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Archive 2017 · Valley of Fire Pano

  
 
solarishead
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · Valley of Fire Pano


I've been working on this pano for the past week and hope to start doing some partial test prints in the next week or so to verify colors and details are to my liking. This version is processed from a downsized original just so that I process it more quickly. The original is over 150 MP and there are three exposure layers so it's going to take some time to process at full scale. The finished print will be roughly 96" wide and 16" tall at 260 ppi.

I've done one other pano this large in the past and it turned out nicely. The problem with images this large is knowing when to stop working on them. With the cost of printing, it's very easy to want it to be "perfect" before pulling the trigger.

I'm looking forward to your comments and suggestions as I move to the next stage of the project.

Note: I know the recommended size for posts is 800 pixels on the long edge but I went with 1600 to provide a bit more detail. Hope it still views nicely.







Aug 05, 2017 at 05:49 AM
ben egbert
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · Valley of Fire Pano


I also do panos, only my frame/mat limits me to 16x45. I normally only do one exposure with multiple images all shot the same, Interested in how well the different exposures align after stitching. What software do you use. is this an Epson P800?

I also make lots of versions and many test prints before doing a full size image, and I know you need to keep it a bit brighter for print.

That said, this image has a uniform look in terms of brightness/tone. I would probably be looking for some additional pop. I think you could increase saturation and contrast a bit.



Aug 05, 2017 at 09:30 AM
solarishead
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · Valley of Fire Pano


Thanks Ben. I agree it needs more pop, but I want to keep it realistic looking. I'll be printing on an Epson Stylus Pro 4880 (not mine) on glossy paper. My friend has lustre paper is a choice as well. Any suggestions between the two paper choices?


Aug 05, 2017 at 10:05 AM
ben egbert
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · Valley of Fire Pano


I use Canson Rag Photographique, a matt paper and frame without any glass or plex cover to avoid glare. I would prefer lustre over glossy for the same reason. How do you mount such a large image?




Aug 05, 2017 at 10:33 AM
solarishead
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · Valley of Fire Pano


Ben,

I'll give lustre a try this time. My last pano (see below) was mounted to gatorboard and hung with no frame or glass. Has held up well so far with no warping. Costs of mounting and framing something of this size was out of my budget.

Mark







Aug 05, 2017 at 11:53 AM
ben egbert
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · Valley of Fire Pano


Looks good and thanks for the info. I have considered matless and frameless mounting but my wife objects.


Aug 05, 2017 at 12:49 PM
RustyBug
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · Valley of Fire Pano


Mark,

Welcome to the PC Forum.

As to the processing, it does look a touch flat as Ben mentioned, but that is predominantly a byproduct of your lighting. The lighting involved is very even/flat since it is mostly the uber-soft, super-diffuse, giant blue fill light that is illuminating your scene (looks like you might have a bit of blue color influence in play also).

With lighting so flat, you have a choice to render the "as is" aspect of the uber-soft lighting, or you can pp to emulate a somewhat different lighting with a bit more pp than you might in different lighting.

My first thought is that with a title of "Fire", you likely would want something to be a bit more ... ummm, "Fire-esque", if you will. It doesn't have to be if the "Fire" aspect is reference to the place rather than the lighting / scene. Of course, anything goes with S&P to taste, but I might look to bring out a bit more fire where possible.

The question I have is what are the key elements that you want to convey and draw your viewer to. The "cell phone game" goes like this:

"Hey dude, you gotta see this ..." "This is so amazing / serene / vibrant / ..." "The ... is ... and the ... is ..."

Close your eyes, place yourself back in the place and call your best friend to describe to him in words what you wish he was there to see. Even to the point of writing it down if you like as in a letter.

Those aspects that are on your heart to convey to your friend, those can be very strong indicators of where you want to draw the eye of your viewer. The point here being that you've brought the image to this point with what looks like global processing. Now it's time to consider how you are going to approach your selective processing. The cell phone / letter game can be a tool to aid / guide where you want to take it going forward.

Here's a quickie (a bit over the top with some artifacts, etc. .i.e. for illustration, but you get the gist.) for comparison. Many ways you can go with this ... just you need to decide what it is you want to say to your friend.

As always ... your pic, your message, your call.










Edited on Aug 06, 2017 at 02:33 PM · View previous versions



Aug 06, 2017 at 10:21 AM
eeneryma
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p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · Valley of Fire Pano


Wonderful panos Mark. This comes alive mounted on the wall, the way photos really should be seen.

And I like the way you matched the carpeting and upholstery to this pano.

Steve



Aug 06, 2017 at 10:52 AM
solarishead
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p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · Valley of Fire Pano


RustyBug - Thanks for the recommendations. I agree that currently the image doesn't quite capture the moment. You're correct that the lighting was very flat at the time this was taken. Shadows are limited so I'll need to work on enhancing more interesting parts of the image. I did a test print and it was even more muted, so I'll going to need to kick things up a notch for sure. The challenge is going to be trying to keep it realistic, but I'm in no rush.

I'll post updates as things progress. Might be a week or two.



