Flamingos

[Ed Blagden]

I would appreciate any comments, positive or negative, about these.

[attachment=14646:IMG_2322.jpg]

[attachment=14647:IMG_2259.jpg]

[dalethorn]

In the first, the B&W, the birds have that smooth, hard look of being up-rezzed from a much smaller size and then noise-processed.

[cmi]

Wow these hills are a gigantic sight. And then the flamingos in front...  nice. Where is this? Also Im curious how it would look in colour.  In the middle the hills are a bit too bright to my eyes.

The second one too is simply beautiful.

[Ed Blagden]

Christian

Lake Bogoria is a "soda lake" (ie a lake with no run-off which is highly alkaline) in the Rift Valley in Kenya.  The flamingos seem to like it there.  It is also where the hot springs are, a photo of which attracted such rancour on this board I nearly gave up.

You will find it at N 0deg 41' 42", E 36deg 05'22" on Google Earth.

I attach the colour version - maybe it is better, I find it hard to choose between this and the B&W.

Ed

[attachment=14664:IMG_2322_2.jpg]

[francois]

Christian

Lake Bogoria is a "soda lake" (ie a lake with no run-off which is highly alkaline) in the Rift Valley in Kenya.  The flamingos seem to like it there.  It is also where the hot springs are, a photo of which attracted such rancour on this board I nearly gave up.

You will find it at N 0deg 41' 42", E 36deg 05'22" on Google Earth.

I attach the colour version - maybe it is better, I find it hard to choose between this and the B&W.

Ed

[attachment=14664:IMG_2322_2.jpg]

FWIW, I do prefer the color version over the BW.

[Jeremy Roussak]

FWIW, I do prefer the color version over the BW.

So do I.

Ed, I'm glad you didn't give up after the discussion about your first submission here.

Jeremy

[cmi]

Christian

Lake Bogoria is a "soda lake" (ie a lake with no run-off which is highly alkaline) in the Rift Valley in Kenya.  The flamingos seem to like it there.  It is also where the hot springs are, a photo of which attracted such rancour on this board I nearly gave up.

You will find it at N 0deg 41' 42", E 36deg 05'22" on Google Earth.

I attach the colour version - maybe it is better, I find it hard to choose between this and the B&W.

Ed

[attachment=14664:IMG_2322_2.jpg]

Hi Ed,

thanks for the info about the location. I have seen this birds only at the local zoo . So it appears exotic to me, and as a really nice overall sight. I like it so much that I took the freedom to attach one version, hope you dont mind! Here is what I have done:

-cropped away a bit of the bottom
-added adjustment layer hue/saturation and upped saturation by 20%
-enhanced contrast slightly with an adjustment curve layer: Middle grey a bit down, light tones a bit up.
-emphasized the middle of the image by adding a horizontal black white black gradient as new layer. I set it to "overlay" and modified  (with adjust/curves) the white to be a bit above the middle grey (127 127 127) and the black to a value just under middle grey, so the gradient becomes subtle. You might want to experiment here. All this done in Photoshop. (One thing I noticed, the flamingos are a bit blown out, in fact a good part of the red channel. But, it still works.)

I also like the color version more, but that is not to say that the b/w cannot be improved. But since you came up with a b/w I suppose you really want a b/w out of it, so some general tips in random order. (Starting from the new color version,) I would play with the channel mixer (as a new layer), decreasing red, and maybe blue, and adjust the contrast of the outcome with a adjustment curve. You could also try inserting an adjustment layer "selective color" below the channel mixer, tweak the different colors, and look how that affects the b/w version. I could enhance the sky with that by tweaking the blues.
Also it doesnt hurt to look at the individual channels one at a time and decide if one of these is already what you want, or use only one as a basis for further tweaks.

So basically Im encouraging you to try some more adjustments afterwards.


Christian

[cmi]

One afterthought regarding b/w version, the key here in my eyes would be to get a good, smooth tonality across the vegetation of the hills. Not too bright, not too dark (the high blackpoint in your b/w version I like very much) but at the same time also not too dull.

And one more tip comes to my mind as Im writing this, once you have a good version (means: have fully optimized the global contrast) you could go on and try to enhance the LOCAL contrast by using unsharp mask with higher radius, playing with the slider a bit and look how it affects the hills. With a layer mask you then can control the effect across the image.

[Ed Blagden]

So do I.

Ed, I'm glad you didn't give up after the discussion about your first submission here.

