Mini Competition #50

[Dave Humphries]

Any C&C post closure are very welcome, as usual. Thanks

Rob

Hi Rob,

It might have stood a little more exposure, or equivalent in PP.

It would also benefit from some Noise Reduction in Neat Image.

I like the composition, it has a lot going for it considering the lack of control one has over these things, but (finally), I might clone out the bright grassy bit in the top right corner.

Cheers,

[Dave Humphries]

On the whole, a good shot of a difficult subject, only minor improvement I'd suggest is to clone out the car 'next door' which is just creeping into shot on left edge.

Cheers,

[ScoutR]

Love the composition. It captures the atmosphere of a modern working farm so beautifully. Well done.

Thank you Donald. I think the new lens is helping me get closer, literally and figuratively (sp?) to what I want. When it comes to composition, you are a master, so the compliment is much appreciated.

Wendy

[ScoutR]

Being super-critical; there's just a touch of halo'ing on the sky at the edges of the buildings which might be avoided in PP, although PP may not be the cause - I can't see the full EXIF data, so I can't advise properly.

Thanks Dave, I'm at work now but will take a look at the haloing when I get home and see if I can fix it up. This is just the type of info I need. I am very bad at spotting this kind of thing unless it's really obvious. The sunset was quite nice, but the final result does have a lot of PP so I don't doubt that it's overdone. I think I should be able to fix it though. Thanks for the compliment on the compostiton. Like I said to Donald, the new lens helps out quite a bit in that regard.

I'll check into the exif data situtation. I think I know where I am losing it. I will try to make sure it is included in future posts.

Thanks again -- now it's time to get back to work.

Wendy

[Benboxer]

Hi Ben,

Although this captures a nice moment and expression, I'm afraid it has too many distractions for my taste.

Wow! I definitely got someones attention!

The essence of the shot was to portray a scene that would stand on it's own without the context of the situation being evident. I pass over a lot of photo's that, while being technically sufficient and of interest to myself and friends, would not appeal to an uninformed audience. It wasn't staged, thus the intruding clutter in the shot. The unaffected response of the subjects was due to my longstanding presence in this group, in my capacity as a photographer, as a " fly on the wall". Regarding the context of the shot: This is the "green room" (a staging area where actors wait for cues to go onstage) at our local community theater, during a production of the "Sound of Music". While being onstage myself (I was the butler!) I also took it upon myself to make a photo record of the backstage activities.

I appreciate your candor, and graciousness!

[Henrik]

On the whole, a good shot of a difficult subject...

Hi Dave,

Thanks for your comments. Silly of me not to crop a little more, so the car on the left had gone completely.

As you can imagine, I took a number of shots of this beauty. Actually, the owner came and mounted the front angel for me. But then more cars had arrived to disturbe my picture.

How did you think of this as a "diffecult subject"?

Regards, Henrik

[RobO]

Hi Rob,

It might have stood a little more exposure, or equivalent in PP.

It would also benefit from some Noise Reduction in Neat Image.

I like the composition, it has a lot going for it considering the lack of control one has over these things, but (finally), I might clone out the bright grassy bit in the top right corner.

Cheers,

Hi Dave

Thanks very much for your comments.

You are spot on!

In a rush I used the jpeg image [I shoot jpeg+RAW ~ 99% +/- of the time], so could & should have used that before I cropped, this shot was quite a distance away and I was using 70-200mm Sigma [my "photo buddy" had the D700 & Nikkor 70-200 which would have been better for the crop]. I'm not familliar with the "Neat Image" software, I'll have a look but generally use either PS/CS4 or Nikon Capture NX2. Anybody have any views/comparisons between these software packages?

Photographing the seals was a bit of an impromptu Sunday afternoon visit, and first visit too even though it's local"ish" [Donna Nook], so we took it for what it was - number of seals/proximity/natural lighting/crowds etc and from this location we certainly minimised the risk of salt water corrosion to the cameras & lenses.

Having been there once, we will probably return [hopefully next year] and try to get out onto the sands away from the spectator area where the shots can be much better. You have to be very mindful of the tides .

I agree with your comment on exposure/PS cloning - must try more post shot processing

I have to say that, IMHO, we have a very worthy winner - superb shot.

Very well done to all entrants and thanks for the critique. Let's all learn and try harder next time.

Thanks Dave and all

Rob

[RonH]

Hi Ron,

Quite a pleasant scene overall.

It might be improved in PP by cloning out a few quite small distractions, the most evident being the light cloloured oil tank thing on far side of lake.

