Luminous Landscape Forum

The Art of Photography => User Critiques => Topic started by: Justan on January 16, 2010, 11:14:09 am

Title: Towards Evening (cityscape warning)
Post by: Justan on January 16, 2010, 11:14:09 am
(http://explore-greenwater.com/pix/JE/OnTheDocs4.jpg)


Comments?
Title: Towards Evening (cityscape warning)
Post by: RSL on January 16, 2010, 12:18:45 pm
Justan, I love it, but it's too blue. It's night, and the lighting is yellow. This version is still a bit too blue, but closer to what I'll bet you saw:

[attachment=19495:OnTheDocks4.jpg]
Title: Towards Evening (cityscape warning)
Post by: bill t. on January 16, 2010, 12:35:58 pm
Nice mood shot.  And not blue enough!  And I promise not to tell you to crop it.  The yellow version may be more technically correct, but it just sort of feels smoggy rather than moody.  I bet what you felt was cold, hence the blue.  I like the color tension between blue and yellow, which besides being interesting were my high school colors.

OK, I wasn't going to say this, but this needs to be a pano!  Look at all that interesting stuff we can't quite see off to the left & right!  With a pano treatment, we'd be talking boardroom and over-the-sofa material here.
Title: Towards Evening (cityscape warning)
Post by: Shirley Bracken on January 16, 2010, 12:55:51 pm
Very nice shot.  Yeah, cool air.  I agree a pan would be great.
Title: Towards Evening (cityscape warning)
Post by: Justan on January 16, 2010, 12:56:28 pm
Quote from: RSL
Justan, I love it, but it's too blue. It's night, and the lighting is yellow. This version is still a bit too blue, but closer to what I'll bet you saw:

[attachment=19495:OnTheDocks4.jpg]

First, thanks very much!

The foto’s colors are very close to the raw images. I selected a spot near a lamp on the left as the white point.  This was taken about 30 minutes or so before sunset.

That said, your edit shows none of the blue cast on the whites that mine does. If anything yours has more yellow than was there. Did you do this by eye or where did you set the white point?

Setting the white, grey and black points is a new thing so I’m appreciative of any feedback you’d care to provide.  

Btw this is a stitch
Title: Towards Evening (cityscape warning)
Post by: Justan on January 16, 2010, 01:03:32 pm
Quote from: bill t.
Nice mood shot.  And not blue enough!  And I promise not to tell you to crop it.  The yellow version may be more technically correct, but it just sort of feels smoggy rather than moody.  I bet what you felt was cold, hence the blue.  I like the color tension between blue and yellow, which besides being interesting were my high school colors.

OK, I wasn't going to say this, but this needs to be a pano!  Look at all that interesting stuff we can't quite see off to the left & right!  With a pano treatment, we'd be talking boardroom and over-the-sofa material here.


Thank you very much but it *is* a stitch.

Immediately to the left of where the foto ends we encounter a black colored empty barge that runs nearly to the shore line. It didn’t add to what I was after. To the right is an anonymous collection of mostly stored crap. Again mostly just black due to time of day.

But it is a great place for studies. I plan to do many from this area. I'm gonna use this image to try and bribe property management to letting me take some pix from the other end of the dock.


Title: Towards Evening (cityscape warning)
Post by: John R on January 16, 2010, 01:03:35 pm
This looks pretty good to me. I seldom bother to correct for "blueness" in my images, unless of course it is necessary, like for people or documentary purposes. This image has lots of mood and I really like the secondary motif, that line of grey clouds in background. You don't want to lose that in alterations. One thing I find somewhat disturbing, is not the large crane on right, which would have been better as a whole, but the black post underneath; this creates a kind of stop-frame, which I don't think you want. You also have some slight parts on the left- very minor. As to cropping, one can do that all day, just decide which elements you want to keep and what appeals to you most.

