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Author Topic: Between Heaven and Death  (Read 556 times)

David Eckels

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Between Heaven and Death
« on: April 21, 2021, 12:05:46 pm »

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Paulo Bizarro

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Re: Between Heaven and Death
« Reply #1 on: April 22, 2021, 04:12:58 am »

Indeed...

Slobodan Blagojevic

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Re: Between Heaven and Death
« Reply #2 on: April 22, 2021, 05:15:37 am »

You mean the original file was tortured to death? ;)

David Eckels

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Re: Between Heaven and Death
« Reply #3 on: April 22, 2021, 09:16:04 am »

You mean the original file was tortured to death? ;)
You don't like my style? ;) Not really although I did push the magenta in the sky and raised the shadows. I liked the purple/yellow dynamism. I must admit I did add a wee bit of clarity ;) to the rocks. I suppose you could argue I went a little far, but I thought it in keeping with what that crazy girl was doing. Looking at it this morning, I'd probably take that down a couple notches. It printed well, however, I did have to raise the blacks (+46).

Eric Myrvaagnes

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Re: Between Heaven and Death
« Reply #4 on: April 22, 2021, 12:32:35 pm »

You'll never get me up in one of those things.
I need a solid flooring and sturdy handrails on both sides.
And no wind.
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-Eric Myrvaagnes (visit my website: http://myrvaagnes.com)

John R

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Re: Between Heaven and Death
« Reply #5 on: April 22, 2021, 12:59:18 pm »

You don't like my style? ;) Not really although I did push the magenta in the sky and raised the shadows. I liked the purple/yellow dynamism. I must admit I did add a wee bit of clarity ;) to the rocks. I suppose you could argue I went a little far, but I thought it in keeping with what that crazy girl was doing. Looking at it this morning, I'd probably take that down a couple notches. It printed well, however, I did have to raise the blacks (+46).
I am reasonably certain Slobodan means your file appears to be of poor quality, grainy and soft, with nothing clearly defined. I have 25 inch monitor and your file looks pretty bad. OTOH, the treatment is not that bad overall, but the low quality file makes it hard to tell.

JR
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francois

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Re: Between Heaven and Death
« Reply #6 on: April 23, 2021, 11:14:13 am »

Living dangerously but with grace!
I like it a lot - great title by the way.
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Francois

David Eckels

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Re: Between Heaven and Death
« Reply #7 on: April 25, 2021, 04:51:08 pm »

I am reasonably certain Slobodan means your file appears to be of poor quality, grainy and soft, with nothing clearly defined. I have 25 inch monitor and your file looks pretty bad. OTOH, the treatment is not that bad overall, but the low quality file makes it hard to tell.

JR
John, thanks for your comments. I responded initially totally inappropriately.
« Last Edit: April 25, 2021, 08:35:33 pm by David Eckels »
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David Eckels

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Re: Between Heaven and Death
« Reply #8 on: April 25, 2021, 04:52:03 pm »

Living dangerously but with grace!
I like it a lot - great title by the way.
Thanks, Francois. That's what I thought!

Slobodan Blagojevic

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Re: Between Heaven and Death
« Reply #9 on: April 25, 2021, 07:28:37 pm »

Dave, I really hate to do it to a friend, but I am afraid John is correct. It is not a good file, original or not. Soft, with halos, etc., even with all the limitations you mentioned. I am seeing it on a 27" 5K monitor, and that extra resolution makes it probably worse.

Criticism stings, I know. Happens to the best and the most thick-skinned of us, whether we admit it or not.

David Eckels

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Re: Between Heaven and Death
« Reply #10 on: April 25, 2021, 08:04:43 pm »

Slobodan, not a problem. Where I would disagree is whether it is the original file or my rendering of it that is the issue. I realize everything we see online derives from a file. But, to me, a bad file implies bad capture file. "Soft with halos" tells me bad rendering. I can accept the latter. I am looking at it on a 4K 31" and that is probably comparable to yours and John's. "...grainy and soft with nothing clearly defined," and "...the treatment is not that bad overall" seems contradictory to me. It is possible, even likely ;D, I am not understanding; as you know, it has happened before. What I don't understand is what the criticism is about. Is it that the file I uploaded is not as large or high quality as it could be? I get it. Is it a poor image? OK, I can understand differences in taste regarding subject selection. Is it poorly rendered? The preceding discussion would seem to be inconsistent with this possibility.
"Criticism stings" I know. You know, that I have taken plenty and as a result have been taught a bunch; I am grateful for it. I know how difficult it can be to render humor and subtlety in the written word, but without some explicit description of "bad file" I have nothing to hang my hat on.
If I am still not getting it, I gladly look forward to a new lesson. Remember years ago when you called me out on a "cyanish sky?" :) As I learned from you, I can't learn from what I cannot see; I cannot see, if I don't know where to look.
Maybe this is all a misunderstanding, but I'd hate to think it is not worthwhile at some level.
Criticism stings, I know. Happens to the best and the most thick-skinned of us, whether we admit it or not.
I don't think this is about your last line. Only your best friends will tell you you're drunk and need to go lie down ;)

