The Apostles

[rawill]

Taken a few days ago with my Fujifilm FinePix S5700.
Only P&P was to do a little contrast and minor change to colour with Picassa.
Done on my mini computer Acer Aspire One
Will be home to my other computer in few days.

Photo taken on an overcast day, late morning.

Anyway C&C most welcome, particularly the compostion of the shot.

[pnodrog]

The Great Ocean Road is loaded with photo opportunities and The Apostles is one off the highlights - not a bad area to have a holiday. Not the best lighting for the photograph but it is at least late enough for some modelling shadows. The sky is not helping and may look better cropped a little but you would lose the nice blue patch in the top right. A little bit of lighting in shadow areas would improve the background cliffs.

No doubt when you get safely home you will have more to show us and a better set up on which to do your PP.

[rawill]

Thankyou, it was a bit challenging with the light, but I liked the way the sun played on The Apostles.
Tried a few different settings, but have wondered about some specific lighting of the Main Apostle.

I liked the blue in the sky, there was not much, but I am a bit uncertain of the rock on the left foreground.
I think I like it, helps add a "window" to look through

[gregj1763]

I know exactly where you were standing Robin, I was there a few months ago.
Here's a similar one I took for comparison with a bit more light on the left of the Apostle but I have over saturated the sky a bit on reflection looking at it now



A bit further back down the road Melbourne direction there was a stairway that took you down to the beach. Did you go there? there were some good images to be had.
Cheers, Greg

[rawill]

Yes I did Greg.

I got a few shots from there. It was more overcast, so I tried a few different settings.
Will be interesting to see what I got when I get home to a proper computer.

Thank you for your shot.
Great work

I like your sky.

[gregj1763]

Yes I did Greg.

I got a few shots from there. It was more overcast, so I tried a few different settings.
Will be interesting to see what I got when I get home to a proper computer.

Thank you for your shot.
Great work

I like your sky.

Look forward to seeing your photo's when they are done Robin.
I'm off to Bali on the 16th September so I mightn't be real active on CiC until I return on the 3rd October. So if I don't reply that's the reason.
Cheers, Greg

[rawill]

Now back to a reasonable sized screen, and a chance to compare both photos.
It was a long trip, scheduled time to leave Melbourne was Tuesday 10.15am.
Actually got home to our place Wed 5.00pm, the direct flight to Queenstown had a little detour to Auckland with an overnight stay. Extremely stormy weather, one of the worst, not so good for landing in an Alpine Airport!

Greg, I really like your lighter photo!
Giving me this comparison is more than I could have wished for.
Almost but not quite identical photos, from the perspective of from where it was taken.


I posted mine so I could get feeback but this comparison is much more than I expected.
I guess I should not be surprised, I guess a cent for every shot taken here would make us both rich men!

Such a great road, next time I will make more time to meander the road, stop and take shots.
I might even take my D70s for this trip!

[gregj1763]

Now back to a reasonable sized screen, and a chance to compare both photos.
It was a long trip, scheduled time to leave Melbourne was Tuesday 10.15am.
Actually got home to our place Wed 5.00pm, the direct flight to Queenstown had a little detour to Auckland with an overnight stay. Extremely stormy weather, one of the worst, not so good for landing in an Alpine Airport!

Greg, I really like your lighter photo!
Giving me this comparison is more than I could have wished for.
Almost but not quite identical photos, from the perspective of from where it was taken.


I posted mine so I could get feeback but this comparison is much more than I expected.
I guess I should not be surprised, I guess a cent for every shot taken here would make us both rich men!

Such a great road, next time I will make more time to meander the road, stop and take shots.
I might even take my D70s for this trip!

Glad it helped Robin. Look forward to see a few more if you post them.
Cheers, Greg

[John 2]

A nice shot Robin. Cropping out the FG bottom left isn't needed and anyway had you cropped from the bottom you would have robbed the image of the its base. Cropping from the left would have had the shoreline leading your eye out of the LHS of the image so I think your composition is about right. If anything, I would lose some from the top of the image. The blue patch is nice but it pulls the eye a bit.

[rawill]

John
on re looking at my photo I think that maybe you are right,
maybe the blue does pull the eye.

I think I will play with this photo a bit.

[rawill]

Greg, where did your shot go.
I was going to check after having tried to lighten mine, but I overdid it.

Anyway here is one from the Steps:


The day wasn't good, too overcast, and not a great sky.
Sun did not do it for me compared with the one Greg put up.

PP-Lightened a little, upped the contrast, and a little saturation.

Comments please.

[rawill]

Oops, must have got it wrong, the shot of Greg's is back there now.

But here is another one:

Similar PP to the one above.

[umughal147]

Whatever it is, but i would like to say that you have done a beautiful photography at beach side. I really appreciate your camera and your skills.

[gregj1763]

Robin, You've been stalking me haven't you
I reckon I was about 10 metre's further up the beach with this shot.

Original


After editing


The edited version had contrast, exposure, highlights, white, blacks, saturation and clarity fiddled with in camera raw until it looked reasonable.
Then I cropped it in photoshop to a 16:9 ratio, sharpened it a little and a bit of cloning to tidy up and finally adjusted shadows and highlights to give a bit more definition in the sky.
This is really interesting to be able to look at different versions of the same image from other photographers.
Anyone got some Singapore or Bali photo's to post so I can go stand in their footsteps next week and compare and if you have maybe some tips please.
Cheers, Greg

[rawill]

Thanks Greg

Your edited version makes it "pop" more, takes away the haze.
The changes are excellent.

Maybe it is just envy, but the foreground of yours with the lines on the wet sand give quite a different look to mine. I think the dry patch in the sand on mine is a bit of a distraction, and pulls the eye.

I think that is what disappoints me most with mine.
I have a whitish film/haze on mine that I haven't got rid of yet.

Not sure if it was the day, my settings, the limitatiions of the camera, Fujifilm S5700, or just me as an operator.

[gregj1763]

Hi Robin. Hope you don't mind but I had a bit of a play with your image to see if I could improve the things you mentioned.
I have slightly increased the exposure, and the contrast quite a bit. Then fiddled around with the shadow/highlights slider in CS6.
I made changes to the colour balance as there seemed to be a blue cast over the whole image to me.
Bit of selective sharpening on the rocks and tried to improve the beach with content aware fill then clone stamping.
By no means perfect but I hope it can give you an idea of what you can do to improve an image in pp and I'm a mug at it. Some of the others here are real clever buggers
Cheers, Greg

[rawill]

Love it - thank you so much.
Great work.
That really does it as far as I am concerned.

I will really have to sit down and do some work on understanding GIMP.

.Hope you still have time for packing.
Enjoy your trip.

Rbn

[gregj1763]

Love it - thank you so much.
Great work.
That really does it as far as I am concerned.

I will really have to sit down and do some work on understanding GIMP.

.Hope you still have time for packing.
Enjoy your trip.

Rbn

Pleasure Robin, glad you like it and yes I'm all packed.
You should see the suitcase. Real man packing. Pretty much every conceivable piece of camera gear known to man, oh! and some shorts, shirts, thongs and undies

[rawill]

and tried to improve the beach with content aware fill then clone stamping.

Aha - I found the GIMP equivalent of content aware fill - this will be interesting - and fun I hope!

I have also set up my Laptop with another screen so I can split the work sites.
Fun

[gregj1763]

Aha - I found the GIMP equivalent of content aware fill - this will be interesting - and fun I hope!

I have also set up my Laptop with another screen so I can split the work sites.
Fun

Go get em Robin enjoy yourself