mcgarity

This is very nice. I love that you did it in black and white; it evokes memories of the 1950s for those of a certain age. It's well composed and is an image you should be proud of.

Larry

I recognize this. Just outside Loveland, CO on Hwy 34 heading to Estes Park is it not?. You shot it from an interesting angle.

Thank you Kim, it's good to hear from you. Life is treating me tolerably well, and I hope it's the same on your end. Like you I don't spend much time on photo.net these days. I rarely post photos any more, and sometimes I go weeks (or even longer) without checking in. I am glad I peeked in tonight however. Thanks again. :)

Larry

Beautiful photo. It's well composed and has good color saturation. The framing you used is also very attractive and shows the image in it's best light (no pun intended). Job well done!!

Joesph

I won't say it's distracting.  Its just that I have learned to be on the lookout for "unwanted halos" in my own photos, and I guess it carries over when examining someone else's work as well. 

Just for the record, the method of increasing contrast that I was referring to earlier is to use unsharp mask on an image with the following settings: amount = 20%, radius = 60 pixels, threshold = 0 levels.  With these settings, the overall contrast of your image will be greatly improved, and you will be amazed at how much better it makes most images look. However, if you are going to use this procedure, there are two things you have to be careful of.  One is the "halos" previously mentioned, and the other is this method expands the image's histogram on the horizontal axis and as a result, it can cause you to blow out highlights if you are already pushing the envelope on exposure.

One last caveat: this method of increasing contrast is not a substitute for the final sharpening you will need to do when you have finished processing your image.  And if you are going to use it, I would suggest you process the image to remove noise first and then use this routine as a second step in your work flow.  Personally, I prefer to convert the image to lab mode and apply it to the luminance channel only.  At the same time, I find it is helpful to apply a Gaussian blur with a radius of 2 pixels to both A and B color channels.  I then convert back to RGB mode and do what ever other processing I need to do.

Larry

You said you added contrast.  Did you use the unsharp mask filter to do that?  The reason I ask is there is a very noticeable light halo around the bird.  Unsharp mask is a great way to increase local contrast, but when used with some image types - such as silhouettes -  you have a high probability of generating the kind of halo effect you see in this one.

Larry

Thank you Jerald.

Thank you Shenandoah.  I'm partial to black and white myself.

I gotta tell you, it was one cold day when I took this.  Thought I was going to lose my fingers to frostbite.

Thank you Shenandoah. I'm glad you like it.

Larry

Thank you Shenandoah. It was a beautiful morning, the day I captured this. I never saw a sky quite like it before. Or since either for that matter. As luck would have it, I currently have a large print of this image on display at a gallery in Longmont, Colorado. From looking at your photos, I suspect you know where that's at.

Larry

Thank you Pascal. Good luck to you and yours in the coming new year as well.

Larry

Thank you Janegbert.

Thanks Chris. With regards to doing this in black and white, I experimented with converting it to BW before I posted the image and wasn't happy with the results. I often prefer black and white to color, but with this image converting it makes the snow look muddy and the sun seems to overpower the image. At least that was my experience.

Larry

Thank you Kim. I am thinking framing a 24 X 36 of this and hanging it on the wall.

Larry

Hi Kim

It was frigid indeed. The absolute temp was -11 degrees Fahrenheit when I left my house and the wind chill made it feel ten degrees colder. That's why there was so much mist rising on the lake.

How you been? Long time no chat?

Larry

Thank you Chris. I have recently been thinking about converting a number of my older images to black and white. Adobe's CS4 version of Photoshop makes it so easy that its hard to resist temptation. This one is definitely on the list.

Larry

Thank you Chris. I am sorry to be so long in responding, but my computer crashed and I have spent the last two days battling to restore things to their proper state.

I am happy with the way this turned out and I am glad you like it. As to the B&W conversion, I have to give credit Adobe. I have tried a lot of different methods for converting color to B&W, and nothing beats the black and white conversion tool in CS4. It really makes it easy to get the results you want.

Larry

Thank you Rafik. I thought I would lose my fingers and toes to frostbite waiting for the sun to come up that morning. I am glad you like it.

Larry

Kim

Hi Kim. I can relate to the shortage of work opportunities. I just got finished with school two weeks ago. I am attempting to reenter the workforce, but I can't say I am enjoying the search. :)

I actually had fun going to school. Turns out you can teach an old dog new tricks after all. Check out the following link. http://media.www.collegian.com/media/storage/paper864/news/2009/05/11/News/61YearOld.Student.To.Graduate.Summa.Cum.Laude.In.Second.College.Attempt-3739767.shtml.

Larry