Luminous Landscape Forum

The Art of Photography => User Critiques => Topic started by: offissa on May 12, 2007, 09:29:16 am

Title: Ford Creek
Post by: offissa on May 12, 2007, 09:29:16 am

Hi, this is my first attempt—using the Gimp—at digital manipulation of one of my photos.    Its a 15 year old slide in FPX(yuck) format. I'm not really interested in doing anything creative, I just wanted to try to make an image that reproduced the beauty of the scene as I originally perceived it. I made 2 layers and used a graduated mask to darken the left foreground, and slightly lighten the top right. I think it's improved but to me it still doesn't look quite right. Am I on the right lines? Is my execution deficient, or can anyone suggest another approach? Or is the photo just not quite good enough?

Also would it have been better to have attached a thumbnail to this post and linked to the originals? Not sure how to do that.

Thanks, Jim.

Title: Ford Creek
Post by: offissa on May 12, 2007, 09:32:29 am

Hmm. That was unexpected. Seem to have got one thumbnail. The improved image.

Title: Ford Creek
Post by: Lisa Nikodym on May 12, 2007, 11:12:42 am

It looks like a pretty place, and I can see why you want to capture it in a photo.  Your graduated masks apparently worked, since that aspect of it looks fine and natural to me.  However, two things about the picture disturb me:

(1)  The contrast is far too high.  The whites of the waterfall appear blown out in places, and the rest is too bright to see much detail in it.  The blacks are too uniformly black with no detail.  It just looks unnatural.  I feel like much more of the image should be in the midtones.

(2)  The main waterfall is disturbingly close to the edge of the frame; I feel like it's trying to escape the picture!  Putting it at about the 1/3 point from the left side would produce a more balanced composition.  (I know, it's too late to do anything about that now, but next time...)

Hope this helps...

Lisa

Title: Ford Creek
Post by: offissa on May 12, 2007, 11:58:34 am

Thanks, good points. The highlights are totally blown out, but maybe I can get some detail out of the shadows...

For your second point, the composition is maybe a little unbalanced, but I liked the rocks, lichen and fallen stump on the right, To the left there was nothing. I see what you mean, but I cant think of a way to fix it. To me it sits pretty ok, a sort of A shape.

I'll have a go at fixing the contrast though.

Title: Ford Creek
Post by: offissa on May 12, 2007, 12:05:54 pm

By the way the photo was taken in the Paparoa Mtns, though not the National Park. I see you have some lovely pics from the same area.