JMR

I just reviewed it again, and the black post might be OK if the whole crane (not tall part, just the width) is there, as it will no longer be at the edge of the frame.
Title: Towards Evening (cityscape warning)
Post by: Justan on January 16, 2010, 01:07:06 pm
Quote from: Shirley Bracken
Very nice shot.  Yeah, cool air.  I agree a pan would be great.

Thanks! I'll do a daytime study in the near future
Title: Towards Evening (cityscape warning)
Post by: Justan on January 16, 2010, 01:17:42 pm
Quote from: John R
This looks pretty good to me. I seldom bother to correct for "blueness" in my images, unless of course it is necessary, like for people or documentary purposes. This image has lots of mood and I really like the secondary motif, that line of grey clouds in background. You don't want to lose that in alterations. One thing I find somewhat disturbing, is not the large crane on right, which would have been better as a whole, but the black post underneath; this creates a kind of stop-frame, which I don't think you want. You also have some slight parts on the left- very minor. As to cropping, one can do that all day, just decide which elements you want to keep and what appeals to you most.

JMR

I just reviewed it again, and the black post might be OK if the whole crane (not tall part, just the width) is there, as it will no longer be at the edge of the frame.


Thanks for the feedback!

I agree that the crops on the left and right are less than perfect. I debated removing the solitary log on the right, but lightened it so you can see some detail. That was lost in the conversion to jpg, even though it was a big jpg!

The clouds were a fast moving storm. In the left portion you can see lights several miles distant and by the time I got to the right the fog was so dense you could barely see lights at ¼ the distance compared to the left. Meanwhile there was the merely hazy area on the far left that showed the blue sky a little before sunset. It was a classic “if you don’t like the weather conditions, wait a few moments” event.

By the time I went for the 2nd sweep the fog was so dense the lights beyond the docks were gone.
Title: Towards Evening (cityscape warning)
Post by: Mike Boden on January 16, 2010, 01:43:51 pm
Quote from: RSL
Justan, I love it, but it's too blue. It's night, and the lighting is yellow. This version is still a bit too blue, but closer to what I'll bet you saw:

[attachment=19495:OnTheDocks4.jpg]

"Too blue" is a subjective call. Your version isn't any better...just different.
Title: Towards Evening (cityscape warning)
Post by: Shirley Bracken on January 16, 2010, 01:43:53 pm
Justan, I showed this to my husband and he really liked it too.  It does have a wonderful atmosphere.  I think a series around this spot will be great!  Did you get any other shots that day that you liked?  I want to see.    What lens did you use?
Title: Towards Evening (cityscape warning)
Post by: Mike Boden on January 16, 2010, 02:44:54 pm
Quote from: Shirley Bracken
What lens did you use?

EXIF info says:

Camera: Nikon D80
Lens: 70.0-300.0 mm f/4.5-5.6
Title: Towards Evening (cityscape warning)
Post by: Shirley Bracken on January 16, 2010, 02:53:40 pm
I guess I've missed where to find the EXIF.
Title: Towards Evening (cityscape warning)
Post by: Justan on January 16, 2010, 02:54:24 pm
Quote from: Mike Boden
"Too blue" is a subjective call. Your version isn't any better...just different.


Not speaking for Russ but the cast on the whites is far enough into blue to be noticable once pointed out.

I fixed that & am okay with the rest...

(http://explore-greenwater.com/pix/JE/OnTheDocs5.jpg)
Title: Towards Evening (cityscape warning)
Post by: Justan on January 16, 2010, 03:02:09 pm
Quote from: Shirley Bracken
I guess I've missed where to find the EXIF.

Me too. It was set to about 70mm.

In answer to your other question, i tried to get to another vantage point but by the time i got was there it was so foggy the city was hidden and also raining.

I don't often shoot in town but being able to cobble together a functional pano has opened some doors.
Title: Towards Evening (cityscape warning)
Post by: RSL on January 16, 2010, 03:04:02 pm
Quote from: Justan
First, thanks very much!

The foto’s colors are very close to the raw images. I selected a spot near a lamp on the left as the white point.  This was taken about 30 minutes or so before sunset.