Compositionally, the yacht is just a tad too central for my liking, but changing your shooting position would have detracted far more from many peripheral compositional elements I like, so on balance, it is good as it stands.

Cheers,

Hei Dave,
Thanks for your comments. As it stands just now I am very new to PSE8 so my pics are 'as is taken' ... obviously I need to do a lot of work on such as sharpening and cropping. I'll get there!
The pic of small yacht was taken in Denmark and it was the swirls in the water (pollen) that caught my eye.
CYa Ron

[Dave Humphries]

~ This is the "green room" (a staging area where actors wait for cues to go onstage) at our local community theater, during a production of the "Sound of Music". ~

You mean they're not real nuns

Just goes to show how wrong I can be

Thank you for the gracious response.

[Dave Humphries]

Thanks Dave, I'm at work now but will take a look at the haloing when I get home and see if I can fix it up.~

Hi Wendy,

To fix you'll need to go back to the original, or prior to where it was introduced.

If it was in PP (and I'm not convinced*), it'll be if you applied any LCE (Local Contrast Enhancement) with say, USM. I would guess this may have been at say 20% and a radius of 30px. To avoid this effect being so pbvious, you will need to increase the radius but decrease the amount to compensate, say 10% at 90 - 150px, see what looks ok.

* It is possible, as I think you are a D3000 owner, that on shots like this, sometimes the highlight recovery mechanism (Active D-Lighting) can do it, so, for a few shots only; turn OFF the ADL. Another place I find mine 'gets it wrong' is say a swan on a mid-grey river; where it puts a dark halo on the water's surface. All this said, it happens so rarely that I am still not absolutely sure if it applies to the RAW image itself, or whether I am being mis-led by the embedded jpg in the RAW.

Even though I know ADL seems to do this occasionally, but I still leave mine on Auto most of the time for the other benefits it brings.

Cheers,

[Dave Humphries]

~ Thanks for your comments. Silly of me not to crop a little more, so the car on the left had gone completely.

As you can imagine, I took a number of shots of this beauty. Actually, the owner came and mounted the front angel for me. But then more cars had arrived to disturbe my picture.

How did you think of this as a "diffecult subject"?

Hi Henrik,

Actually I would prefer to see a little more on the right hand side, rather than even less on the left - I'd clone it away if my shot.

"Difficult" because of the reflections in both chrome/brass and paintwork, and the proximity of more cars (as you say) and/or people (either behind car, or relected) which 'mess up' (or disturb) this kind of shot all too easily.

Many of my similar shots never see the light of day because I feel they are ruined, for example, by people in dayglo pink clothing getting into shot. I wait and wait for a gap in the crowds, but sometimes it just doesn't come - getting there early often helps though.

Cheers,

[Dave Humphries]

Hei Dave,
Thanks for your comments. As it stands just now I am very new to PSE8 so my pics are 'as is taken' ... obviously I need to do a lot of work on such as sharpening and cropping. I'll get there!
The pic of small yacht was taken in Denmark and it was the swirls in the water (pollen) that caught my eye.
CYa Ron

Understood Ron; when you're comfortable with the basics, we can move on to cloning skills, the good news is that PSE is very capable at this.

Cheers,

[Dave Humphries]

Congrats on the win Jim,

Go on, do tell use what it is and how you got it?

Thanks,

[ScoutR]

Yes Jim - How did you do it? I have not been able to figure it out at all. Do tell!

Wendy

[Henrik]

Hi Henrik,

Actually I would prefer to see a little more on the right hand side, rather than even less on the left - I'd clone it away if my shot.

"Difficult" because of the reflections in both chrome/brass and paintwork, and the proximity of more cars (as you say) and/or people (either behind car, or relected) which 'mess up' (or disturb) this kind of shot all too easily.

Hi Dave,

I agree that it would be nice to see more of the car on the right hand side. But there was his other car as you can see on this other picture. Cloning away half a car I guess would be difficult. So much for the proximity. One reflection I find bad: The bumper reflects a fence behind the fotographer. I didn't notice that, when I shot.

Antonio Carreira thinks I should be a bolder fotographer. In this case I guess it wouldn't have been impossible to ask he owner of the car to move it somewhere else, as he by himself willingly mounted the angel. But it din't occur to me. Would you?

Regards, Henrik

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Dave,

I agree that it would be nice to see more of the car on the right hand side. But there was his other car as you can see on this other picture. Cloning away half a car I guess would be difficult. So much for the proximity. One reflection I find bad: The bumper reflects a fence behind the fotographer. I didn't notice that, when I shot.

