North Carolina Mountains at Sunset

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scm2000
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p.1 #1 · North Carolina Mountains at Sunset

I was thinking about printing and hanging this image but am unsure of my PP and the composition of the crop.

The following info just an fyi if needed at all. The image is cropped from a raw file at 6x17. I processed the raw file in DPP sticking to the raw tab mostly moving the sliders to taste, brghtness .33, WB shot settings, Contrast +4, Highlight -1, Shadow +1, Color Tone 0, Color Saturation +4, Sharpening with USM Strength 10, Fineness 8, Threshold 9. In the RGB tab the only adjustment was lowering the red channel a bit on the tone curve, ALO strong, NR 5, and DLO 100. I only have Photoshop CS1 (photoshop 8). In photoshop I worked with layer adjustments to saturate some and add some contrast with curves and other layers.

I was wondering the following:

1. Is the composition ok or is there too much sky and clouds?

2. Would a ratio of 3x12 work, which would take out some sky, or is that way too skinny?

3. From what you can see should the image print ok with smooth tones and not blotchy.

4. I upsampled the file 2x in DPP. I compared this to PS bicubic smoother at 100% and print size and could not see much of a difference. Does anyone have any experience using DPP to up size an image. ( I know I'm behind the times with software but at the moment it's all I have to work with

).

5. Am I missing something in PP I need to do or am I headed the right direction.

I am unsure of my workflow and just need some guidance in the right direction.

Preparing this image for print is another issue I am in need of advice and any help is appreciated.

Thanks.

PS I can take brutal honesty

MG_0445DPPupRez2x617_PSw10 by scm20000, on Flickr

Oct 13, 2012 at 10:13 PM

ben egbert
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p.1 #2 · North Carolina Mountains at Sunset

I think 3x12 is too skinny, but its your wall.

As to how the image appears here, the main question is if it meets your goals? If you have a different look you want and don't know how to get it, you can get lots of help after telling us the goal. But if you just ask, you will get somebody elses look. That might be fine, often it gets better but it won't always be what you had in mind.

Why are you uprezzing? Are you printing it yourself or sending it out? If sending it out, I would let the print guy do the uprez. If at home, I would use Qimage or similar.

If sending out, you need to know something about profiles and color spaces and file type. Ask the printer.

Here is a link to my print methods.

http://ben-egbert-photo.com/?page_id=790

Oct 13, 2012 at 10:23 PM

scm2000
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p.1 #3 · North Carolina Mountains at Sunset

Thanks Ben.

I will be sending it out for printing. I thought I had to uprez to give the printer 300ppi. That's why it's good to ask questions.

Oct 13, 2012 at 10:39 PM

Camperjim
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p.1 #4 · North Carolina Mountains at Sunset

I think this looks pretty blotchy but that often happens when downsizing for the web. You might want to crop down to a small selection and print a 5x7 or larger print as a trial print. Print the selection the same size that you want for the final print.

Oct 13, 2012 at 10:49 PM

ben egbert
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p.1 #5 · North Carolina Mountains at Sunset

scm2000 wrote:
Thanks Ben.

I will be sending it out for printing. I thought I had to uprez to give the printer 300ppi. That's why it's good to ask questions.

The look I want is smooth tones and not blotchy. When I view it at 100% it looks kinda blotchy. When I view it at print size it looks ok. Maybe when I get some experience at getting prints I'll be able to know better how it should look.

Thanks for the link to your print methods. I appreciate it and will check it out.

300PPI is a nice goal, but 230PPI is fairly acceptable even with fine detail. But this image does not have any fine detail, it would probably be fine at 150ppi.

Oct 14, 2012 at 02:13 PM

scm2000
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p.1 #6 · North Carolina Mountains at Sunset

Camperjim wrote:

I think this looks pretty blotchy but that often happens when downsizing for the web. You might want to crop down to a small selection and print a 5x7 or larger print as a trial print. Print the selection the same size that you want for the final print.

ben egbert wrote:

300PPI is a nice goal, but 230PPI is fairly acceptable even with fine detail. But this image does not have any fine detail, it would probably be fine at 150ppi.

Thanks both. I'll give the 150ppi a try.

Oct 14, 2012 at 03:29 PM

RustyBug

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p.1 #7 · North Carolina Mountains at Sunset

The blues look blotchy to me in the way that pushing saturation too far tends to do. Combine that with the blues looking unnatural to me, you might want to consider using a different color space to work in to get the range of blues you want (creative license) without having to push the saturation so hard (causing blotchiness

)

I'm not familiar with CS1 and the color spaces / working spaces available to you ... but if it has LAB working space or CieLAB / ProPhoto color spaces that I've had from CS3 onward, it might be worth a visit to see how they render toward your goals.

Any chance you can post up the raw/sooc (little larger if possible) for us to play with? Protecting "smooth tones" can be a challenge while striving for intense color. Also, are you processing in 8bit, 16bit or 32bit when you do your "heavy lifting" to get your colors where you want them?

