colors are quite faithful to what you see on the screen.

The dividing line overlap at the building's skyline shows enough to need correcting, as Michael pointed out on the screen. I will have an opportunity to try some larger scale digital printing in early March and plan to re-work this one in time for that.

I made the mistake of laying it out next to another 8" x 10" print on the same Ilford Classic Pearl paper-- from a Hasselblad Velvia slide. Guess which one showed the depth. At the very least I will be looking for a more flattering paper stock for this digital image.

Jim:
Used no special setting for this. Later, when I looked at it in PS Levels, it indicated one should make minor corrections on the right side in the blue and green channels. Those corrections would have diminished the red somewhat and brought out more blue, so I just left it uncorrected as you see it.

Michael,
Epsonstore is sending me the disc for FilmFactory 2.5. Thanks,

Here's the next one.

Here's the problem:
This morning in 12 minutes or so I got 35 images very much like this (e.g. see attachment for the next one in sequence). How do you deal with that? Meaning workflow of 30+ images -- I'm accustomed to working with three to six slides or negatives, pick one and make the best of that. I have not begun to edit this batch, still just looking at the slide show, and I paused to pick-out two to make my point here.
Also, I got 25 more (including at least 15 good prospects) at the San Francisco end of the trip this morning.
Seriously, how do you deal with digital proliferation?

For comparison, see attached duotone; second color is Pantone, Hexachrome Orange C.

I took the early boat home before this one broke.

Wayne,

I may be overly involved in this one, but I really do like the blue better.

Not that there's anything wrong with the sepia....

Yes, it works.

Now try it in blue.

Seriously, if your version of Photoshop includes duotone mode (not a "wash"), select a cold blue for the second color.

Wayne,

Count me among those who like this version of the image better than the original.

That said, I offer a critical comment: the light brown frame does nothing to define or otherwise "help" the picture. I respectfully suggest you try it with a hairline or 1 pixel black or (very) dark brown frame.

If you really need to stay with the wider frame (say for consistency with companion pictures in a presentation), then keep the white inside bevel, but for the flat part of the frame, switch to a flat/plain color (no texture) and match the darker tones of the picture.

The colors ranged over the mountains are so well situated. Save the tree for another picture.

yes, that thing there in the lower right -- is that the flywheel for a corten watch?

Do they also have a field full of used sunglasses?

Inspired concept, very well executed.

I'll remember this one for a long time.