Antonio thinks I should be a bolder fotographer. In this case I guess it wouldn't have been impossible to ask he owner of the car to move it somewhere else, as he by himself willingly mounted the angel. But it din't occur to me. Would you?

Regards, Henrik

Hi Henrik,

I see what you mean and it is as I expected.
No, I don't think I would attempt that much cloning

I could do with a dash of Antonio's boldness myself
No, it wouldn't have occured to me as they put them in lines like this as that's what the organisers of the event require.

I think I'll start a new thread, following your inspiration here, with some shots I took back in the summer; put myself 'up there' for a bit of critique for a change.

Cheers,

[ScoutR]

To fix you'll need to go back to the original, or prior to where it was introduced.
If it was in PP (and I'm not convinced*), it'll be if you applied any LCE (Local Contrast Enhancement) with say, USM. I would guess this may have been at say 20% and a radius of 30px. To avoid this effect being so pbvious, you will need to increase the radius but decrease the amount to compensate, say 10% at 90 - 150px, see what looks ok.

Thanks Dave: Well the good news is that (as you suspected) I did not do this in PP. I went back to the original and zoomed in. The bad news is that now I see the terrible solid red line against the tops of the silos. I'm not sure if that is the haloing you are speaking of. I'm getting this sort of thing a lot - different colours depending on the background. Is this haloing or chromatic abberation? Regardless, it seems to be consistent with this camera and my technique in any backlit shot. Seeing as it is consistent, I think I should be able to correct it when I get better with the camera and using some kind of exposure compensation.

At this point I do not usually do any sharpening. I'm using Lightroom right now and it does not have USM. It just has a sharpening slider and so far, I don't like what it does. I have been following the various "Sharpness" threads here and am trying to get a grip on this function. I will be picking up Photoshop Elements today, so I will be able to follow along with the settings you all refer to a bit better. I'd really like to get a handle on this sharpness thing. Usually, I find my phots look grainy, and when I try to apply sharpness they just look worse.

* It is possible, as I think you are a D3000 owner, that on shots like this, sometimes the highlight recovery mechanism (Active D-Lighting) can do it, so, for a few shots only; turn OFF the ADL.

Yes, I have a D3000 and I leave the Active D on. Next time I go out, I will try some experiments with Active D off.

Wendy

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Wendy,

~ The bad news is that now I see the terrible solid red line against the tops of the silos. I'm not sure if that is the haloing you are speaking of. I'm getting this sort of thing a lot - different colours depending on the background. Is this haloing or chromatic abberation? ~

Almost certainly, but difficult to say for sure as I can't see it on this down sized version.
If you took a picture of bare tree branches against sky (not over exposed), if it is chromatic abberation (CA), you would see red on one edge and cyan on the opposite edge of the branches. However, some lenses do it with magenta and green and others with yellow and blue, or anywhere in between! Often times, one of these colours is the same as either the subject or the background, so it only looks like one colour edge unless scrutinised closely, or in the case of the silos, there is no oppsite edge close by to see the opposite colour on.

It won't be a camera thing, it will be the lens, especially if the kit one, as these are built down to a price and CA is usually what gives, along with sharpness towards the edges
Same is true for the WA, wide zoom range lenses, design is a compromise

Usually, I find my phots look grainy, and when I try to apply sharpness they just look worse.

Two things here;
If you are using LR, go to the details tab (in ACR) and set the Noise Reduction sliders to 100 - both Luminance and Chrominance - that should fix it. If you don't want to go that far, make Luminance at least 60 and Chroma 100.

When sharpening, if there is image noise, increase the threshold slider from 1 or 2 to around 5 - 10 depending on the noise, this stops it sharpening on small level changes (which is what noise is).

I doubt you'll regret buying Elements, but do get the Scott Kelby book on it (get the right one for your version, which I assume will be 8). You won't regret buying the book either

Cheers,

[ScoutR]

if it is chromatic abberation (CA), you would see red on one edge and cyan on the opposite edge of the branches. However, some lenses do it with magenta and green and others with yellow and blue, or anywhere in between! Often times, one of these colours is the same as either the subject or the background, so it only looks like one colour edge unless scrutinised closely, or in the case of the silos, there is no oppsite edge close by to see the opposite colour on.

