An impressive church

[Cygnus]

How about a C&C on this shot.

[Ross and Cher]

Will leave the critique to those with more experience and wisdom! The degree of difficulty to me looks high - so many angles, so busy a building and competing bits - trees etc, so I think this is a good effort!

[admin]

My 20c says excellent tonal range and either a long shot with a telephoto, and/or a bit of perspective adjustment on the veticals in PS and a green or red filter (if not PS channel adjustments)
Either way good shooting, you have everything from the whitest whites, through to the blackest blacks.

[bpsphoto]

It's a little on the light side for my taste. If it were me, I would try to reign in the whites a bit so that there's not so much of it right at the edge of digital's ability to show detail. And I'd probably go back on a cloudy, moody day to get a moodier picture, but that's my taste.

That said, I like the balance that the tree gives to the left side of the picture, and I'd use perspective correction to straighten the right tower.

All in all, a lovely shot. I'm practicing for watching the Olympics, so I'll give it a 9.1. Is this in North Beach? I think I stayed at a hotel to the right of the tower once.

[Cygnus]

I have been spoiled with my coin photography for so many years (crop and merge) that I have not learned many of the other tools in photoshop. Now that I take pics of images more than 2 inches away, I am finding that I need to expand my photoshop skills.

[Analog6]

Yes, that featureless area of sky draws the eye too much.  Is it possible to hook around a bit more to the front - not much, just a tad.  And if it's possible to get it on a cloudy day, do it, or PS some in.  You have covered the tonal range pretty well, it just needs a bit more oomph.

[OZZI-BLOKE]

I agree, nice effort. But the bright bits do tend to attract my eye and some nice clouds would look good.

[bpsphoto]

I would try to reign in the whites a bit

Whoops! that's "rein" in.

I wasn't talking so much about doing it in photoshop as with the camera itself. Shoot to make the highlights a bit darker. It's been a while since I re-studied the Zone system, but I think what I'd go for is the whites at Zone VII - lots of detail and still bright, but in digital they won't be blown out. When faced with a scene like this, I'll usually shoot two or three shots, setting the meter to spot only, metering one shot off the white part (which would make the picture too muddy, as the meter would want to make the white 18% gray), one shot off the sky (which would probably give what you got) and doing one at the shutter/aperture combo of my choice, probably 2/3-1 stop darker than the sky reading.

One of the things I love about film (yes, it's my goal to mention that at least once a day ) is that you can let the highlights go a little, knowing that you can burn the detail back into the print in the darkroom. With digital, once the bucket of the pixel is full, you lose all nuance at that location. If enough pixels together are full of light, you get a block of pure white, and there's no recovery.

[Tim N]

Do like the photo of the church itself ... not 100% convinced if the tree belongs or not ... just my thought

[Cygnus]

Here is the Color version and a new version of a black and white.

[Mike]

A good attempt Steve, and a good colour pic to start with. Here's my version, with a 'borrowed' sky and a tad of sharpening.........



Mike

[Cygnus]

Can you get rid of the tree? It looks fantastic though.

[Mike]

Can you get rid of the tree? It looks fantastic though.

Here you go Steve, I've slightly got carried away with the clouds though ....



Mike

[Truckman]

I gotta get me one of those PhotoShop thingies......Ben

[Analog6]

Looks great - the wonders of modern technology (when it's working of course!)

[bpsphoto]

I'm somewhat bothered by all the additions and subtractions, but that's just me. It does look better, but it's gone from photography to digital art in my mind. If it wasn't in the original file, it ain't photography. Yes, I know, there's a grand history of sandwiching negatives and all of that, but still, in Brian's Philosophy of the Nature of Photography, a multiple exposure image is photography, and a composite image is digital art. While, at the same acknowledging that the digital art piece is a stronger overall image than the photographic piece.

[Ross and Cher]

And for those of us just starting out - how the .. are we supposed to know where the line in the sand is if you that have copious experience cant even decide on what a line is...

Seems to me/us at the end of the day it is very individual as there are some touch ups that (in my/our opinion) look great and some that look so fake it aint funny! Same for that matter with HDR's!

And I am not a purist - touch ups were going on long before digital - digital just made it more available!! (and it is great to be able to remove our own dust spots etc etc!!)

[Mike]

I'm somewhat bothered by all the additions and subtractions, but that's just me. It does look better, but it's gone from photography to digital art in my mind. If it wasn't in the original file, it ain't photography. Yes, I know, there's a grand history of sandwiching negatives and all of that, but still, in Brian's Philosophy of the Nature of Photography, a multiple exposure image is photography, and a composite image is digital art. While, at the same acknowledging that the digital art piece is a stronger overall image than the photographic piece.

I totally agree with you Brian, it is digital art.... but then we are using digital images :-)    . I'm not saying that it's what you should do, it's just a quick demonstration of what can be done to improve (in my view) the final image using the digital darkroom (in this case Photoshop). Like yourself I like the balance that the tree gives to the left side of the original picture, but Steve had asked if I could remove it..... and not being one to resist a challenge  :-)  .

I gotta get me one of those PhotoShop thingies......Ben

Photoshop is a fantastic tool Ben, it can be a difficult learning curve though, but there are an abundance of tutorials on line. I've been using Photoshop for about 3 or 4 years, and I think I'm just starting to get to grips with most of it's features now.

I've been a digital convert since I found a way to get my images on to a computer, initially using a hand scanner to transfer my original photos to my Amiga 500 (later upgrading to a 1200) back in the late 1980's, then manipulating them in Deluxe Paint (DPaint). I've also done my own traditional darkroom D&P which I enjoyed immensely, but not as much as I now enjoy processing my images in Photoshop.

