Rock and Gulls

[joet]

ISO 800 400mm f5.6 1/8000
Comments appreciated

[Geoff F]

Firstly, Joet, why shoot static birds at 1/8000 shutter speed? And with a high Iso plus an open aperture!

We really need more information about your equipment and camera settings used; which means the shooting mode (auto, shutter priority, aperture priority etc).

I would have reduced the Iso to something like 200 and used a narrower aperture (probably F8 to F11 depending on actual equipment).

Was the sea really that colour or is this a white balance (false colour) problem?

The basic composition is good but with that light angle I suspect this would be a tricky shot whatever settings you used.

[joet]

Hi Geoff,
The settings on the camera remained from shots I took seconds before of flying birds.
Used aperture priority. Just wanted the rock and birds in focus.
The sea color was changed.

[Kaye Leggett]

I love the colour

[joet]

After going back and forth, comparing this image in Lightroom and the post here, my image in Lightroom is Sharper. Any tips on maintaining sharpness before posting on this Forum?

[Geoff F]

Lots of potential problems, Joet.

You have obviously resized the image. This can cause some softness depending on the methods used. After a substantial resize, I usually do a little bit in the way of extra sharpening; for example Unsharp Mask around 40 or 50% and about 0.5 pixels with 0 or 1 Threshold.

Personally, I'm not keen on the various auto 'resize for the web' options and prefer to do it all myself.

When resizing downwards it is sometimes advised to use the Bicubic Sharpener method (if available) which automatically sharpens the image. But I have never been keen on this 'one size to fit all' option; which is why I prefer to do my own resharpening, when required.

And then, how much Jpeg compression to use? I find that 80% quality (level 10) is a good balance between size and quality. But be careful of some software which uses different figures. Obviously, more compression creates a poorer image.

There are also potential pitfalls over different uploading options. Using Tinypics seems to work well in most cases. Providing your image is a suitable size, otherwise it is auto resized.

A CinC Album is an alternative (which was useful before we had the Tinypics method) but unless you use the correct sizes of pixel numbers and total image size (which I think is around 150 kb) this also gets auto resized which can produce some softness.

Linking from other sites is another possibility which usually works well but can cause problems in a few cases. And your image at the other site has to be in line with what I have already mentioned.

So check through your workflow and see if you can spot any possible 'weak links'.

ps. If you haven't already read it, there may be some useful tips here.

HELP THREAD: How can I post images here?

[joet]

Geoff,
Thanks for your advice.
Original image was 5520px x 3680px.
I exported from Lightroom to 700px x 467px because I thought I had read here on this forum that is what Tinypics sizes down to. Maybe I should try to let Tinypics import the original size?
Jpeg compression I used was 100% Quality level.
I will check out the link you provided.

[joet]

Original sized file uploaded with TinyPics

[joet]

There is a difference! Letting TinyPics size the image down is noticeably better.

[Geoff F]

Yes, but the last image is 1600 pixels instead of the original 700 pixels.

I find that somewhere around 1000 to 1200 pixels on the long edge is a good balance between size and quality for Tinypics uploads or linking.

But certainly, letting Tinypics do the whole thing produces a better result than before, although it possibly takes a small amount of time for the resize because you are uploading a larger image than you require.

[joet]

Geoff,
I think I will size my images down to 1600 px on the long edge and then let Tinypics upload that.
TinyPics maximum size output seems to be 1600px.
Thanks for your concern in this matter.

[Stagecoach]

Joet,

From what I have read here before if you upload via Tinypic (which I do) ensure your image is no greater than 1599 px width. That way Tinypic does nothing at all to it.

Great image captured in difficult lighting, I like the colours too.

Grahame

[joet]

Thank you Grahame

[FrankMi]

Geoff,
I think I will size my images down to 1600 px on the long edge and then let Tinypics upload that.
TinyPics maximum size output seems to be 1600px.
Thanks for your concern in this matter.

I may be incorrect but I thought there was a vertical limit as well of around 1000px. Can anyone confirm that largest H x V size that Tinypix will accept without resizing?