Jeremy

Thanks - I said that with my tongue firmly in the cheek.  I came here to get criticism more than pats on the back (although the latter are nice too).  What I like about this board is that there are some photographers here who know what they are talking about, and are willing to give you their real opinion, sometimes with both barrels.  

Ed

[Ed Blagden]

Hi Ed,

thanks for the info about the location. I have seen this birds only at the local zoo . So it appears exotic to me, and as a really nice overall sight. I like it so much that I took the freedom to attach one version, hope you dont mind! Here is what I have done:

-cropped away a bit of the bottom
-added adjustment layer hue/saturation and upped saturation by 20%
-enhanced contrast slightly with an adjustment curve layer: Middle grey a bit down, light tones a bit up.
-emphasized the middle of the image by adding a horizontal black white black gradient as new layer. I set it to "overlay" and modified  (with adjust/curves) the white to be a bit above the middle grey (127 127 127) and the black to a value just under middle grey, so the gradient becomes subtle. You might want to experiment here. All this done in Photoshop. (One thing I noticed, the flamingos are a bit blown out, in fact a good part of the red channel. But, it still works.)

I also like the color version more, but that is not to say that the b/w cannot be improved. But since you came up with a b/w I suppose you really want a b/w out of it, so some general tips in random order. (Starting from the new color version,) I would play with the channel mixer (as a new layer), decreasing red, and maybe blue, and adjust the contrast of the outcome with a adjustment curve. You could also try inserting an adjustment layer "selective color" below the channel mixer, tweak the different colors, and look how that affects the b/w version. I could enhance the sky with that by tweaking the blues.
Also it doesnt hurt to look at the individual channels one at a time and decide if one of these is already what you want, or use only one as a basis for further tweaks.

So basically Im encouraging you to try some more adjustments afterwards.


Christian

Christian

Thanks - sheesh, I really must get photoshop.  I didn't understand a word of your long post apart from the cropping bit, but your result is better than mine.  I am limping along with Lightroom 1.4.  

For the Colour image all I did was enhance saturation on the yellow and orange channels, and reduce blue luminance to enhance the clouds a bit.  For the B&W I reduced blue luminance quite a lot and boosted luminance on the red, orange and yellow channels.  And then I enhanced global contrast quite a lot.

You are right about the flamingos being blown out.  Sorry   .  In fact, this is why they have those rather unsightly halos around the birds.  Interestingly they were not there until I pulled down the blue luminance.  However I reckon it is worth it because the sky looks better and this is really a landscape picture with some birds in it, rather than a picture of birds with a landscape in the background.  I compromised.

Ed

[cmi]

Christian

Thanks - sheesh, I really must get photoshop.  I didn't understand a word of your long post apart from the cropping bit, but your result is better than mine.  I am limping along with Lightroom 1.4.  

For the Colour image all I did was enhance saturation on the yellow and orange channels, and reduce blue luminance to enhance the clouds a bit.  For the B&W I reduced blue luminance quite a lot and boosted luminance on the red, orange and yellow channels.  And then I enhanced global contrast quite a lot.

You are right about the flamingos being blown out.  Sorry   .  In fact, this is why they have those rather unsightly halos around the birds.  Interestingly they were not there until I pulled down the blue luminance.  However I reckon it is worth it because the sky looks better and this is really a landscape picture with some birds in it, rather than a picture of birds with a landscape in the background.  I compromised.

Ed

Ed,

dont say sorry for making mistakes. You are experimenting with this stuff and that is good. And because you wonder about the halos: It is only logical.  YOu see them now, so they where in the data from the start. You lowered the blue, but the halos dont consist of blue, so now you see them. I had this too, thats quite common.

And I should have asked first wich Software you are using  You can do all this with lightroom too, I basically modified contrast and saturation. And if you really want PS, get a used v7. This is the last version before CS came out, already nice feature set, works faster and is smaller. Ok it misses some functions but mind you, already with PS3 (some will argue sooner) you could do basically everything.

Christian

[Jeremy Roussak]

Thanks - I said that with my tongue firmly in the cheek.  I came here to get criticism more than pats on the back (although the latter are nice too).  What I like about this board is that there are some photographers here who know what they are talking about, and are willing to give you their real opinion, sometimes with both barrels.  

Ed

I hoped you were. Your reason for being here is exactly the same as mine, as I've commented in other threads. Some people do have thin skins, though!

Jeremy