Luminous Landscape Forum
Equipment & Techniques => Landscape & Nature Photography => Topic started by: Dave (Isle of Skye) on February 22, 2013, 03:33:23 pm
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Most of the time we photographers run around endlessly and pointlessly trying to get to what we hope is going to be a good sunset or sunrise at our chosen location, only to find that the clouds gang up over the horizon just when you don't want them to and spoil the whole darn show. But very occasionally, you just happen to be in the right place at the right time and get to photograph one of those rare and amazing sunsets/sunrises that almost makes your eyeballs melt.
I have shot many sunsets and sunrises in my time, but this is one of the most colourful sunsets that I have ever seen and been able to photograph.
Updated image now here :D
Dave
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Admit it, you tipped a can of Tango over the lens
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Admit it, you tipped a can of Tango over the lens
No not Tango, not up here. It was Irn-Bru ::)
Dave
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I'll take your word, Dave. But those who won't read your story might find it a bit over-the-top (saturation, that is).
You see, it looks to me that you tried to open up a bit shadows in the first stretch of land in the background. Now, with such strong saturation, I would say that our perception would expect a much stronger, if not totally black silhouette. The second land/island, being more distant and hazy, could remain less dark, however. In other words, you can't have it both ways: strong, saturated colors and opened shadows. I mean, you obviously can, but the effect is not believable. Believe me ;)
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I'll take your word, Dave. But those who won't read your story might find it a bit over-the-top (saturation, that is).
You see, it looks to me that you tried to open up a bit shadows in the first stretch of land in the background. Now, with such strong saturation, I would say that our perception would expect a much stronger, if not totally black silhouette. The second land/island, being more distant and hazy, could remain less dark, however. In other words, you can't have it both ways: strong, saturated colors and opened shadows. I mean, you obviously can, but the effect is not believable. Believe me ;)
Yes I agree it does look oversaturated and the land doesn't look black enough, I admit it. But the clouds were actually over the land and reflecting light back down onto it so perhaps that is the reason why - not all anomalies are the result of over shopping an image you know :)
This was towards the end of the light show and so I was exposing the scene for several seconds, in fact I was overexposing it you might say - as it looked far better on my review screen and the cameras ability to see the fading light, than I was actually able to see with my eyes. So all I can say is it was what the camera was capturing, even though I have obviously worked it somewhat in post.
I will try a different version and show it here, because as I said, I must have well over a hundred shots of this sunset which really was amazing, but perhaps I have not done it the full justice it deserves. In fact I have a six or seven vertical shot pano of it from the beginning of the sunset - leave it with me and I will return with that one - which I now have done and replaced in the original post above ;D
Dave
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You might want to increase the contrast with a tool such as levels or curves.
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Thanks for the tip - and welcome to the forum.
Dave
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You might want to increase the contrast with a tool such as levels or curves.
+1
;D ;D ;D
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I'll take your word, Dave. But those who won't read your story might find it a bit over-the-top (saturation, that is).
You see, it looks to me that you tried to open up a bit shadows in the first stretch of land in the background. Now, with such strong saturation, I would say that our perception would expect a much stronger, if not totally black silhouette. The second land/island, being more distant and hazy, could remain less dark, however. In other words, you can't have it both ways: strong, saturated colors and opened shadows. I mean, you obviously can, but the effect is not believable. Believe me ;)
What do you think to this version Slobodan? This is a stitched pano, so more to see and also about 15 minutes before the original version I posted before - also I didn't lean on the sliders quite so much ;D
Dave
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Also here are a couple of dawn shots, just to prove I really am one of those mad photographers that regularly gets up in the middle of the night to go out and stand there freezing my n**ts off just to take pictures :) :D ;D ::)
Now with two slightly more saturated versions as per Slobodan's suggestion below, and I will leave the original two versions for people to compare should they wish to. I haven't gone overly mad with the colour boosts and I suppose if I am honest, the more colourful second versions are more like I remember both these dawn shoots to be, but then my wife is always telling me I have a vivid imagination :)
These images now in sRGB :)
Dave
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I suspect that you are pee-ing against the wind here, Dave. Those who know the area know just how dramatic sunrises and sunsets can be and you have captured a great one.
