Luminous Landscape Forum
The Art of Photography => User Critiques => Topic started by: Kiwi Paul on June 04, 2017, 03:42:48 pm
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A telephoto mountain vista taken on the west coast of Scotland.
(https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4234/34889680952_756ec82858_b.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/Va5JBj)
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Definitely a great "starting point" photograph with much potential to add impact. The clouds and receding mountains work in your favour. But, as it is, with flat lighting, a pale sky, no Dax and little impact, it's very straight forward with little to engage the viewer. Give me five minutes in LR and it could be spruced up (right now, I'm on my iPad, so I won't attempt it).
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So here is my take in LR...
May not be your cup of tea or your original intention; hopefully it's food for thought.
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But, it it were my image, I would go straight to B&W with a slight warm tone...
Again, I'm not trying to impose, but rather offer food for thought.
Note the slight erasing of the main Graduated Mask along the tops of the mountains. This was done, along with the addition of an Adjustment Brush adding exposure as the dramatic increase in Clarity caused sever haloing.
A great image to explore in LR. Note: the "granular" appearance is due to the small jpeg image being pushed. i would imagine the original raw file would not exhibit this unwanted effect with similar treatment.
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Definitely a great "starting point" photograph with much potential to add impact. The clouds and receding mountains work in your favour. But, as it is, with flat lighting, a pale sky, no Dax and little impact, it's very straight forward with little to engage the viewer. Give me five minutes in LR and it could be spruced up (right now, I'm on my iPad, so I won't attempt it).
Dax?
Jeremy
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A monochrome might be worth considering but I'm not too fond of those colour edits.
Nicely taken shot, if I had to be critical I'd say perhaps it could have done with some land in the foreground? not just to frame the composition but also to show more of a drop-off is contrast over the distance.
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Dax?
Jeremy
Sorry - "Dmax" was autocorrected.
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Dax?
Jeremy
Maybe a short form of Covfefe?
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Here's a new version, I agree the original was a bit flat and I re-cropped it to reduce the sky and add more water.
(https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4282/34984334931_e7b0a483c4_b.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/VirRWt)
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This version works very well for me.
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The processing is much better but there seems to be an odd effect just above the clouds, particularly centre and left. I'm not sure the extra water really helps.
Jeremy
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Back to the original.
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My feeling would be that the original is about as far as you could push a colour version OP, everything else has lacked subtley/realism for me, I preffer your original crop as well, the clouds are much more effective with some blank space above them giving them equal weight to the mountains in the composition.
What I might suggest is a monochrome that rather than looking to play up the contrast of the mountain tops instead looks to play up the declining contrast with distance. If you don't mind I did this quick edit reducing contrast of the distant elements and increasing it on the water and closer mountains trying to give more of a sense of distance whilst keeping the subtler nature of the image.
(http://i.imgur.com/SaTdYl2.jpg)
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Back to the original.
I agree. The muted colours are part of the image's character. Maybe a tiny boost in the midtone contrast / clarity?
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My feeling would be that the original is about as far as you could push a colour version OP, everything else has lacked subtley/realism for me, I preffer your original crop as well, the clouds are much more effective with some blank space above them giving them equal weight to the mountains in the composition.
What I might suggest is a monochrome that rather than looking to play up the contrast of the mountain tops instead looks to play up the declining contrast with distance. If you don't mind I did this quick edit reducing contrast of the distant elements and increasing it on the water and closer mountains trying to give more of a sense of distance whilst keeping the subtler nature of the image.
(http://i.imgur.com/SaTdYl2.jpg)
Yes I like that version, it works well.
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I like both the original and MoreOrLess' monochrome. They might work well printed together (same piece o' paper) too.
-Dave-