David Eckels

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Re: Between Heaven and Death
« Reply #11 on: April 25, 2021, 08:34:25 pm »

 :-[ :-[ :-[ I went back and looked at the full size rendered TIF in LR and I can see the halos around most of the rock/sky interfaces and around the girl's figure. Have to zoom in to 100% to see them and apply -50 clarity to the edges, but there's is one around her that I cannot remove and will have to chuck everything and start from scratch.
I am triply embarrassed at getting this wrong. The width of those halos are right at the threshold frequency that gives me fits in the eye that had retinal surgery. As I said, it is hard to see what you can't see! There is a sharpening setting in the script used to downsize for the jpeg I uploaded as well. Couldn't see them in the 6x9 print, which may be understandable.
John, I apologize for my gibberish.
Slobodan, I apologize for my density.
All the best, to both of you.

Slobodan Blagojevic

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Re: Between Heaven and Death
« Reply #12 on: April 25, 2021, 09:12:27 pm »

Dave, I don’t pretend I have such an expertise as to determine if it is the original file or the rendering, or a combination of the two. All I can say is what I see and possibly what I suspect is the case.

One possibility is that it was a rather heavy crop. I know I had to resort to a heavy cropping when shooting an air show with just a 280mm lens.

Another possibility is that a zoom lens with a wide range was used, where the quality of the lens is not the greatest. Do  I remember correctly that you occasionally shoot with something like a 28-300 zoom?

Halos are possible not only via the clarity slider, but also via aggressively using highlights and shadows sliders as well. Or using the HSL sliders to darken or lighten certain colors. Those then can not be corrected with a negative clarity.

David Eckels

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Re: Between Heaven and Death
« Reply #13 on: April 26, 2021, 11:33:06 am »

Slobodan, I appreciate that. As I said, the DNG had no such halos and I was aggressive on the highlights and shadows sliders. See my post preceding yours. The image was shot at 1/40 sec, f/16, ISO 400 at 120 mm with the Nikon 24-120 f/4, a good lens. The 28-300 is on the 800E now :D I am just going to start over and try to figure out where I took a wrong turn. This should have been in User Critiques! I will PM the revised version to you when I finish it.
*PS Also, not an aggressive crop at all, less than 5% on the left side.
« Last Edit: April 26, 2021, 11:42:18 am by David Eckels »
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Slobodan Blagojevic

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Re: Between Heaven and Death
« Reply #14 on: April 26, 2021, 12:33:00 pm »

... The image was shot at 1/40 sec, f/16, ISO 400 at 120 mm with the Nikon 24-120 f/4, a good lens...

I was about to say that softness is also possible due to the shutter speed used, and 1/40s on 120mm sounds like too low (is there IBIS, or is it a vibration-reduction lens?). F/16 is not an optimal f/stop either, due to diffraction. Any zoom lens is not the best at the extreme ends of the range.

Having said that, I failed to notice this is not a User Critique post, so should have kept my mouth shut ;)

David Eckels

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Re: Between Heaven and Death
« Reply #15 on: April 26, 2021, 01:42:33 pm »

No worries. In lens stabilization. I reworked it from scratch and found that I have always been using as a final step in post a USM setting of 50%, 20 pixels and zero threshold. THAT is where the halos were coming from! As I said previously, very hard for me to see except at 100+%. Anyway, I moderated some of the processing and instead used smart sharpen at 2 pixels, otherwise unmodified except here I used 300%. I think it is much better and would not have been if you and John had kept your mouths shut! ;)

Slobodan Blagojevic

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Re: Between Heaven and Death
« Reply #16 on: April 26, 2021, 04:23:52 pm »

Definitely an improvement!
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