That said, your edit shows none of the blue cast on the whites that mine does. If anything yours has more yellow than was there. Did you do this by eye or where did you set the white point?

Setting the white, grey and black points is a new thing so I’m appreciative of any feedback you’d care to provide.  

Btw this is a stitch

Justan, I put the thing into ACR and used the middle-gray dropper on the bridge of that first boat. The result was too yellow, so I slid the temp slider back to the left a bit. In the end, it was a call shot, and I'm not really in a position to do that since I didn't see the actual scene. But, as you say, the blue cast on the deck houses, which I know should be white, was what caught my eye. Usually, the middle of heavy clouds or fog is the best place to get a middle gray, but when the clouds are reflecting lights from below, they're not reliable indicators. In the end, though, Mike's Boden's right. It's a subjective decision. Sure love the picture. Good shooting.
Title: Towards Evening (cityscape warning)
Post by: Mike Boden on January 16, 2010, 03:21:59 pm
Quote from: Shirley Bracken
I guess I've missed where to find the EXIF.

To see the EXIF info, you can save Justan's image to your desktop and open it with Bridge and look at the image's info. Other applications will allow you to view the EXIF info as well.
Title: Towards Evening (cityscape warning)
Post by: Shirley Bracken on January 16, 2010, 03:28:58 pm
I thank you.  I guess I've never downloaded anyone else's work before.
Title: Towards Evening (cityscape warning)
Post by: Slobodan Blagojevic on January 16, 2010, 04:32:14 pm
Quote from: RSL
Justan, I love it, but it's too blue. It's night, and the lighting is yellow. This version is still a bit too blue, but closer to what I'll bet you saw:

[attachment=19495:OnTheDocks4.jpg]

Sorry, Russ, but your version looks more like being engulfed in a post-nuclear Earth atmosphere  
Title: Towards Evening (cityscape warning)
Post by: Justan on January 16, 2010, 05:19:57 pm
> …used the middle-gray dropper on the bridge of that first boat. The result was too yellow, so I slid the temp slider back to the left a bit.

A couple of weeks back I came across a guide for finding a gray point using PS. After your comment, I looked again today and naturally couldn’t find that one but this works and also is very close to your results. http://www.pearsoned.co.uk/Bookshop/article.asp?item=1239 (http://www.pearsoned.co.uk/Bookshop/article.asp?item=1239)

> But, as you say, the blue cast on the deck houses, which I know should be white, was what caught my eye.

An excellent observation. Pointing out this kind of thing helps me and I'm sure others to pay closer attention for excessive color cast. (It also helps that others have mentioned this previously  )

Finding a solution was an opportunity to work with a fairly new to me tool by way of color replacement for selected areas.

> In the end, though, Mike's Boden's right. It's a subjective decision. Sure love the picture. Good shooting.

Yes he is. Thanks again!

Title: Towards Evening (cityscape warning)
Post by: Shirley Bracken on January 16, 2010, 05:35:12 pm
You are so right.  I am learning what to look for to get the white balance right.  I might get lucky and get something right every once in a while but knowing how I got it is better!
Title: Towards Evening (cityscape warning)
Post by: bill t. on January 16, 2010, 05:45:47 pm
Quote from: Justan
I'm gonna use this image to try and bribe property management to letting me take some pix from the other end of the dock.
That has worked for me.  But if it doesn't, put on a hard hat, an orange vest, and a tool belt and walk out there like you own the place.  If anybody challenges you, just say "How 'bout those Seahawks!"

A stitch does not a pano make.  And I do see an interesting 2.5:1 pano lurking there in the upper-center part of the picture, but needing to be re-shot with a longer lens.  No fair cropping to get a pano.
Title: Towards Evening (cityscape warning)
Post by: Justan on January 16, 2010, 06:15:45 pm
>That has worked for me. But if it doesn't, put on a hard hat, an orange vest, and a tool belt and walk out there like you own the place. If anybody challenges you, just say "How 'bout those Seahawks!"

That’s an option! Heck something similar worked at the WH

> A stitch does not a pano make.