Oct 14, 2012 at 03:35 PM

scm2000
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p.1 #8 · North Carolina Mountains at Sunset

RustyBug wrote:
The blues look blotchy to me in the way that pushing saturation too far tends to do. Combine that with the blues looking unnatural to me, you might want to consider using a different color space to work in to get the range of blues you want (creative license) without having to push the saturation so hard (causing blotchiness

Oct 14, 2012 at 05:10 PM

scm2000
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p.1 #9 · North Carolina Mountains at Sunset

Here is a 50% downrezzed tif of the raw file sooc. No sharpening and no NR. This is also a crop from the image file, basically the bottom third of the full image.

I don't know if flickr converted it to a jpg when I uploaded it. Also, you can get a larger version on flickr.

_MG_0445 SOOC downrez50 by scm20000, on Flickr

Oct 14, 2012 at 05:35 PM

RustyBug

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p.1 #10 · North Carolina Mountains at Sunset

I see what you mean @ the detail vs. blotchiness.

This one is gonna be kinda tough due to the strong artistic rendering of preferences involved.

I typically strive to eliminate the blue casts, but I'm surmising that you are wanting to play to the blue mood ... is that correct? Or are you looking for various renderings from which to take the capture?

Oct 14, 2012 at 06:23 PM

scm2000
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p.1 #11 · North Carolina Mountains at Sunset

RustyBug wrote:
I see what you mean @ the detail vs. blotchiness.

This one is gonna be kinda tough due to the strong artistic rendering of preferences involved.

I typically strive to eliminate the blue casts, but I'm surmising that you are wanting to play to the blue mood ... is that correct? Or are you looking for various renderings from which to take the capture?

I like the blue mood and want to head in that direction ultimately however, I am open to other renderings for comparison.

Thanks again.

Oct 14, 2012 at 06:29 PM

RustyBug

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p.1 #12 · North Carolina Mountains at Sunset

Gotcha.

Lots of interpretation possibilities here, but I tried to remove the overall cast adjusting sliders @ endpoints for individual R,G, B in levels, followed by adjustments @ RGB. A little masking at the foreground trees to keep them from going to full silhouette.

I pulled down some of the blue to reveal the mountains a bit. Threw some selective blur / color noise reduction as well toward the mountain/mist portion of the scene.

Definitely an S&P to taste kinda thing.

2013 © RustyBug

Oct 14, 2012 at 07:25 PM

scm2000
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p.1 #13 · North Carolina Mountains at Sunset

Wow! I really like what you've done. I like how you took the blue out of the clouds and maintained some green color in the foreground trees. Just wonderful.

Did you sharpen the image any and if so what settings did you use?

Would it need more sharpening for print?

Also, I was just wondering what you think regarding the composition. I almost think there is too much sky and clouds in this composition. I was thinking about doing some additional cropping and crop out some of the top. I know this would make the image pretty skinny but I'm not sure. What do you think?

Thanks for taking the time to do this, I really appreciate it. This will help me in improving my 'vision' moving forward.

Oct 14, 2012 at 08:15 PM

RustyBug

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p.1 #14 · North Carolina Mountains at Sunset

I don't see this one been a detail oriented shot that needs critical sharpening. Actually, I found that I softened it with some color NR.

As to the comp ... I'm okay with the skinny. Maybe a little bit off the edges to "pick your points" at how you want it to be left-right. This kind of image is very interpretive to your liking, so if it works for you ... that's the important part ... personal interpretive doesn't always have a "correct".

Oct 15, 2012 at 03:12 AM

scm2000
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p.1 #15 · North Carolina Mountains at Sunset

Thanks again RustyBug.

Oct 15, 2012 at 09:53 AM

AuntiPode
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p.1 #16 · North Carolina Mountains at Sunset

Oct 16, 2012 at 01:20 AM

scm2000
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p.1 #17 · North Carolina Mountains at Sunset

AuntiPode wrote:
Consider perhaps a treatment a little less lurid:

Yes, I agree AuntiPode. I don't know if this meets those requirements (I think it does), but FWIW this is the image I have chosen to print. I didn't like the junky sky with all the junky clunky clouds, so I chose a different image with less clutter and did some more cropping until I found a composition I liked better. It's a 'skinny' composition but I think it might work ok. Won't really know until I get it printed. I'm not done with PP yet but this is very close to the final image. Thanks to all that looked and for those that took the time to comment and more(RustyBug), thank you. I don't know about you all but I like to see the final image after discussion, and that's why I posted this.

_MG_0439dpp312web100 by scm20000, on Flickr

Oct 16, 2012 at 12:29 PM

AuntiPode
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p.1 #18 · North Carolina Mountains at Sunset

The new crop takes it from a raw feel to a quiet one. Quite nice.

Oct 16, 2012 at 08:52 PM

scm2000
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p.1 #19 · North Carolina Mountains at Sunset

Thanks AuntiPode. Quiet and peaceful is what I'm going for. And simple and uncluttered.

Oct 17, 2012 at 01:09 AM

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