Luminous Landscape Forum

Equipment & Techniques => Landscape & Nature Photography => Topic started by: Abbye on August 17, 2012, 03:40:05 pm

Title: oh the frustration!
Post by: Abbye on August 17, 2012, 03:40:05 pm
I am in the midst of trying to upgrade my lightroom to lightroom 4 and my photoshop to cs6... it is becoming more of a problem then I anticipated as the old programs were physical copies and the serial numbers were on the boxes... and the boxes are where you ask? That is a good question.

Though I'm glad to see this forum has a whole section dedicated to lightroom!  I'll be checking that out soon.

In the meantime I thought I'd share a photo that was processed in the trial (though paid for) lightroom 4.

c&c appreciated! My favourite part is the pebbles at the bottom, and though I don't usually like shooting straight into the sunset, my new reverse filter is really doing the trick! Agree or disagree?

(http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8443/7803325186_6f9a5dd5e7.jpg) (http://www.flickr.com/photos/10633429@N00/7803325186/)
new lightroom/photoshop (http://www.flickr.com/photos/10633429@N00/7803325186/) by abbye dahl (http://www.flickr.com/people/10633429@N00/), on Flickr
Title: Re: oh the frustration!
Post by: Slobodan Blagojevic on August 17, 2012, 03:46:49 pm
These two dominant colors (cyan and magenta) are really, really not getting along. Too kitschy, too contradictory. That magenta/pink sky is also not really believable. The sky might turn so on occasion, but only when the sun is behind the horizon.
Title: Re: oh the frustration!
Post by: bill t. on August 17, 2012, 09:48:51 pm
Well I just got back from an Arts Crawl and I saw numerous pieces of high priced art at least as radically colored as this, being gawked at by well dressed people sipping Costco Beaujolais Nouveau.  So at least you've got company!

Don't know what to say really.  It's an abstraction, so anything goes.  Run it up the flagpole and see who salutes, which of course you have already done.  If you make a small print of this and put it in a metal sectional frame with matte, it will just be embarrassing.  Print it huge and flush mount it on some Dibond and you may have something.  Work like this never works at small scale, it is gallery art or nothing.  And that's the simple truth.
Title: Re: oh the frustration!
Post by: Abbye on August 17, 2012, 10:57:09 pm
Well I just got back from an Arts Crawl and I saw numerous pieces of high priced art at least as radically colored as this, being gawked at by well dressed people sipping Costco Beaujolais Nouveau.  So at least you've got company!

Don't know what to say really.  It's an abstraction, so anything goes.  Run it up the flagpole and see who salutes, which of course you have already done.  If you make a small print of this and put it in a metal sectional frame with matte, it will just be embarrassing.  Print it huge and flush mount it on some Dibond and you may have something.  Work like this never works at small scale, it is gallery art or nothing.  And that's the simple truth.

hi bill,

thank you for the honest feedback!  this was very interesting to hear.

this shot has much more vibrant colours then the images i usually produce.  and though in the end (hopefully in the next 10 years...) i am working towards the idea of very large prints shown in art galleries, but i wanted to see if the photographic community would tear a piece off :P

i do hope to soon find a happy medium between stunning colour images, while still staying true to my photographic roots.

Title: Re: oh the frustration!
Post by: luxborealis on August 18, 2012, 09:46:10 am
"i do hope to soon find a happy medium between stunning colour images, while still staying true to my photographic roots."

From what you say, it seems like you are having an internal conflict between "stunning colour images" and your "photographic roots". Do you mean your roots are more towards "realism"? It is possible and quite visually productive to be/do both: do the realism shots to satisfy one part of you but then be fanciful and experiment with/explore other options to satisfy the other.

You have a beautifully executed image but the colour dichotomy will ruffle the feathers of the realists. While, as a photographer I am more in the "realist" camp, I also recognize that photographs do not need to be real to be valid. I'm more with bill t. on this - print it large (perhaps on canvas) and it would look stunning in the right location. Thanks for sharing!
Title: Re: oh the frustration!
Post by: sdwilsonsct on August 19, 2012, 02:49:22 am
I really like the bottom 2/3s.  :)
Title: Re: oh the frustration!
Post by: Jose L on August 19, 2012, 03:06:43 am
La composiciĆ³n de la imagen en vertical creo que es acertada, le da profundidad a la imagen. <Lo mismo digo de la nitidez en todo el campo. Pero al igual que otros comentarios creo que los colores del cielo estan sobre-saturados, parecen irreales. Saludos.
Title: Re: oh the frustration!
Post by: Eric Myrvaagnes on August 19, 2012, 01:55:23 pm
I really like the bottom 2/3s.  :)
I'm with Scott on this.
Title: Re: oh the frustration!
Post by: MTGFender on August 19, 2012, 09:22:30 pm
The upper part was caused by IR contamination. It happens when you combine Lee Big Stopper with some GND filters such as HiTech filter.

Pramote
Title: Re: oh the frustration!
Post by: francois on August 20, 2012, 05:06:20 am
The sky is spectacular but it makes a weird match (color-wise) with the bottom 2/3.

By the way, thanks for the technical info!
Title: Re: oh the frustration!
Post by: davidh202 on August 21, 2012, 09:21:56 pm
 I think this is a wonderful image and actually like the colors as is, and agree with Bill T. You are an artist and should interpret your photos the way you wish to portray them. ;)
I have been doing some very interesting PP with some of my images, and am starting to like being a little different!  8)
 Just a suggestion...
  There are a couple of things you could experiment with to see if they work for you.
In ACR, or Lightrooms develop module, you can go into the graduated filter tool and do 2 filters one for the top section and toned a little more to the orange yellow to remove some magenta ,and one for the bottom water and rock area toned a little more green rather than cyan. This would bring the colors closer to complementary and would be somewhat more "believable". While in that tool play with sliders to lighten -darken, saturate or desaturate those areas. Play a little, and see what different versions you can come up with.Save them and compare them side by side. 
    Also, If you really like the pebbles at the bottom you could also crop about 1/4 to 1/3 off the top of the sky creating more of a 4/3 crop which would tend to de-emphasize the sky and weight the bottom more.
 David