temporary? gallery

[PeterD]

Hi all,

While I have been waiting to find out if my gallery can be returned to me, I have been learning how to PP in a more methodical way. I made the great mistake of using AUTO tone levels in lightshop. A good friend on another gallery pointed out the error of my ways What I ended up with is over-exposed images with the detail burnt out. So, I took one of these images and thought a lot more about what I was doing.

I have created a 'Temorary'? gallery under my new log in and have so far posted what I think are improvements to three of the images in my old gallery.



Turnstone - A wader that is normally seen on the beach turning stones in search of food. Seen here at Whitby Harbour.
This has been slightly cropped to remove the second bird as it was incomplete in the original.



Eurasian Widgeon - Breeds in forest lakes and marshland. In winter moves to the coast. Can also be seen grazing on fields in the winter.



Both these images have been redone in PP from scratch. Its getting to be much easier to identify what needs to be done.

I still have a very long way to go but at least I feel I am getting somewhere.

PeterD

[theMusicMan]

Re: temporary? gallery

Great stuff there Peter, glas to read you are experimenting in Lightroom and with your PP.

Do you happen to have the original .orf of the Turnstone...? Happy to have a bash if you're happy for me to do so.

[Scapula Memory]

Re: temporary? gallery

I still have a very long way to go but at least I feel I am getting somewhere.

PeterD

No 3 would be my pick of the bunch, a very nice shot. Glad you feel you are improving, it is satisfying going back to pictures and improving them second time around. So much to learn though, but a lot of good advice in this forum and it has certainly helped me. It is good to see people prepared to PP images posted by others on here, I wish more would do it and detail the work, would be fascinating to see differences.

Keep at it Peter t-up

[Ian]

Re: temporary? gallery

I'm trying to work out if Peter's gallery can be re-assigned to his new forum ID.

I should know in a day or two.

Ian

[art frames]

Re: temporary? gallery

I'm trying to work out if Peter's gallery can be re-assigned to his new forum ID.

I should know in a day or two.

Ian

Ian

Could you give him an artificial boost to his posts too. He's trying hard ....50 in a couple of days. But he'll run out of puff soon and I challenged him to get back over 500 in a week! so feel a help from Sir is needed

Cheers Ian

Peter

[PeterD]

Re: temporary? gallery

Great stuff there Peter, glas to read you are experimenting in Lightroom and with your PP.

Do you happen to have the original .orf of the Turnstone...? Happy to have a bash if you're happy for me to do so.

Thanks John.

Unfortunately, it seems I shot this sequence in .jpg. I remember now I had problems with using the camera and did a reset forgetting to switch back to .orf.

I would have loved you to have a go.

PeterD

[PeterD]

Re: temporary? gallery

No 3 would be my pick of the bunch, a very nice shot. Glad you feel you are improving, it is satisfying going back to pictures and improving them second time around. So much to learn though, but a lot of good advice in this forum and it has certainly helped me. It is good to see people prepared to PP images posted by others on here, I wish more would do it and detail the work, would be fascinating to see differences.

Keep at it Peter t-up

Thanks John

All three have changed dramatically from the original postings. Found detail that I thought was not there.

Funnily enough, the 3rd image when posted on the other site scored 2. The scorer did not leave any comments and I could not see why it scored so low. I contacted another member who spends a lot of time answering questions and commenting. I explained what had happened, he gave me a very good critique to which I immediately responded. The image you see, he rebiewed again and it scored 7.

There's a moral in this tale, If we score without comments, how does the image owner improve? Fortunately this is not a problem here but I was surprised because they thought it did not matter!

I mention this to give encouragement to all the members on this site and to demonstrate to you what a good community we have here. Its not down to individuals, we all practise good manners and support.

PeterD

[PeterD]

Re: temporary? gallery

I'm trying to work out if Peter's gallery can be re-assigned to his new forum ID.

I should know in a day or two.

Ian

Thanks Ian

Thanks Peter for your support. I was going to take a lower profile but thought, what the heck, thats not me!

PeterD

[steverh]

Re: temporary? gallery

All these are very pleasant shots.

The turnstone is let down a bit by where the bird is perched - it looks a bit awkward, and there is no catchlight in the eye, which is generally a good thing.

The widgeon in flight works pretty well. The wing blur is effective.

The last one is by far the best IMHO. Lovely colours, good light, nice reflection in the water - even catchlights in the eyes!

