Luminous Landscape Forum

The Art of Photography => User Critiques => Topic started by: cjogo on November 27, 2013, 09:59:49 pm

Title: Depth of Field play
Post by: cjogo on November 27, 2013, 09:59:49 pm
Orange filter -- Near and Far composition
Title: Re: Depth of Field play
Post by: wmchauncey on November 28, 2013, 08:54:01 am
Like the detail, except for the smudgy area in the low center portion...don't understand what went wrong there???
Title: Re: Depth of Field play
Post by: Rob C on November 28, 2013, 10:51:05 am
Fabulous rock!

Shame you caught the rotation of the Earth, though.

;-)

Rob C
Title: Re: Depth of Field play
Post by: cjogo on November 29, 2013, 02:30:59 am
Like the detail, except for the smudgy area in the low center portion...don't understand what went wrong there???

Not sure Lower Center > could be water movement --I believe .........And this is a scan ( image 1990 )-- could be that the neg is not really flat with this new Epson V 700  ... No glass mount ...
Title: Re: Depth of Field play
Post by: cjogo on November 29, 2013, 02:32:46 am
Fabulous rock!

Shame you caught the rotation of the Earth, though.

;-)

Rob C

And I straightened the photo a bit already -- but each time  > you lose a little image -- this is not a SLR camera -- always difficult in that tiny finder ..
Title: Re: Depth of Field play
Post by: stamper on November 29, 2013, 03:57:03 am
If you are apprehensive about losing a little of the image because you have to crop after rotation then in PS you can turn the background layer into a smart object and duplicate the layer. Use any of the transform tools to straighten the horizon without affecting the quality of the image. :)
Title: Re: Depth of Field play
Post by: Ed Blagden on November 29, 2013, 04:00:09 am
Not sure Lower Center > could be water movement --I believe .........And this is a scan ( image 1990 )-- could be that the neg is not really flat with this new Epson V 700  ... No glass mount ...

Sheesh, talk about pixel peeping.  It looks like water movement to me.  Not bothersome.  Fix the horizon tilt and it's a lovely image.  You might want to fiddle around with a bit of split toning to see what happens.
Title: Re: Depth of Field play
Post by: Rob C on November 29, 2013, 04:17:44 am
And I straightened the photo a bit already -- but each time  > you lose a little image -- this is not a SLR camera -- always difficult in that tiny finder ..


What were you using? Hassy with fixed 38mm?

I always fancied one, but it didn't really fit in with what I could justify for work. Probably just as well: I'd have lost it, and thus a lot more money, along with the other Hassies when I traded the lot away for a disaster of a 6x7.

;-(

Rob C
Title: Re: Depth of Field play
Post by: cjogo on November 29, 2013, 01:53:24 pm
You all sound pretty sophisticated in CS  --  I just do Curves /Shadow-Highlights /sharpening /transform ( and most of that is a Action ) -----even after years in Photoshop --   >    Will look into Smart Object --Split-toning --never have venture there...
Title: Re: Depth of Field play
Post by: cjogo on November 29, 2013, 01:59:40 pm
Looks a little straighter on the horizon .....
Title: Re: Depth of Field play
Post by: cjogo on November 29, 2013, 02:03:15 pm

What were you using? Hassy with fixed 38mm?

I always fancied one, but it didn't really fit in with what I could justify for work. Probably just as well: I'd have lost it, and thus a lot more money, along with the other Hassies when I traded the lot away for a disaster of a 6x7.

;-(

Rob C

The Hassy 38mm was a nice machine --- took sometime to get use to the finder ( especially coming from a  4X5 and a nice reflex housing and a 75mm Biogon )  ...  Used a similar 6X7 Pentax/45mm  ---Rollei SL with a 40mm --Mamiya 6X7 and their widest   > nothing had the quality of the Biogon & Hassy ( and easier to carry on trips )
Title: Re: Depth of Field play
Post by: cjogo on November 29, 2013, 02:07:16 pm
Some images you would loose to much :: if you tried to straighten every line ///
Title: Re: Depth of Field play
Post by: cjogo on November 29, 2013, 02:20:39 pm
38mm SWC 

Its not so much having a good wide view > for travel  ---its that you don't have to backup for your composition >> and include  hundreds of tourist in your shots.  Think how many people are walking around my tripod ,  to the entrance to the Prague St. Vitus Cathedral..   And here (on my tip toes) Gitzo to the max   >  this finder is mounted first http://thumbs1.ebaystatic.com/d/l225/m/mrfjq9kDJa0bCcXEjRjPwjA.jpg --- then the 120 roll back is exchanged ...long cable release.  ..:-)
Title: Re: Depth of Field play
Post by: Ed Blagden on November 30, 2013, 04:40:45 am
You all sound pretty sophisticated in CS  --  I just do Curves /Shadow-Highlights /sharpening /transform ( and most of that is a Action ) -----even after years in Photoshop --   >    Will look into Smart Object --Split-toning --never have venture there...