The problem is that cheating in Photoshop is so easy and so widespread nowadays that everybody assumes that some form of post-exposure processing has been used to produce such images.
I had a similar problem with images of Iceland's Blue Lagoon in a camera club competition - the judge simply would not believe they were not "enhanced".
I think the best philosophy is to regard your photographs simply as personal records. Every time you look at them they will remind you of the emotions you experienced when you saw the sunset or sunrise. What anyone else thinks matters not 1% of SFA.
Keep up the great work.
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But we all have egos to a certain extent and like to get it massaged from time to time, thus we post here - and other forums - and hope we get more kudos than criticism. PhotoEcosse It looks like you were a little scarred by the judges comments. Your comment "cheating in Photoshop" is over the top imo. If you post here then the members expect your image to be processed. If it isn't then you will generally advised to do so. I have taken images of a sunset that were as strong as Dave's and sometimes toned them down because they didn't look believable. Carry on putting images into contests. You can't win all the time. :) BTW Dave's images look believable to me and very likeable!
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PhotoEcosse It looks like you were a little scarred by the judges comments.
Not at all. I have infinitely more experience and photographic expertise than the vast majority of judges that I have encountered, so I am most unlikely to be "scarred" by anything they say.
That is not to say, however, that we cannot learn from the experience. The lesson I was passing on was simply that submitting a realistic photograph of a very dramatic landscape runs the risk of being accused of cheating or, if you prefer, manipulation.
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I've had to tone down stuff, because the reality looked unbelievable. Dave's Skye stuff is clearly overly Photoshopped, and I know this 'cos it isn't overcast & raining in his images ;)
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I've had to tone down stuff, because the reality looked unbelievable. Dave's Skye stuff is clearly overly Photoshopped, and I know this 'cos it isn't overcast & raining in his images ;)
Bill - please don't ever change, you posts are always guaranteed to make me smile ;D ;D ;D
Dave
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I do not see why you had to replace the OP photo? It was rather good. The fact that I would tweak it tiny little bit, either by decreasing red/orange saturation or by increasing the black point for the front strip of land, does not mean it is bad by any stretch of imagination.
The layering of those land strips appears now perfect in all three posted photos, btw. I would now top that by increasing sky saturation in all of them. I know, I am hard to please ;)
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I do not see why you had to replace the OP photo? It was rather good. The fact that I would tweak it tiny little bit, either by decreasing red/orange saturation or by increasing the black point for the front strip of land, does not mean it is bad by any stretch of imagination.
The layering of those land strips appears now perfect in all three posted photos, btw. I would now top that by increasing sky saturation in all of them. I know, I am hard to please ;)
Yes Slobodan you are and I will.
Dave
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This is LuLa at its best.
Interesting images and highly entertaining repartee!
Tony Jay
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This is LuLa at its best.
Interesting images and highly entertaining repartee!
Tony Jay
Amen!
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Not at all. I have infinitely more experience and photographic expertise than the vast majority of judges that I have encountered, so I am most unlikely to be "scarred" by anything they say.
That is not to say, however, that we cannot learn from the experience. The lesson I was passing on was simply that submitting a realistic photograph of a very dramatic landscape runs the risk of being accused of cheating or, if you prefer, manipulation.
IMO the bottom line is that most of ones who accuse you of cheating have little or no knowledge of Photoshop and won't admit it. They are jealous of what you can achieve. I spent six years in a club. I was the first to put digital images into competitions and others followed. At first I and the others weren't a "danger" to the film photographers but when the digital photographers started winning contests the criticism started especially when digital slides were winning slide contests. Doomsday for them was when a professional wedding photographer judged a competition and stated that every image in a contest could have been improved with photoshop. No point in arguing with the anti Photoshop brigade. Smile because you are doing better than them and deep down they know it.
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I think you are missing the point, Stamper.
