andrew_mcintosh1

I would like to know what you think of the toning here. Is it too

much like sepia? I wanted brown shadows and orange highlights. Not

sure how successful I was.

very good composition. Your subject is well framed, and you have interisting focal points, her hand, the glass, her face.

I disagree with the comment about her expression. I think it is apropiate here.

Nicely composed depth of field. Great extreme blur in the clouds and nice soft blur on the left side of the object. I'm impressed that you were able to get the sky and subject both exposed so well. Did you do any digital alteration?

any feedback welcome

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comments welcome

Interesting new adjustments you've made. You've definetly brought some detail back to the man's coat. And from what I remember of the old photo, this one seems smother and more crisp. The woman, espicially her face, has come out better.

 

The variations menu you told me about is very interesting, you're right I've never used it before.

 

Half the time I open as a smart object I don't really use any features that come along with it. It's just something I do for the sake of being able to return and alter decisions I've made without starting over from scratch. In fact, for you, it would probably limit your work. Their are many filters that won't work for smart objects. Variations, is one of them. The only menu option avaible in image adjustments for a 16bit smart object is shadow/highlights, and even that will be applied as a layer within the smart object.

 

I've been experiencing alot of blur myself lately. My sensor desperately needs a cleaning and I've been forced to shot at very low f-stops to limit dirt showing up in my shots. Unfortunitly I'm living in Brazil at the moment and even in it's largest city I'm having trouble tracking down the fluid I need to clean my sensor without damaging my IR blockers coating. I'd have it sent to me from the US but ever since 9/11 it's been illegal to send this cleaning fluid through the mail. So it looks like I'll be waiting three months for some family coming to visit for it to be brought to me. But I've been learning to shot with this restriction, and along with this cleaning fluid, three hand me down lenses will be coming my way. Two nikon VR zooms and a 50mm prime, so I'm pretty excited. The cheap tamron lenses I've been using have ridiculous CA problems, which is only made worse by having to shot with a fully open f-stop.

 

Your completely right. Alot of photos will be helped by photoshop. But if you get the lighting right, all those same adjustemnts I make feel more damaging than helpfull.

 

 

 

I love the strong contrast in the man's face. And the composition of pure blacks and whites.

 

Top notch photo.

The light is strong, but it think photos like this call for it. Without such a strong light I don't think you would have maintained the bright purple for such a long distance. Maybe boosting the contrast a little more will give you what you're looking for.

Flower photography is very difficult to keep original. Chosing a tulip in mid bloom and a wide enough lense to get some of the green leaves are good choices. The greys you've captured and the depth of field help frame the yellow flowers.

 

You said you didn't like the softness in some parts of the photo, it doesn't appear that bad to me but a little sharpening might help. Just try to make it selective sharpening, leaving the background alone and focusing on where you want it.

comments apreciated

If it is CA in my opinion it can't really fixed in post. You could try to reshoot with a higher f-stop, but then you lose the depth of field. Or you could try relighting so the contrast isn't so strong.

 

Photoshop has an adjustment you can make in raw that's supposed to remove CA, but I've never been happy with it. Your best bet is to convert it black and white like you did and, mask the affected areas and background, and just try to fiddle with settings until it's less obvious.

At the bottom left the borders look a little odd on the out focus part. Was it chromatic abreation? It kinda looks like that but I'm not sure.

 

Good photo, nice lines and compostition.

Wow great photo. Usually I like to give some constructive advice, but this is perfect as is.

 

Aside from the deer, the colors here are brilliant, the sky, the green bottom, that beer poster. The more I look the more little details I notice in the background, like the cherry picker. My only suggestion would be to make yourself a very large print.

I like the depth of field in the background and twig in front of her alot. And the cropping you did is very nice.

 

Unfortunitly it looks like you lost a little focus on her left hand and the shoulder facing the camera. The focus seems to favor her hair and her shoulder away from the camera a little more than the part of her closest to the camera. I could also see how that could be good and what you were going for. Either way it's very subtle and not the biggest deal.

