Abandoned

[batman44]

Taken over Labor Day Weekend.
Thoughts & Suggestions are always welcome.
Thank you!

[David]

Hi Kori - Perhaps a "post your creepy house here" thread needs to be set up - see creepy house

Regarding these shots my initial thoughts are that there are contrast and sharpening issues. It looks to have been a dull day with grey skies so some extra contrast and/or saturation needs to be introduced. The texture of the boarding on the houses looks very interesting and I recall a tutorial on some site (?ronbigelow?) that used timber in a house to explore different sharpening techniques. Although apparently subtle changes were introduced the end result was in the "wow" category. One other point to consider is whether the format of the shots could be altered. Particularly in the latter two shots the width of the buildings could be emphasised by going to a 2:1 format, discarding most or all of the current foreground. Anyway, these are just some thoughts.

Cheers

David

[Davey]

I particularly like the 3rd one. One of those places where upon seeing it you'd kind of prefer to get stuck out in the rain and sleep in your broken down car than knock there for assistance. Sharpening on the house in particular would bring even more focus to it as mentioned but the only suggestion I could thing off is perhaps a cold colour cast to make it even more unwelcome looking like dropping the reds a bit and maybe upping blues. Nothing severe though just faint cast perhaps even to just the shadows.

I love abandoned and creepy looking buildings, fav places I've lived are both old Victorian homes and always felt drawn to old rather than modern architecture. Derelicts are one of my favourite places to visit. A favourite haunt of my childhood was a local abandoned hospital, the morgue in particular. Now I think about it it's kind of disturbing what that says about me, hmm I don't really wanna investigate that thought. Joking aside it was always fun in exploring somewhere that others had long forgotten about.

[Clactonian]

Hi Kori
I think that the wonderful texture on these buildings is crying out for the mono treatment., which together with some judicious use of gradient fill in the sky could make some very dramatic images indeed.
Mike

[Shadowman]

Looks like a fixer upper.

[batman44]

Thanks for the comments.
Okay - Here goes:
It was very overcast - lightly raining, on and off all day. I "don't" know what a 2:1 format means! I'm still learning what all the processing and tech terms are!
I currently use Corel PaintShop Photo Pro X3. I"m still learning how to use it (as I upgraded from x2 not too long ago) there is so much to learn with layers, etc... How do you just manipulate the sky? I know a lot of the steps in adobe are close to Corel, but some don't work. I've thought about changing to adobe as so many are using it, for better help, but I honestly don't know what one to start with. (Honest!)

I'm still learning and there just doesn't seem to be enough time in the day for everything! Maybe once the cold winter winds start to blow I'll be stuck inside again and have more time on my hands to learn more.

[revi]

Thanks for the comments.
Okay - Here goes:
It was very overcast - lightly raining, on and off all day. I "don't" know what a 2:1 format means! I'm still learning what all the processing and tech terms are!
(...)

That's an easy one even I can answer
notations like 2:1, 3:2, 16:9 give the ratio of width to height of the image, so an image in a 2:1 format of 900 pixels wide would be 450 pixels high, in 3:2 it would be 600 pixels high, in 1:1, 900 etc. As it's the ratio that's important for the composition, and not the absolute size, it's easier to use the ratio when discussing the composition of an image.

Standard print formats are often 3:2 (4' by 6', here they give the smallest dimension first, confusing indeed), TV screens tend to have 16:9 nowadays.

Hope this helps,
Remco

[batman44]

Thanks! Yes that helps me. Why do they have to make it so confusing? Like there isn't enough foreign words thrown in here already! LOL

[ScoutR]

Thanks for the comments.
Okay - Here goes:
It was very overcast - lightly raining, on and off all day. I "don't" know what a 2:1 format means! I'm still learning what all the processing and tech terms are!
I currently use Corel PaintShop Photo Pro X3. I"m still learning how to use it (as I upgraded from x2 not too long ago) there is so much to learn with layers, etc... How do you just manipulate the sky? I know a lot of the steps in adobe are close to Corel, but some don't work. I've thought about changing to adobe as so many are using it, for better help, but I honestly don't know what one to start with. (Honest!)

I'm still learning and there just doesn't seem to be enough time in the day for everything! Maybe once the cold winter winds start to blow I'll be stuck inside again and have more time on my hands to learn more.

Hi Kori: I think you will find the winter is a great time to get used to Post Processing. My friends think I must be a very bad driver, because if there is any snow on the road, well, I just can't go out you know.

I'm not familiar with Corel Paint Shot at all, but if you do decide to change, Adobe Elements 8 is a great program for the price and there are a lot of very knowledgeable users here to help out. Also, most of the commands are pretty similar if not exactly the same as the full version of Photoshop. You just can't do quite as much, but for a little over $100 you can't go wrong.

Wendy

[batman44]

Wendy- I don't mind the snow - I just don't like being so cold I can't feel my fingers or toes! LOL
Thanks - I will look into Elements for a start! That price is NOT bad at all! I do like Corel - well it was cheap, and it can do a lot of what Photoshop does. The steps are a bit different, for the most part. I have noticed that I can't do - or should I say, figure out how, to do some of the sugesstions I see on here. I don't know if it's Corel not having the capability or my not knowing it well enough yet??? Tutorials are hard to come by with Corel.

[ScoutR]

Kori, I still can't do 90% of the things that Elements can do. I'm sure Corel can do what you want but some things are a bit tricky, definitley winter projects. When I got the camera I was just going to keep the Nikon software that came with it, but just like Corel, it was hard to find help. With Elements there is tons of help available, here and at the Adobe site and elsewhere. I think it was a good deal, and will keep me happy for a long time.

Whatever choice you make, just be patient. Your shots are great as is, and you can always do more Post Processing as you learn. Don't delete anything unless it's a real dud, because as you go along you will find that there are many shots that you can save.

Wendy

[batman44]

Thank you Wendy! Yes winter will be my time for more learning and reading and getting on this forum more too! Probably the only good thing about winter (IMO)