Loire Valley

[dulceza]

Summer is almost gone, I just got back from my trip and I wanted to say hello and share few pics with you. Please let me know what you think. Thanks

Blois


Sweet memories from Villandry


Villandry gardens

[Shadowman]

Very sharp images.

[lizzy310]

I really like them all. Colors are really vivid and your composition are very nice. Especially #1 and 2. I love the way you lined the building up in #1 like a procession.

[dje]

Nice set of images Dora. I'm envious of your trip !

The grapes in #2 look great but I'm just not sure about the blurred building roof in the background. I would consider either cropping it out or cloning it out. Just my personal opinion.

The composition in #3 is pretty good I think although it might be worth thinking about whether the bits of stone wall on the right should be cropped out. Not sure which would work best. Also perhaps the sky (highlights) could be darkened a bit.

The image quality is very good, well done

Dave

[dulceza]

Thank you guys for your feedback, I'll be back with the redone pics. The idea behind #2 was to put somehow together 2 symbols (vineyards and churches) I'm not sure about the result but in my mind I wanted just a suggested shape of a church

[FrankMi]

Hi Dora, I liked the first one but was disapointed that the cross on the top of the church was clipped. I thought the colors in the grapes in the second one were fantastic but it looked like the horizon around the building in the background was tipped a little to the left. When I saw the third one I thought 'Oh WOW' that's a beauty! Based on the trees at the end of the canal, it to looks like it to is tipped a bit to the left but the image still left me breathless! Excellent!

[dulceza]

Thank you Frank, very useful comments. I have to get used to check every detail before pressing the button

[JohnC]

Really sharp,enjoyed viewing and the CC here is what I saw too but the points raised don't detract too much from a great set of images.

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Dora, welcome back,

My first impression opening the thread and seeing #1 was "that's nice', as John said, nice and sharp.
#2 is good as well.

I would add to Frankie's three points, the following;
on #1, I would clone out the aerials, at least where they break the skyline adjacent to the church building as they grab my attention, but that could just be because I recognise a horizontally polarised Yagi when I see one (engineering background, sorry) maybe 'normal people' don't notice them so much, given their ubiquity.

#3 looks like a slightly wider lens, or two shots to sticth as a panorama, would have been better for the composition which doesn't quite work for me.

Hope that's helpful,

[shreds]

The catchlights on the fruits in no.2 make this for me. I also think that this benefits from cropping the church background out. (understand what you were trying to do, but it leaves the eye wandering).

[shreds]

Like this.....



...just my view though.

[dulceza]

looks like a slightly wider lens, or two shots to stitch as a panorama

I took like 20 shots for #3 and now(with your help thank you)I realized that is not possible to have everything in one

a horizontally polarised Yagi

- is it bad? (accounting background, sorry). I'll do the search, want to learn

it leaves the eye wandering

and mind wondering :what's wrong with that picture?
Thank you Dave and Ian it is very helpful to have more than one pair of eyes looking for improvement.

[FrankMi]

I took like 20 shots for #3 and now(with your help thank you)I realized that is not possible to have everything in one.

What if you stretched the image just a bit... something like... this?



Just a thought. If you took multiple images of this, could you try making a panorama in Photoshop Edit/Auto-Align Layers?

I love what Ian has done with the grapes! Beautiful colors!

[Dave Humphries]

- is it bad? (accounting background, sorry). I'll do the search, want to learn

No, just a statement of fact like saying we have pounds (for currency)

[Bobobird]

Whatever the "warts" those look like pretty good shots to me.

[dulceza]

Whatever the "warts" those look like pretty good shots to me.

thank you Bobo and thank you John . I need encouragement as much as your criticism , because I want to do better

Frank , I don't have Photoshop, is there another way to do this? I would like to try it.

[rhermans]

Real nice shots, my favorite is the first one. With the difference of buildings its not easy to get a viewpoint that combines them.

Ronny

[FrankMi]

Frank , I don't have Photoshop, is there another way to do this? I would like to try it.

Hi Dora, there are other post processing software packages out there. Some, like GIMP that Donald MacKenzie uses, are free. Photoshop has a little brother called Elements which, from what I understand, contains just about everything that a photographer needs to do post processing at a lower cost. Most packages have a free 30 day trial but if you decide you want to keep it you will have to purchase it and 30 days may not be enough time to check out all the things it can do.

To stretch the image like I did, I just selected the Move Tool and pulled it wider with the mouse. For your image I also lightened it a little and tipped it slightly to the right to straighten the buildings and level the horizon.