Very interesting. I have been going through a few of these shots all taken on the same day and all backlit. I undid all my Lightroom work and took them all back to "As Shot". Some have the red edge and others don't.
I find that I am able to move the red line around by playing with the chromatic Aberation sliders in Lightroom. Basically it seems that if I increase the red slider the red line moves from the left side of the silo to the right side. There is a middle ground where I can lessen it but never get rid of it. Sharpening makes it worse.
This is an interesting experiment (for me anyway) but my main goal is to try and avoid it in the future, so I will have to figure out how to compensate if possible on these backlit shots. I'm hoping I can do it with Exposure compensation, but I'm finding it very difficult to get my fingers around all these buttons on the camera.

It won't be a camera thing, it will be the lens, especially if the kit one, as these are built down to a price and CA is usually what gives, along with sharpness towards the edges
Same is true for the WA, wide zoom range lenses, design is a compromise

Good to know it's not the camera. Unfortunately these were taken with the new 18-200mm and not the kit lens. I have some from the kit lens that show the same problem though. Always with backlighting but not on every backlit shot.
I hope it's user correctable, and I'm sure there is an easier way to compensate exposure than the way I'm trying to do it. I will read the manual again. I know I can't be doing it right. There's no way they would design something so awkward. I wish there was a Digital Camera with "match needle" metering. That was so easy!

If you are using LR, go to the details tab (in ACR) and set the Noise Reduction sliders to 100 - both Luminance and Chrominance - that should fix it. If you don't want to go that far, make Luminance at least 60 and Chroma 100.

For these particular cases the Noise reduction does not seem to do anything. I played with the chromatic abberation sliders to tone it down a bit - turned the sharpening down to zero (LR must apply some automatically, because I didn't) and then darkened everything up -exposure and brightness. That got rid of most of it, but now they are too dark. I think unless the shot is documentary I would just throw these out in the future.

When sharpening, if there is image noise, increase the threshold slider from 1 or 2 to around 5 - 10 depending on the noise, this stops it sharpening on small level changes (which is what noise is).

Sharpening is another project I'm working on. I've been following all the threads here, and am doing some experiments and trying out the workflows advised. On good shots, I do see a big difference. These particular shots have to be left out of the sharpening experiment though, from what I've seen sharpening emphasizes the problem I'm trying to get rid of.

I doubt you'll regret buying Elements, but do get the Scott Kelby book on it (get the right one for your version, which I assume will be 8). You won't regret buying the book either

Elements is here and installed. I also have the Kelby book and in between trying to fix and analyze all my mistakes to date, I will get up to speed on Elements. Then I can follow along on your suggestions a bit better.
I really want to talk to you about your workflow on the last shots you entered in the mini comp. They are so smooth. Seeing as we have similar cameras, I think I should be able to get close. Did they come from the camera like that? Don't answer now, I'll post in the other thread later.

Thanks for all the help on this one. Sorry I did not notice til today that you had replied or I would have gotten back sooner.

Wendy

[Dave Humphries]

I find that I am able to move the red line around by playing with the chromatic Aberation sliders in Lightroom. Basically it seems that if I increase the red slider the red line moves from the left side of the silo to the right side. There is a middle ground where I can lessen it but never get rid of it. Sharpening makes it worse.

Hi Wendy,

Yes, we virtually have the same lens too, and yes, it is prone to a bit of CA. I don't seem to find so much of a problem, but most of my pictures are crops from near the middle of view - even the two in the Mini Comp #52, may explain this.

On shots where CA is an issue, if all else fails, wipe the Elements desat brush carefully over it, then sharpen. That said, the final sharpen should be after down-sizing anyway, and that should all but eliminate it.

For these particular cases the Noise reduction does not seem to do anything. I played with the chromatic abberation sliders to tone it down a bit - turned the sharpening down to zero (LR must apply some automatically, because I didn't) and then darkened everything up -exposure and brightness. That got rid of most of it, but now they are too dark. I think unless the shot is documentary I would just throw these out in the future.

I really wouldn't try to get rid of CA with exposure tweaks, but you saying this makes me wonder, since we are talking 'backlit', whether the red channel hasn't overloaded, causing blooming. Can you post a screen grab enlargement?

I really want to talk to you about your workflow on the last shots you entered in the mini comp. They are so smooth. Seeing as we have similar cameras, I think I should be able to get close. Did they come from the camera like that? Don't answer now, I'll post in the other thread later.

Yes, we can cover that separately, or in the mini-comp thread 'when the time is right'

Thanks for all the help on this one. Sorry I did not notice til today that you had replied or I would have gotten back sooner.

No worries, I sort of guessed you hadn't seen it as you are usually very prompt and responsive.

Honestly, it is 'a pleasure to do business with you' as they say, because you take it all in and soon put it into practice, and we all see the benefit as you grow. 'Positive feedback' works both ways

Cheers,