[PeterD]

Re: temporary? gallery

All these are very pleasant shots.

The turnstone is let down a bit by where the bird is perched - it looks a bit awkward, and there is no catchlight in the eye, which is generally a good thing.

The widgeon in flight works pretty well. The wing blur is effective.

The last one is by far the best IMHO. Lovely colours, good light, nice reflection in the water - even catchlights in the eyes!

Steve,

Thanks for your comments, I posted another Turnstone in the gallery with catchlight. Unfortunately, I have not include all of the feet.

PeterD

[Zuiko]

Re: temporary? gallery

Funny how we all have different ideas about what makes a good photo. Others have mentioned No 3 and I agree it's very good, but the one which stands out for me is the Widgeon in flight, which have just the right combination of blur and sharpness to convey a sense of movement.

The birds are well positioned in relation to each other and the way the shape of the right wing of the first bird is echoed in the second bird adds to the sense of harmony between them. The movement in the birds is echoed in the movement in the water, which provides a perfect background; unobtrusive enough not to detract from the main subjects yet containing just enough information to place the birds into the context of their envoironment.

The only change I would make would be to crop the extreme top of the frame to exclude the white foam of the breaking wave, which I find slightly distracting. You mention that No3 was rated a "7" on another site. I wouldn't argue with that, but I'd give this one of the Widgeon an "8" taking into account all the points I have mentioned.

Thanks for sharing these with us.

Zuiko

[theMusicMan]

Re: temporary? gallery

Thanks John.

Unfortunately, it seems I shot this sequence in .jpg. I remember now I had problems with using the camera and did a reset forgetting to switch back to .orf.

I would have loved you to have a go.

PeterD

No problem Peter - can you send me the original jpg then...? might not be able to do so much with a jpg as one could with an .orf, but can have a go.

[email protected]

[PeterD]

Re: temporary? gallery

Funny how we all have different ideas about what makes a good photo. Others have mentioned No 3 and I agree it's very good, but the one which stands out for me is the Widgeon in flight, which have just the right combination of blur and sharpness to convey a sense of movement.

The birds are well positioned in relation to each other and the way the shape of the right wing of the first bird is echoed in the second bird adds to the sense of harmony between them. The movement in the birds is echoed in the movement in the water, which provides a perfect background; unobtrusive enough not to detract from the main subjects yet containing just enough information to place the birds into the context of their envoironment.

The only change I would make would be to crop the extreme top of the frame to exclude the white foam of the breaking wave, which I find slightly distracting. You mention that No3 was rated a "7" on another site. I wouldn't argue with that, but I'd give this one of the Widgeon an "8" taking into account all the points I have mentioned.

Thanks for sharing these with us.

Zuiko

Thanks for your comments Zuiko.

My preference is also the birds in flight. I have a thing about wanting to capture action photos rather than poses. This perhaps is the reason I am dissatisfied with my current lenses. To take these reliably you need a fast lens but you also need a fat wallet. This is an attribute I do not have and is the reason I am watching and waiting for info from members on alternative lenses.

Cheers

PeterD

[PeterD]

Re: temporary? gallery

No problem Peter - can you send me the original jpg then...? might not be able to do so much with a jpg as one could with an .orf, but can have a go.

[email protected]

Thanks John,

I have sent two images, the uncropped version of the one above and another for interest.

I look forward to seeing what you can make of them. This will give me the opportunity to improve further.

PeterD

[theMusicMan]

Re: temporary? gallery

Hey Peter

No problem. Thought I'd have a quick go before I got stuck into some work this morning. Must admit, that much of this PP was done in CS3 rather than in Lightroom as it needed finer controls than Lightroom would permit i.e. layers and selective leveling, and one can't do that in Lightroom.

What I did do in Lightroom though was to see how much burned out area there was in the Turnstones breast - and much of it is white - and white is white no matter what you do to it!! So, I used Lightroom to initially underexpose the image by 2ev, then simply exported this image to CS3.

In CS3 I created several layers, one of the underside, and one of the wings, head and back. I then used selective leveling on each of these layers to try to recover much of the underside detail, and to keep the back and neck in similar condition.

This was only a quick edit, and I am sure many here have superior CS3 ability than I and could therefore do a better job than this. I then finally sharpened slightly for web, added some colour saturation via an action I have, then added the border - again from an action I have, and saved-as.