............Seems to me/us at the end of the day it is very individual as there are some touch ups that (in my/our opinion) look great and some that look so fake it aint funny! Same for that matter with HDR's!

And I am not a purist - touch ups were going on long before digital - digital just made it more available!! (and it is great to be able to remove our own dust spots

You're right Ross, it is very individual, we all have our own views on the subject, which is how it should be

Mike

[bpsphoto]

An Amiga! wow. I remember when a buddy of mine showed me one of those. Didn't it have like a full mb of storage? Why the hell would you need all that storage? Or am I confusing it with a slightly later computer?

The digital art vs. photography argument can be hashed and rehashed and hashed some more (and it has been). I'm something of a curmudgeonly neanderthal about the issue (and at not quite 42 I'm a little young to get so set in my ways, but there you have it), but then I don't enjoy using my computer to work on pictures. I'd much rather stand in the dark and watch magic float up out of the development tray. There's something to be said for the argument that starting from digital capture means it is already in the realm of digital art. But then, I'm sure you can still find people who'll tell you that it isn't real photography unless you have a view camera or glass plates or tintypes.

[Cygnus]

I like the improvements. On the image versus art debate, I for one believe in taking good pics. With that being said, I have had two pics altered here on this forum. One to remove a bird flying overhead, and this one. I believe that this particular subject would look better in black and white. Granted, I did not take the picture at the right time of day (to catch angles and lessen the glare) but all things being equal, I still like the b/w idea.
Since my digital camera will not shoot in b/w, my options are limited to how to convert it. Taking the tree out or adding clouds is where the image becomes art, and I agree with that. This is not a new concept, and photoshop makes it a ton easier.
I have not learned the ins and outs of layers or masking or any other tools within the editing program. I can crop, merge, and sharpen a little. My skills end there.
I am happy that there are people who can remove a little something out of my pictures when I miss it in the original.

[Analog6]

I'm somewhat bothered by all the additions and subtractions, but that's just me. It does look better, but it's gone from photography to digital art in my mind. If it wasn't in the original file, it ain't photography. Yes, I know, there's a grand history of sandwiching negatives and all of that, but still, in Brian's Philosophy of the Nature of Photography, a multiple exposure image is photography, and a composite image is digital art. While, at the same acknowledging that the digital art piece is a stronger overall image than the photographic piece.

What's been done here is something that is done regulary in film photography.

An element is removed (negative retouching, dodging during printing) a different sky added (negative sandwiching) the contrast changed (adjust during printing by using a harder grade paper).  There is actually nothing new in techniques here, it's just usiong a digital darkroom instead of a chemical one.

I agree it then becomes digital art, as opposed to, say, photo art, but it is a pleasing result that COULD have been taken naturally, if the sky was right and the angle differren to exclude the tree. I'm OK with it.

It's when people start making drastic changes (like to thearchitecture of the building) that I get hot under the collar.

[OZZI-BLOKE]

Digital and Photoshop are great as long as people don't try to pass there work of as origional
un-edited images. (though a lot of people try to.) I don't see anything wrong with image ajustments
and a bit of manipulation but just tell others how it was done. Don't try to pass them of as untouched.

[Cygnus]

This thread got me thinking about manipulation, and of course I thought of most of the new movies that have come out. Almost without exception, they are being "made" on computers with limited "real" scenes.

[Analog6]

Yes, and we still photogrpahers have benefitted greatly from their discoveries and advances.

But the 'old men' of photography. notably the Australian Frank Hurley, who did a lot of negative sandwiching and retouching to create his masterpeices, and Ansell Adams with his extensive printing manipulation, also 'created' images that were not strictly a reproduction of teh original.

So it has been going on for a long time. The important thing to me is not to introduce things that were not there - ie, Hurley used hos 3 or 4 negs to create a cene he'd seen but been unable to capture at theat time.  Eg, a rocket going off over a praticular trenches scene in WWI, he saw this bu did not get the shot (remember he was using a large fornmat glass neg camera), so he got a rocket shot, a trench shot of teh spot he wanted, and sandwiched.  I'm OK with that.

Admas used special papers and developers, extensive dodging and burning, print retouching etc to create his goegroius scenes of iconic American landscaope features.  The finished print rarely resembled what would have been the result printed 'straight'.

So doing that in our digital darkroom is entiely kosher to me, and follwoing in a log tradition of getting the best out of what we've captured in camera.

[Mike]

An Amiga! wow. I remember when a buddy of mine showed me one of those. Didn't it have like a full mb of storage? Why the hell would you need all that storage? Or am I confusing it with a slightly later computer?

I don't remember how much storage it had when new, but I do remember that I added a hard drive to it, 30mb if I remember right. (I may dig it out of the attic sometime to check )

Digital and Photoshop are great as long as people don't try to pass there work of as origional
un-edited images. (though a lot of people try to.) I don't see anything wrong with image ajustments
and a bit of manipulation but just tell others how it was done. Don't try to pass them of as untouched.

All I tend to do with my images is adjust levels, straighten horizons, remove dust spots, sharpen, then re-size for the web I'll then add borders & signature ..... and occasionally I'll have some fun.........



Mike

[Analog6]

I had a MAc Se with 1Mb pf RAM and a 20Mb HD, and that was huge.  When Iupdated it to 4MB RAM people said to me that I'd never need that much.  And then I bought a second (external) 20Mb HD so I had (gasp!) 40MB.  It does make you laugh.

[Ross and Cher]

Love the OOB Mike! We had a lot of fun doing the ones we posted of the Grandkids!!!

[OZZI-BLOKE]

Nice Giraffe shot Mike, I have been doing a bit of practice trying this out but havent had much luck yet.
I have nothing against image manipulation, I think it is great fun trying to come up with something different.