 

I don't know how you feel about digital alteration, but I think her face and skin could benefit from just a touch of contrast boosting. Very lightyl done. But I don't know, like the previous comment says, that might take away from the twilight mood you've created. I think it's worth trying just to see how it would look.

 

Great photo

You have a wonderful sense of light in all your photos. I wanna call it noir but there is much more going on here. The red paint on the fingernail is great. the lipstick the glow of the cigarette and the fingernail really come together to make this a special picture.

 

It's not smoking to create a mood, the cigarette has a much more aesthetic quality here.

 

Let me try and give a little constructive advice though, at this size it's impossible for me to tell, But I think this is digital shot that you've given some sharpening. If so the sharpening in the higlights and midtones is very well done, but I think you might of sharpened some of the noise in shadows. The noise in this photos is good, but it might be improved by either using a selective sharpening technique, or the smart sharpen filter which has settings to fade sharpening in the shadows.

 

 

Wow, I never heard of the shadow/highlight filter, it even took me a while to find, but I just played with it a little. I see how it can do the same adjustments as a curve just with a different controls. Very interesting. Unfortunitly it seems photoshop, doesn't offer this filter as an adjustment layer.

 

From what you've told me of your photoshop stlye I can see why you preffer it. The adjustments your accomplishing with one go at that filter, i'm doing with three or four curves adjustment layers.

 

Your right about the curves, every photo needs a unique and subtely different curve, some of my photos have as many as eight. A process that forces constant experimintation. I think what I like most about is, how it relates to the histogram. I'm addicted to the histogram these days, even on my camera, instead of reviewing photos I take, I review their histograms.

 

But like you said, however it get's done it's done. I think you'll like the black and white filter though, it's controls are very similar to the filters you like (slide bars, and easy to save settings). Instead of doing the masking I described just stick with selecting.

Faces are a little soft for my liking.

Yeah, some of those yellow petals in the back ground would look great out of focus.

 

Your method for the framing, that's what I figured. The gradient is just overlaying black. By burning with a curve, you darken every shade instead, and the best part, depending on the specifics of the curve, you'll darken the midtones the most, falling of towards your highlights and shadows, this keeps the shadows from losing all detail, and the highlights from from showing a sharp contrast.

 

I'm not familar with photostudio, but curves techniques are pretty universal. Any online guide on them will have some usefull tricks.

I know what you mean about being wary of masking.

 

There is something instinctive about working on an actual layer with your image, rather then a serious of masks that adjust different areas of your image. But well worth the effort to learn. Just to make things easier, to go back and fine tune. Easier to switch on and off the appereance of your adjustments, to decide if you like them or not, maybe fade them a touch.

 

It's one of the great advantages of digital b&w, b&w film has a dynamic range that digital sensors will not touch for a long time, if ever, but being able to selectively interpret that color information in a multitude of manners, brings something new to black and white photography.

 

I've always been more intrested in printing than shooting. Even with film, I'd rather work with a negative and enlarger than a camera. So now with digital I get a little too into photoshop, of course.

I've always thought flower photos can be a little boring, but your composition here is very intresting.

 

The border you've made is a little distracting. Especially in the upper right corner. There is tiny band of unburned that's very notiecable and on the bottom left the same but less noticeable.

 

What post technique did you use? For dark edges I usally create a curves adjustment layer, mask out everything except the edges, then pull down the line in the curves adjustment. It gives a very natural subtle look.

 

Also I think it might be more intersting to sacrifice some of the focus in the flower to give more focus to the white puffs. But I'm not sure, that's more of a matter of individual taste.

that's it so many times. You have to feel the photo coming.

 

Once I saw a group of guys having a beer below my balcony. I thought it might be a good photo but was tired and decided not to bother with my camera. A minute later they formed a circle and toasted, from my perspective above I would gotten a perfect circle of there arms and drinks coming together, just as this happened a car came by. The headlights created great shadows, the street light keeping it from being to harsh, I immediatly regretted not following my instincts and having a camera ready.

sorry, I wasn't sure how familar you where with photoshop. Or how exactly you did the conversion. Let me explain.