All I am saying is that it is galling when you see a wonderful sunrise or sunset, take a great photograph of it (as Dave has done) and no-one will believe that such a fantastic scene actually existed.
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I have shot many sunsets and sunrises in my time, but this is one of the most colourful sunsets that I have ever seen and been able to photograph.
Dave,
May I suggest you submit your images in the sRGB colorspace? As it currently is, the thumbnails do not even remotely represent the actual image, but additionally, the resulting "colormanaged" views suffer from severe channelclipping which makes the colors go all over the place. (At least on my non-wide-gamut sRGB-ish display).
Therefore, I have a hard time viewing the scenes as they may have been in reality. I either see the dull colors of the thumbnail, or I see oversaturated clipped colors. Neither of these 2 options do the scenery or your vision about the scenery any justice.
Compositionally: I really like the layering and tonal and color transitions in the last image, at least in the "colormanaged" view, but i am desperately looking for a point-of-interest. I recall your boat in golden light recently.
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I think you are missing the point, Stamper.
All I am saying is that it is galling when you see a wonderful sunrise or sunset, take a great photograph of it (as Dave has done) and no-one will believe that such a fantastic scene actually existed.
I do take your point and I think we are on the same wavelength. :)
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I do not see why you had to replace the OP photo? It was rather good. The fact that I would tweak it tiny little bit, either by decreasing red/orange saturation or by increasing the black point for the front strip of land, does not mean it is bad by any stretch of imagination.
The layering of those land strips appears now perfect in all three posted photos, btw. I would now top that by increasing sky saturation in all of them. I know, I am hard to please ;)
OK Slobodan, here is the OP back again but with the tweak(s) as per your suggestions above. Now c'mon, are we pleased yet??? ::)
Latest version of this image now in sRGB :)
Dave
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Dave,
May I suggest you submit your images in the sRGB colorspace? As it currently is, the thumbnails do not even remotely represent the actual image, but additionally, the resulting "colormanaged" views suffer from severe channelclipping which makes the colors go all over the place. (At least on my non-wide-gamut sRGB-ish display).
Oscar I am deeply ashamed to say that I have not done as you suggest or as I said I would do some weeks ago, please forgive me. I have an action you see that I save out all my files for upload onto Lula and for the life of me I cannot remember to add the sRGB colour space settings to the end of it, it would only take me a matter of seconds to do it as well, but can I remember? Can I heck.
I have now written this onto the back of my hand and will certainly do it tomorrow, so please bear with me until I get a chance to reload/replace the images you see here currently ;D
Which I have now done..
Dave
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... Now c'mon, are we pleased yet??? ::)
If you insist... ok, just kidding.
Yes, looks better. You see, this sRGB issue skewed my later comments (about increasing saturation), as I either judged it by the thumbnails (and now I see why they appeared muted) or I saw them on my iPad (not certain how it color manages). In any case, there is a huge discrepancy between thumbnails and enlarged version (at least on my iMac and Safari).
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If you insist... ok, just kidding.
Yes, looks better. You see, this sRGB issue skewed my later comments (about increasing saturation), as I either judged it by the thumbnails (and now I see why they appeared muted) or I saw them on my iPad (not certain how it color manages). In any case, there is a huge discrepancy between thumbnails and enlarged version (at least on my iMac and Safari).
But the reason I keep forgetting to swap colourspace, is because any decent colour is hard to see on my laptop anyway, as it isn't colour calibrated, in fact it is dowright awful, but that's where I upload from, my main imaging system never goes on-line. Yes I know I should get the laptop calibrated, but it is so old and cranky and full of cr*p that I really should retire it and get a new one. I will have to speak to head office :o
Dave
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OK Slobodan, here is the OP back again but with the tweak(s) as per your suggestions above. Now c'mon, are we pleased yet??? ::)
Dave
Interesting comments all round! My preference is for your first submission. But, I wasn't there, I don't know what you saw. With your second submission (the 4 images), I liked shots 2 and 4, but that's just me! Send me a bottle of Talisker and I'll support you to the end! If you print them, print the one you like, not Stamper's or Slobodan's.