Fair but when does one become another?
 
> And I do see an interesting 2.5:1 pano lurking there in the upper-center part of the picture, but needing to be re-shot with a longer lens. No fair cropping to get a pano.

I agree that framing just that area would be good. It would be even better if shot from one of the crains. It is a very rich area. Returning on a clear(er) night is a near term project.
Title: Towards Evening (cityscape warning)
Post by: RSL on January 16, 2010, 06:45:31 pm
Quote from: Justan
A couple of weeks back I came across a guide for finding a gray point using PS. After your comment, I looked again today and naturally couldn’t find that one but this works and also is very close to your results. http://www.pearsoned.co.uk/Bookshop/article.asp?item=1239 (http://www.pearsoned.co.uk/Bookshop/article.asp?item=1239)

Yes, Scott Kelby has explained Dave Cross's method of finding a middle gray in a number of his books. If there's nothing in the picture you can be sure is middle gray, it's about all you have to go by. On the other hand, though I've used it many times I've never been overwhelmed by its accuracy. In the case of this picture you can be pretty sure that those deck houses are either white or gray. The problem is that the paint on the deck houses probably is dirty, so when you use the dropper you want to make sure it has at least a 3 x 3 sample size so you don't happen to catch just the single pixel that's off-color. But something that's white can be discolored by the source of the light that's illuminating it. Outside, during the day, under a bright blue sky, something white probably is going to have a lot of blue in it. At night, under incandescents, white's probably going to have a fair amount of reddish yellow. Before you try to judge any of this you need a carefully calibrated monitor. But in the end, as we've said several times, it's up to the author to decide what the color balance should be. Mike and Slobodan like more blue. I like less blue, but not as much less as in my original, quick correction. I like your last mod best of all.
Title: Towards Evening (cityscape warning)
Post by: Shirley Bracken on January 16, 2010, 08:06:59 pm
Not to be stupid but since I'm photographing paintings, can't I just put a gray card in the frame when I shoot the picture and use that as my neutral gray??

Great link, thanks!
Title: Towards Evening (cityscape warning)
Post by: bill t. on January 16, 2010, 08:25:19 pm
Yes but the quest for Middle Grey assumes light always comes in a package labeled White.

Light comes in lots of different color biases that greatly effect every surface it illuminates including middle grey.  And while our brain tends to  neutralize the color of non-white light, we are psychologically affected by color temperature and color castes in ways that are best conveyed in photography by letting some of that show through.  We need to at least make a nod to what the ambient light is doing.

Also, too-rigorously applied grey balances can lead to odd color crossovers and clipping elsewhere in the scene.  Other interesting criteria for selecting an appropriate scene color balance are to minimize the number of color crossovers, or minimize the amount of color clipping.
Title: Towards Evening (cityscape warning)
Post by: John R on January 16, 2010, 09:15:51 pm
Quote from: bill t.
Yes but the quest for Middle Grey assumes light always comes in a package labeled White.

Light comes in lots of different color biases that greatly effect every surface it illuminates including middle grey.  And while our brain tends to  neutralize the color of non-white light, we are psychologically affected by color temperature and color castes in ways that are best conveyed in photography by letting some of that show through.  We need to at least make a nod to what the ambient light is doing.

Also, too-rigorously applied grey balances can lead to odd color crossovers and clipping elsewhere in the scene.  Other interesting criteria for selecting an appropriate scene color balance are to minimize the number of color crossovers, or minimize the amount of color clipping.
Excellent points, and that's exactly what I find whenever I try to "fix" colour shifts. It works mostly where there is almost no other colour to be affected, like in a forest under a green canopy. And I often find it destroys or minimizes a mood in many images. So best to just try and see how it goes. Sometimes it is best to leave well enough alone.

JMR
Title: Towards Evening (cityscape warning)
Post by: Justan on January 17, 2010, 10:14:27 am
> Yes, Scott Kelby has explained Dave Cross's method of finding a middle gray in a number of his books. If there's nothing in the picture you can be sure is middle gray, it's about all you have to go by. On the other hand, though I've used it many times I've never been overwhelmed by its accuracy.

