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Author Topic: South Park  (Read 2988 times)

RSL

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South Park
« on: October 06, 2011, 09:32:59 pm »

Here's some landscape, shot on the way back from Taos. It's South Park from Wilkerson Pass. The aspen are helping the composition, but if you look carefully you can see the hand of man in there -- the most important element, actually.
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William Walker

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Re: South Park
« Reply #1 on: October 07, 2011, 01:52:29 am »

but if you look carefully you can see the hand of man in there -- the most important element, actually.

Russ! You are being mischievous!

Frankly, in this picture, the hand of man is neither here nor there as far as I am concerned. It is as nice a landscape as I have seen posted here, certainly the best (landscape) I seen of yours.

William
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ckimmerle

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Re: South Park
« Reply #2 on: October 07, 2011, 08:48:48 am »

Nice photo, Russ. But I'd clone out that sidewalk. It distracts from the natural beauty, and we all know that nature is the most important element in landscapes.   :)
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RSL

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Re: South Park
« Reply #3 on: October 07, 2011, 10:17:51 am »

Ah... but that sidewalk leads to Heaven, Chuck. And it was built by the hand of man.

I got lucky with this shot. We stopped at the rest area at the top of Wilkerson pass, and, after resting I grabbed my D3 and shot three or four landscapes -- with the aspen at their peak all over the mountains. Tonight what sounds like a blizzard is supposed to move in. By tomorrow morning the aspen will be shot and South Park will be covered in snow. If I weren't awfully busy getting ready to move to Florida for the winter I'd drive back up on Monday or Tuesday and get a snow version of the same scene.
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Richowens

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Re: South Park
« Reply #4 on: October 07, 2011, 11:02:07 am »

Ah... but that sidewalk leads to Heaven, Chuck. And it was built by the hand of man.


 Looks like a cow trail to me.

Rich
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Eric Myrvaagnes

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Re: South Park
« Reply #5 on: October 07, 2011, 01:40:22 pm »

Russ,

If you revisited it right after the blizzard you would stand a chance of getting a much improved landscape  -- in which the snow hides the evidence of the desecration by the "hand of man."   ;)

Eric
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Slobodan Blagojevic

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Re: South Park
« Reply #6 on: October 07, 2011, 01:51:48 pm »

Tried to make a silk purse... hope you do not mind. Couldn't do anything about the composition, though ;)

Jeremy Roussak

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Re: South Park
« Reply #7 on: October 07, 2011, 02:56:30 pm »

Tried to make a silk purse... hope you do not mind. Couldn't do anything about the composition, though ;)
Sorry to say it, Russ, but it does look a lot better (composition notwithstanding)!

Jeremy
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RSL

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Re: South Park
« Reply #8 on: October 07, 2011, 03:33:02 pm »

Yeah, you're both right. I started to bring up the aspens in Viveza but I chickened out. The sun was fading as I made the shot. Here's another landscape that not only has the hand of man but also has the hoof of horse. Unfortunately the wind was blowing and the chamisa out in the field were waving.


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RSL

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Re: South Park
« Reply #9 on: October 08, 2011, 01:14:36 pm »

Tried to make a silk purse... hope you do not mind. Couldn't do anything about the composition, though ;)

Slobodan, I've been working on this, trying to duplicate what you did, but I haven't quite been able to do it. Close, but no horseshoe. What steps did you take?
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Slobodan Blagojevic

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Re: South Park
« Reply #10 on: October 08, 2011, 03:21:34 pm »

Slobodan, I've been working on this, trying to duplicate what you did, but I haven't quite been able to do it. Close, but no horseshoe. What steps did you take?