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Oscar - Latest version of all these images now in sRGB, hope this is OK now?
Dave
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... Latest version of all these images now in sRGB...
That's a good first step! Catching up with with the know-how, I see.
Now, what were you saying about replacing that Atari 64 you are working on? ;D
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Interesting comments all round! My preference is for your first submission. But, I wasn't there, I don't know what you saw. With your second submission (the 4 images), I liked shots 2 and 4, but that's just me! Send me a bottle of Talisker and I'll support you to the end! If you print them, print the one you like, not Stamper's or Slobodan's.
I bought a bottle of Talisker the other day (and very nice it is too) but it is now selling for £35 a bottle - yikes!!
Dave
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That's a good first step! Catching up with with the know-how, I see.
Now, what were you saying about replacing that Atari 64 you are working on? ;D
Good grief, I used to have an Atari 64 and before that a Commadore with a tape loader - utter rubbish it was. I first learnt how to program on a BBC micro, but when the Amiga 500 came out, now that was a computer.
I have not broached the subject with the boss yet :-X
Here's yet another one of my many sunset shots - Bill will like this one, its got a lighthouse in it. The light bean came around about every ten seconds or so, so I just counted 1,000, 2,000 etc and then held down the button on the cable release - and before anyone asks, yes I had to tweak up the beam slightly, it was just so faint, but I only did it sligthtly - honest.
Dave
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The colours in this one were from the smoke from forest fires on the other side of the ridge.
(http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2674/3799568563_31685ef372_o.jpg) (http://www.flickr.com/photos/wolfnowl/3799568563/)
Fiery Sunset (http://www.flickr.com/photos/wolfnowl/3799568563/) by wolfnowl (http://www.flickr.com/people/wolfnowl/), on Flickr
On this one I really had to boost the saturation in the oranges and yellows just to make them visible.
(http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6052/6248473851_ddf54e7372_o.jpg) (http://www.flickr.com/photos/wolfnowl/6248473851/)
Sunset (http://www.flickr.com/photos/wolfnowl/6248473851/) by wolfnowl (http://www.flickr.com/people/wolfnowl/), on Flickr
Mike.
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Fabulous mood in the second one, Mike. Love it.
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Thanks for saying so! Right place, right time. Of course, since I live 200 yd from the ocean I should go there more often... ::)
Mike.
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Fabulous mood in the second one, Mike. Love it.
I'm with Slobodan!
Tony Jay
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I'm with Slobodan!
Tony Jay
Me too!
You've got a great island for photography, so you should be out with camera at least 6 hours every day! ;)
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+1. Blue clouds, black water. I like these unexpected hues.
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Thanks for saying so! Right place, right time. Of course, since I live 200 yd from the ocean I should go there more often... ::)
Mike.
Here in Scotland no-one lives more than 200 yards from the ocean.
Well, that's maybe a slight exaggeration but certainly no-one lives more than 30 miles from the sea.
I remember reading that, in the entire UK, there is nowhere more than 80 miles from the sea (somewhere in Oxfordshire, I seem to recall, is farthest).
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My favorite is the "Heast View 2" I enjoy the soft colors of the sky and the wonderful blue tone of lake and mountain. It makes no difference to me how you reached the final image.
How many times have I viewed a sunset and thought, "If someone painted a picture of that, people would say, 'the sky could never look like that'. "
Raise your hand if you admire Ansel Adams. Do you know how many hours he labored in a dark room editing his photos? If he left the negatives in liquid just a few seconds too long, results could be drastically different than what he hoped to achieve. Be grateful for our one-click editing abilities in PS!
Don't believe any photo? I saw an amazing image of a Mongolian warrior on a galloping horse in front of a setting sun. The photographer said he paid the guy $10 to ride his horse back and forth so all members of the photography class could be assured of a try the same dramatic image.
Another image the same photographer showed was of an old chevy with open doors and trunk open parked in front of the doors of an old church in Cuba. Originally he saw the car parked across the street perpendicular to other cars. He paid the guy $5 to park in front of the church and open the doors. It was a great photo!