Agreed on the accuracy. I came across another video article a couple of weeks back that takes advantage of an averaging too in PS to find an average point in tone but doesn’t reduce it to gray as part of the process. It produced good results in my brief tests but danged if I can find the atticle again.

> In the case of this picture you can be pretty sure that those deck houses are either white or gray. The problem is that the paint on the deck houses probably is dirty, so when you use the dropper you want to make sure it has at least a 3 x 3 sample size so you don't happen to catch just the single pixel that's off-color.

I’ll definitely remember to draw from a bigger sample size. What I originally selected as the white point was one of the light bulbs. In trying to find what I thought a suitable white point, I tried several bulbs and some of the white painted areas. The brightest whites caused most of the image to wash out and most of the other "white" samples took the image down a notch or two.

> I like your last mod best of all.

Thanks! That demonstrates the value of good feedback

Title: Towards Evening (cityscape warning)
Post by: Justan on January 17, 2010, 10:42:30 am
Quote from: bill t.
Yes but the quest for Middle Grey assumes light always comes in a package labeled White.

Light comes in lots of different color biases that greatly effect every surface it illuminates including middle grey.  And while our brain tends to  neutralize the color of non-white light, we are psychologically affected by color temperature and color castes in ways that are best conveyed in photography by letting some of that show through.  We need to at least make a nod to what the ambient light is doing.

Also, too-rigorously applied grey balances can lead to odd color crossovers and clipping elsewhere in the scene.  Other interesting criteria for selecting an appropriate scene color balance are to minimize the number of color crossovers, or minimize the amount of color clipping.

Excellent observations!

To put some of that slightly differently, when shooting around sunrise or sunset tones shift dramatically and the eye of a viewer who was not there at the time the image was captured is sometimes obligated to make a leap to “get it” due to the lack of expected reference points. Getting the viewer to make that leap can be a challenge.

As a newbie to using white, gray, and especially black points, I find that the tools have a greater value in facilitating getting the most from tone ranges and helping to remove color cast(s). Setting absolute reference points is not necessarily their main purpose.

Title: Towards Evening (cityscape warning)
Post by: RSL on January 17, 2010, 03:40:32 pm
Quote from: Shirley Bracken
Not to be stupid but since I'm photographing paintings, can't I just put a gray card in the frame when I shoot the picture and use that as my neutral gray??

Great link, thanks!

Shirley, In spite of the caveats that have been expressed, all of which are quite correct, that's still the best way to do it. If you have a properly calibrated monitor and proper lighting for the paintings, you can use a gray card in the shoot, click on it with the middle-gray dropper, then simply compare what's on your monitor with the actual painting. The difference is that when you're photographing a painting you want the final colors to be as close to the original as possible. In the case of Justan's harbor photograph, that's not necessarily part of the assignment.
Title: Towards Evening (cityscape warning)
Post by: Chris_T on January 22, 2010, 08:24:04 am
Quote from: Justan
Setting the white, grey and black points is a new thing so I’m appreciative of any feedback you’d care to provide.

By "Setting the white, grey and black points", I assume that you meant setting certain areas to true neutral tones, by using the eye droppers, etc.

More often than not, true neutral tones may not exist in many images, such as yours. Many use the eye droppers to remove an image's casts. But some images' casts, as in yours, are desireable, and should not be removed. Before using the eye droppers (or any other method to achieve a neutral tone), you should evaluate whether true neutral tones do indeed exist in an image first. The exercise is not as simple or intuitive as one may think.

Applying neutral tone corrections to areas that are not true neutral tones will not only change those areas, but will change the whole image, sending you down the wrong path. Kind of like taking the wrong exit on the LA Express. Back tracking can be painful.

You may find this thread helpful.

http://photo.net/digital-darkroom-forum/00VNcE (http://photo.net/digital-darkroom-forum/00VNcE)