 

I use cs3 not sure what you're using but most will apply to earlier versions too. First open in raw, and adjust for white balance and exposure if you want. Alot of times when I plan to convert to black and white I just leave those settings alone, either way it won't matter.

 

From raw you want to open it as 16-bit smart object. The settings for this are in the blue hyperlink looking text at the bottom of the raw screen, click that, change to 16-bit and smart object. It will save. And now every time you open from raw, it'll be as 16-bit smart object.

 

As a smart object you can now double click on the thumbnail in your layers menu and readjust the raw settings through out editing now, makes things much easier.

 

Now to turn it black and white add an adjustment layer. Best way to start is by looking at the individual channels. On the top of your layers palette there should be a series of tabs, click on the one that says channels. Now don't click on the eyes that turn off aperance, but the thumnails or labels themselves (red, green, blue) this will only show you that channel as a monochrome. Skin tones look good in red typically, green too. Red has a softer more glamorous look, green more detail, and blue will bring out the crags in a face. Green is usually best with plants and anything green, blue is good for concrete, rocks, and buildings. Usually, none of this is set in stone. It's similar to the old colored filters people used with black and white film.

 

Take a look at your photo through each of these filters and makes some mental notes about which areas look best in each channel. Then switch back to your layers on the pallete.

 

Now on a pc you hold down control and click on the circle that's half light and half dark on the bottom of the layers pallete. This will bring up a list, if you have cs3 click black and white, if not channel mixer. If you use the channel mixer click monochrome, either way don't mess with the settings yet, just create the adjustment layer, turn your image monochrome and click okay.

 

Now with your adjustment layer selected, chose the brush tool and the color black. Make the brush big and with zero hardness, right clicking anywhere on the photo with the brush tool will give the settings for this. Not being to careful paint over the two people in the photo, if you've done everything right they should become colored as you paint them.

 

Once your happy with that, invert the mask you made, now everything is color except what you just painted. double click on your adjustment layers thumbnail. Now play with the settings in channel mixer or black and white. If it's black and white select some presets in the pulldown menu, till you find something you like, in channel mixer try to equal a hundred percent with a mixture of the three channels, 60 green, 30 red , 10 blue. Play with it till find something you like.

 

Now create another black and white adjustment layer, this one should be on top of the other layer you created. Now when you adjust the settings here it will only adjust what isn't already black white. If you want a third adjustment layer, paint a little black on the second, and add another.

 

Finally, add a curves adjustemnt layer, and from the preset menu select add contrast. If want to add sharpening select the smart object at the bottom of your layers, and add the smart sharpen filter. The smart object is great here because it's nondestructive, the sharpening filter becomes a layer within the smart object that can be readjusted. Save this as a psd and you have something you can come back to at any time and still adjust any setting, the raw, your black and white layers, your contrast or your sharpening.

 

That was more then I planned on typing but what the hell, if you any questions just send me an message.

Great photo, great moment to capture. I like the b&w conversion. Without seeing the original I'd guess this is mostly the green and blue channel. My one suggestion would be maybe to split the b&w conversion into multiple masked layers, if you already didn't. I always find in scenes with alot of variation; clothing, people, sidewalk, trashcans, walls, there usually isn't one mix of the channels that best suits everything. But that's a matter of taste, and style, and this looks pretty good already.

 

I noticed it looks like you lost a little shadow detail on the front of the mans coat. I don't think it takes away from the photo, and if the original photo doesn't have the detail nothing can really be done about it. But maybe it's just the channel mix and a seperate b&w adjustment layer with more red and green, and a soft brushed mask, will return the detail.

 

I only say that because the darkness of the woman's jeans, and the nice detail in the sidewalk make me think there's alot of blue channel here, and in my experince the blue channel doesn't hold detail in shadows that well.

yeah, that handrail really bothered me when I looked at the photos later. Just didn't notice while I was shooting. And it's the worst in this shot, but I used it anyway just cause it had the right balance of exposure and speed to get those water droplets. I considered cropping it out, but figured half a butt going off frame would be even worse.

 

Problem is when you're shooting someone diving into a pool you can only tell them to do it so many times before you have a smack coming your way.