I have no idea about Photoshop (I have never used the programme, not even once) but split toning us pretty easy in Lightroom.  As is straightening an horizon, and pretty much everything else you might want to do.  When I say "easy" I don't mean you can't make a total aesthetic hash of things but the controls and image fixing workflow is very straightforward and intuitive.

These two image adjustments took me less than one minute in LR5.
Title: Re: Depth of Field play
Post by: stamper on November 30, 2013, 04:51:38 am
Straightening an image in LR means you have to crop afterwards. Most of the time this isn't a problem because you have some information that can be thrown away. My reply#5 is the alternative if you don't want to lose information. It is an easy thing to accomplish. You don't need to know why smart objects work. It means you can transform an image without loss of information. You are working on pixels which some might to object to but it works. :)
Title: Re: Depth of Field play
Post by: Ed Blagden on November 30, 2013, 05:06:47 am
Straightening an image in LR means you have to crop afterwards. Most of the time this isn't a problem because you have some information that can be thrown away. My reply#5 is the alternative if you don't want to lose information. It is an easy thing to accomplish. You don't need to know why smart objects work. It means you can transform an image without loss of information. You are working on pixels which some might to object to but it works. :)

Umm, not necessarily.  True in the old days when the only method available was the crop tool.  Now (LR5) we have the various transforms in the Lens Corrections panel, and the "level" button does a pretty good job with an off horizon... the above picture correction was done with just one click and looking at the before and after views I don't appear to have lost any pixels.

I recently made a huge one step upgrade from LR2 to LR5.  Back in the day when I was using LR2 I would very occasionally (maybe 1 - 2% of my keepers) think to myself "hmm, maybe one day I should get around to learning PS, I can't do anything more with this image".  Since upgrading to LR5 I can honestly say I never think that.  Ever.  Although Slobodan's comment about my tree in another thread did make me pause. 
Title: Re: Depth of Field play
Post by: stamper on November 30, 2013, 05:44:03 am
If you are referring to level in basic then most users will quickly realise it doesn't work in most situations because the program doesn't "see" what the user wants to be "level". Automatically levelling one part of the image usually means another part is even more skewed. This means the rotate in manual will be more often used resulting in a cropping operation. If that doesn't work then using the method I recommended can sort out most of the lines out of kilter by using the skew part of Transform in PS. It is the ultimate tool for difficult images with a lot of lines being out of kilter. :)

Quote Ed Blagden.


I have no idea about Photoshop (I have never used the programme, not even once)
Title: Re: Depth of Field play
Post by: Ed Blagden on November 30, 2013, 06:39:51 am
Stamper, I don't disagree with you - you are clearly very knowledgeable about PS and I'm not - but the level button works fine for this kind of shot.  Slightly skewed horizons (a couple of degrees off) are probably one of the most common fixes and it is nice to be able to do it without squandering pixels.

Everyone's workflow and needs are unique.  I think of PS as a Ferrari Enzo and LR as a Ford Focus.  In my world I don't need the Enzo, the Focus will do everything I need it to do.  For now, anyway.  As my needs evolve maybe that will change.
Title: Re: Depth of Field play
Post by: cjogo on November 30, 2013, 01:03:02 pm
Never used LightRoom -- my images are from early negatives /scans -- loading directly to CS ... I do use TRANSFORM ( usually distort seems to be the most non-evasive  )
Title: Re: Depth of Field play
Post by: cjogo on November 30, 2013, 01:07:31 pm
Straightening an image in LR means you have to crop afterwards. Most of the time this isn't a problem because you have some information that can be thrown away. My reply#5 is the alternative if you don't want to lose information. It is an easy thing to accomplish. You don't need to know why smart objects work. It means you can transform an image without loss of information. You are working on pixels which some might to object to but it works. :)

STAMPER ==will look into smart object ...not sure how one can transform and the image does not have loss?

Love to be able to straighten this image  --with no loss to the subject ....
Title: Re: Depth of Field play
Post by: stamper on December 01, 2013, 03:55:05 am
Google for information about smart objects. To put it it simply click on a background layer and click on convert to a smart object and duplicate the layer. Any changes via Transform will now be made with little or no loss of information and anything that is lost will not be visible in any way. I would use the Skew transform on that image and when you line everything up then possibly Scale or Crop. I would also use the grid overlay. You can set the size of the squares in preferences and the colour of the grid.