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Author Topic: Fall Color  (Read 1499 times)

jeremypayne

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Fall Color
« on: October 13, 2010, 07:41:01 pm »

After a very long hiatus from "real' work, I've spent the last six months starting a new software business ... and in that time, I haven't really had the opportunity to get out and shoot at all ... but ... 

Saturday ... with the foliage nearing peak ... I started scouting locations for the October 23rd full moon ... there should still be some great color and I've got a couple ideas for that evening.

Here's one location I have in mind ... what do you think of this shot?  It is a pano about 7,000 pixels wide. 

I printed it last night on Premium Luster at native 500 dpi* on A3 and it looks pretty nice ... but is it boring?

* After LR 3.2 came out, I started experimenting with sending more that 360 dpi to the printer and have come to the conclusion that 450-500 dpi looks better than 360 to my naked eye ... provided there is that kind of resolution in the file.  YMMV.

 
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John R

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Re: Fall Color
« Reply #1 on: October 14, 2010, 06:54:48 pm »

Boring? Like most people images, landscapes run the gammut from so-so to good, to fine and great. I think this image is good. It does not seem to have the kind of impact that is usually associated with a pink-blue coloured sky. The colours are so saturated without emotional impact. I bet it wood look much better on a large scale, and that's where pano-format shines. Was a polarizer used? They can be over used to the point of removing all specular light, which in my experience is not a good thing for most landscapes. I am sure you have noticed that it is not that easy to translate into a two dimensional space what the eye perceives as the awesome of beauty of autumn. Everything looks great when you travel in the car. But there are so many competing elements that have to be arranged. That is my way of saying, I still like it, it is fairly good.

JMR
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jeremypayne

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Re: Fall Color
« Reply #2 on: October 15, 2010, 07:32:24 am »

Thanks for the thoughtful comments!

A circular polarizer was used ... But I think the lack of specular highlights is due more to the position of the sun at that point - this shot was a good 10 minutes after the sun had stopped providing any direct light.  It was at that point towards the end of the "magic hour" where the eye starts to lose contrast, but the camera doesn't.

With respect to the saturation ... I have to admit I gave a bit of a bump in raw conversion.  I stuck with the Adobe Standard profile and added a +6 saturation and +6 vibrance ... Post-stitch I added a but of punch with an USM of radius 250 and strength of 15.  It looks a tad strong on the screen, but in print it looks very natural.  The reds and oranges come across really nice.

I do think this is one of those kind of shots that needs a very large canvas to work.  My print on a3 is nice with loads of fine detail ... But from even two feet away it just looses all feeling.

Interestingly, I may have a chance to see it big ... Someone approached me about providing a large-scale image of local scenery for their home nearby.  I may be printing this 6-8 feet across.
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popnfresh

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Re: Fall Color
« Reply #3 on: October 17, 2010, 03:29:47 am »

Interesting shot, but the colors are a bit too ramped up for my taste and the halo where the trees meet the sky makes the scene look artificial.
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jeremypayne

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Re: Fall Color
« Reply #4 on: October 17, 2010, 10:25:21 am »

Interesting shot, but the colors are a bit too ramped up for my taste and the halo where the trees meet the sky makes the scene look artificial.

Guess you had to be there ... it looked exactly like that ... the tree-blue sky border doesn't have any real halo-effect in print or at native resolution ... and even though I did add a tad bit of extra saturation to the adobe standard profile, the processed RAWs looks less slightly less saturated than the embedded jpegs did.
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