Ah, really easy! ;) All steps done in Lightroom:

1. Applied lens profile (not really necessary for this type of photo, but does take care of whatever distortion and chromatic aberration is there)

2. White Balance adjustment: slightly less yellow (-5), slightly less green (+5)

3. Tone adjustments: plus 0.75 exposure, a touch of Fill Light (+5), a touch more brightness (+5), and reduction in contrast (-20)

4. "Presence" adjustments: Clarity +30, Vibrance +25

5. HSL (Color) Panel adjustments: Blue Hue slightly toward magenta (+10), Blue Saturation +20; Orange and Yellow Luminance +20, Blue Luminance -10

The key changes, however, are done using graduated filters in LR, four of them to be precise:

6. First grad is covering the sky, with the middle somewhere slightly below the horizon. The adjustment values for the first grad: Exposure -0.50 (half a stop), Brightness -10, Contrast -100, Saturation +50, Clarity +20

7. Second grad covers just the top of the sky, with the middle line just below the two top clouds; value:  -0.50 Exposure (half a stop less)

8. Third grad runs from left to right, with the middle approximately where the distant lake begins; value: -0.33 Exposure (a third f/stop less)

9. Fourth grad covers just the tiny patch of dry grass in the leftmost lower corner; value: -0.50 Exposure (half a stop less)

As you can see, even in the post-processing, the hand of man is key! It moves all the adjustment sliders, after all ;) But even more important is the eye of man! And moderation.


P.S. It is quite possible, even very likely, that when those changes are applied to a RAW file (instead to a jpeg, as I did), they might produce a slightly different result.
« Last Edit: October 08, 2011, 04:36:22 pm by Slobodan Blagojevic »
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Eric Myrvaagnes

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Re: South Park
« Reply #11 on: October 08, 2011, 04:13:05 pm »


As you can see, even in the post-processing, the hand of man is key! It moves all the adjustment sliders, after all ;)

Dagnabbit! Maybe that's my problem. I keep trying to push those sliders with my foot.   ???

Eric
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RSL

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Re: South Park
« Reply #12 on: October 08, 2011, 05:05:59 pm »

Thanks, Slobodan. There's never an end to learning. It's been a long time since I used a gradient on one of my pictures. As soon as I get time I'm going to go through your series using Photoshop and see if I can get roughly the same results. Yes, on the original RAW it's going to be a bit different. The lens was my 24-70 f/2.8, and, as I always do, I applied a lens profile in ACR as soon as all the suff came off the camera, so there's shouldn't have been a change in step 1.

I really like your silk purse result, and I came pretty close to it using Viveza from Photoshop, but I couldn't quite get there. Then I tried a couple grads, but my adjustments weren't quite what you used, so I never got there that way either.

It's clear your eye for landscape is better than mine.

Eric, were you around when the guy invented the foot mouse? If not, you may think I'm kidding, but at one of the Las Vegas Comdex shows I attended back in the eighties a guy actually was selling a foot mouse. Fortunately, it didn't catch on.
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tom b

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Re: South Park
« Reply #13 on: October 08, 2011, 05:23:17 pm »

My first thoughts were graduated neutral filter or polarising filter.

Would ave minimised the problems in the first place.

Cheers,
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Tom Brown

Eric Myrvaagnes

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Re: South Park
« Reply #14 on: October 08, 2011, 09:17:57 pm »

Eric, were you around when the guy invented the foot mouse? If not, you may think I'm kidding, but at one of the Las Vegas Comdex shows I attended back in the eighties a guy actually was selling a foot mouse. Fortunately, it didn't catch on.
Russ,

Actually, the foot mouse did catch on -- in a way. There is an outfit that makes a two-button foot pedal for PCs and Macs which is used by some professional musicians as a page-turning device for a musical score displayed on the computer as a PDF. The Borromeo String Quartet (of the New England Conservatory) has used them regularly for the past three years instead of using printed music. With the foot pedal to turn pages (right button goes to next page; left goes to previous page), each player can have a complete score visible instead of only his or her own part.

Eric

P.S. But I don't think the pedal will move my LR sliders very well.  ;)
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RSL

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Re: South Park
« Reply #15 on: October 08, 2011, 09:26:19 pm »

My first thoughts were graduated neutral filter or polarising filter.

Would ave minimised the problems in the first place.

Cheers,

Tom, Well, I carry a circular polarizer, but time was short. There was a lot of snow on Wolf Creek Pass not far to the west of us, and the clouds were coming our way. If I'd gotten out the filter and mounted it, the game would have been over before I could have tripped the shutter.
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