Whisky & Wine - Which version do you like better?

[Colin Southern]

Hi folks,

I've been doing a few tweaks to last weeks landscape effort - just wondering which you all prefer?

[Ashwin]

Hi folks,

I've been doing a few tweaks to last weeks landscape effort - just wondering which you all prefer?

In this case I prefer 1st one...
( Generally I prefer photograph with little contast than soft Photograph )

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Colin,

I also prefer the first, although might stand a touch more saturation.

The second just looks too colourful and a bit too sharp. It is fairly subtle though and without the comparison ability with lightbox, would be even harder to pin down.

Cheers,

[Colin Southern]

Thanks Guys - just to confuse things even more, here's a higher resolution version with tweaks to the saturation and sharpness (the down-sampling for the 2nd image caused a bit of frosting, so I've put a small blur over this to soften it).

[Hansm]

The 3th one I like the most.
There is a better balance in contrast to my opinion.
There is one small thing that attracted my attention. At the top right there is a big tree and more to the middle a smaller tree. In between them I see a small piece of a other tree. Somehow this disturbs my view of this very nice picture!

About whiskey and wine: I prefer single malt whiskey

[arith]

I prefer the third. You can almost smell the forest. It always amazes me how you can improve on an already brilliant image with a slight tweaking of this and that. A bit vague but that's how I am.

[Ashwin]

In this case I prefer 1st one...
( Generally I prefer photograph with little contast than soft Photograph )

Hi Colin,

You have really confused us. When I voted there were two photographs No.1 & No.2, Even though I expressed my choice for No.1, which is to my mind is little soft, but 2nd No, was a bit more contrast than it should have been., and now you have posted No.3 which is really to my liking. It has bit more contrast than No.1 and bit less contrast than No.3. It has more balanced contrast and that is good.

Anyhow since I have already voted. I would not like to make any change at this stage.

[Donald]

Can I have mine with the foreground of #2 and the background (trees) of #1, please!?

The rocks and water really 'pop' in #2. The trees are beautifully subtle in #1.

[Ashwin]

Can I have mine with the foreground of #2 and the background (trees) of #1, please!?

The rocks and water really 'pop' in #2. The trees are beautifully subtle in #1.

Hi Donald,

You can't change the rule of the game.
You have to choose any one from 3 Photographs, which according to you is better than other two

[Colin Southern]

Anyhow since I have already voted. I would not like to make any change at this stage.

Hi Ashwin,

I can move your vote from image 1 to image 3 if you like?

[Colin Southern]

Thanks Everyone

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Donald,

You can't change the rule of the game.
You have to choose any one from 3 Photographs ~

Well, not unless Colin puts up a fourth version

[Ashwin]

Hi Ashwin,

I can move your vote from image 1 to image 3 if you like?

Hi Colin,

Honestly speaking, as specifically made my view clear about my choice. Had there been 3 photographs as they are, I certainly would have given my vote to No.3. You may move my vote accordingly.

Surprisingly nobody had voted for Image No.2

If there was no Image No.3, clearly winner was Image No.1

[Radu Dinu Cordeanu]

The little differences between them.I prefer one in the proximity of golden ratio.That give me more equilibrium.I modified the "general colour"(like key in musik) toward green because we are in a wood.
Radu Dinu

[Colin Southern]

Thanks again everyone - with Ashwin's relocated vote we now have a 3 way tie!

[Ashwin]

Thanks again everyone - with Ashwin's relocated vote we now have a 3 way tie!

Hi Colin,

After putting to vote same Image with 3 different variants, if the result ends in 3 way tie. If this was the picture to be deliver to your client, which IMAGE you will deliver....? ?

[Colin Southern]

Hi Colin,

After putting to vote same Image with 3 different variants, if the result ends in 3 way tie. If this was the picture to be deliver to your client, which IMAGE you will deliver....? ?

Hi Ashwin,

It wasn't a commission shoot - so I don't have a client for it yet - it will be up for sale though.

Generally it's not too difficult to work out what the final image should look like ... plus I also need to keep in mind that the full resolution version I have will look different to what you see here - plus not everyone here will have calibrated and profiled monitors - plus some of the "rules of the game" also change when you start printing large prints (44 x 22").

So as we speak, a 22 inch proof is printing - I cropped the image slightly as per Radu Dinu's suggestion - and greened up the outer 1/3 of the trees on each side of the image. I'm happy with the sharpening (keeping in mind that what prints is different to what you see).

[Ashwin]

Hi Ashwin,

It wasn't a commission shoot - so I don't have a client for it yet - it will be up for sale though.

Hi Colin,

I know, this was not a commission shoot....

Indirectly, I wanted to know your liking..( Preference ),
as for me I always prefer Image with little contrast than softer Image

[Colin Southern]

Hi Colin,

I know, this was not a commission shoot....

Indirectly, I wanted to know your liking..( Preference ),
as for me I always prefer Image with little contrast than softer Image

Hi Ashwin,

In an ideal world it would be easy to just say "the third image", but I don't live in an ideal world

So ...

... in the end I ended up putting all source images - all versions - all bulk DNG images onto my memory card and transported them all to my primary retouching PC which has the better facilities (all that you saw was just done on my home PC). I'd already copied the files to the card when I did version 3 last night to basically I did some further work in version 2, and ran with that.

Just to give you a bit of a rundown on the differences between V1 & V2 ...

- The original image was shot @ F4 - but I had identical compositions at F2.8, F5.6, F8, F11, F16, and F22 (because different F-Stops give you different shutterspeeds, which of course affects the way the water looks - and I can't always tell which I prefer until I get back into the office and see them all on a big screen). Version 1 had the preferred water, but the foreground rocks were getting a bit too soft around the periphery of the image - so in version 2 I blended in just a few key rocks from an F16 version, and re-sharpened the entire image; so V2 will have noticeably sharper rocks in the foreground.

- I'd also pushed the B channel contrast in LAB colour to give the water the nice blue appearance - but that had also left blue specks on the rocks, which I was in two minds about - in V2 I masked off the B channel curve so that it didn't apply to the rocks; only the water (which also removed a deep/dark blue cast in some of the shadows).

- Finally I thought that the trees in V1 weren't as lush and green as we all know that trees are here in New Zealand - so they got a saturation boost and slight hue shift away from yellow.

For the final print (44 x 22" on canvas) I hesitantly tried Radu Dinu's suggestion of a slight crop - I didn't make it quite as agressive as he did as I have to allow for image on the canvas being wrapped around the sides of the frame, but it was definately an improvement (thanks Radu Dinu!). Additionally I was happy with the hue of the trees in the centre, but the ones in the outer 1/3 of the image (both left and right) were hue shifted too much towards yellow - so I've applied a HSB layer and masked it to only be applied to the outer left/right 1/3 of the image.

Final image looks nice - but the blues shifted a bit too far towards purple in m artificial lighting, but won't be as bad in daylight (it doesn't look bad as it is - I'll just have to claim a little "artistic license" on that part!)

I'll take a shot of the framed canvas for you when I've got it finished in a day or two

[Ashwin]

So Colin you have applied your creative mind, and took trouble in combining what is best/better from other images to make one GOOD PRESENTABLE IMAGE...

Thank you also for explaining in details what you have done, and Thank you in advance for proposing to send me a picture of final finished & framed canvas. ( With your autograph please )