Aug 07, 2017 at 05:46 AM
solarishead
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p.1 #10 · p.1 #10 · Valley of Fire Pano


RustyBug - I read your whole reply, responded, and then saw your image. I can't believe I missed it. What you've done looks great and is probably what's going to be required to make the image stand out more than my version. What's interesting is that I did use a local contrast technique I learned from Jimmy McIntyre on the image

http://www.shutterevolve.com/enhance-details-photoshop-local-contrast-tutorial/

but I kept the opacity low at around 12-15%. Turns out, I think I was being far too conservative. By just changing the opacity to 75% the image does look much better. I do need to work on the colors a bit.

Just out of curiosity, what techniques did you use to make your edits?







Aug 07, 2017 at 06:04 AM
beanpkk
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p.1 #11 · p.1 #11 · Valley of Fire Pano


Mark,

Just some food for thought (or maybe not!) :

I'm going to throw in about two cents worth here and ask a question: When in years to come you look at the print of the image on your wall, do you want to say to yourself "Gee what a great Photoshop job!" or "Wow that was a nice scene!" If the former, then something like Kent's edit, which is gorgeous, might be appropriate. On the other hand if you want to remember what the scene actually looked like as you stood there and marveled at it, then something with a lot less of a heavy processing hand might be the way to go.

The digital revolution has made it possible to turn night into day, noon into sunset, and faces into perfect porcelain dolls, but whether those are the right things to do or the right end points for our work remains an open question. The fact that we ~can~ do it doesn't mean we ~should~. For my taste, I lean toward realism. My noon-time shot might look "better", whatever that means, as a sunset shot but if the image is worth printing and putting on a wall, I'd like to not have to admit to myself every time I look at it for years to come that the image as printed is a lie. BTW I do have a few images like that.

In the end, you get to decide how far to go with realism (which may still require some processing) on one end and fantasy (albeit beautiful) on the other. That's the beauty of digital.

I hope we get to see your final result.

I do have a composition question (what, not a post-processing question!) and that is that the right side of the image has the butte (or whatever) for lots of interest and the right edge of that butte does well at providing a reason for the rhs of the image being where it is. The left side of the image has nothing standing out that says you ended the image there for a reason. In fact the ridge in the distance just goes right on through the edge of the image. Or appears to. And the result is a bit heavy on the right, to my eye. Might I suggest a crop where you keep the rhs and eliminate some of the left? That would put the butte more at the rule of thirds point horizontally, which might be a good thing. Just more food for thought. Or not! :-)

keith



Aug 07, 2017 at 08:28 AM
solarishead
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p.1 #12 · p.1 #12 · Valley of Fire Pano


Keith,

You're definitely giving me a lot to think about which I appreciate. I'm enjoying everyone's feedback and the learning aspects of the process.

As pointed out earlier in the thread, the lighting was pretty drab when I took the picture, and as I recall colors were nice but, as you can see, there's just a ton of brown and red tones. Earlier in the morning there were some nice white clouds which could have made this a much more interesting image in my opinion.

I think I'll be aiming for a final image that is more dramatic than the true image, but not so much that my viewing audience (coworkers) will pick up on it. I do have a number of photographers in my group who would certainly notice if it was overdone. I like your question what I want to think about the image years from now. I know I don't want to be thinking about what awesome Photoshop work I did.

Your last observation has me thinking as well. The current width had a lot to do with catching the colors in the sky, but they're not that dramatic. I also liked how the field of bushes opened up on the left as a lead in to the back of the image. I was also somewhat set on another 8' wide pano just because it's out of the ordinary. I just held my hand up to block a portion of the left hand side though and i think you may be right. Removing the cluster of rocks to the left seems to strengthen the image overall. Feels more "balanced". I'll have to try some different crops when I get home.

Thanks again. I'll share progress later this week.

Mark



Aug 07, 2017 at 12:43 PM
RustyBug
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p.1 #13 · p.1 #13 · Valley of Fire Pano


I get what Keith is saying about the PS aspect of things ... BUT, recalling the days of Film, the exact same debate was rendered between Ektachrome, Kodachrome and Fujichrome. Essentially three different films with three different profiles. Being Chrome, there typically wasn't a lot of darkroom work with them, most WYSWWYG (What Ya Shot Was What Ya Got).

Yet, choose Ektachrome and you'd get something much more like the OP version. Choose Fujichrome and you could wind up more like my rework ... just using standard processing necessary to develop the film. Additionally, variance could be manifest from over / under exposure technique as desired. The OP reminds me of slightly overexposed Ektachrome.

My point here is that "finishing" your work is just as much a part of the process as capturing it ... and the choices for profiles today are just as valid as the choices of film profiles. (Actually, this is the essence of why digital photography was developed ... i.e. to allow personalized profiling.) Me, I was a Fuji guy (finest E-6 available). Most die hard Ektachrome shooters felt Fuji was "not real".

That said, there is a point where plausible turns into fantastical. Depending on what it is you want to convey, it could land anywhere on the scale from a bland recording to an unbelievable (i.e. beyond plausible) fantastic artistic expression ... which when I first learned of Adams doing his darkroom manipulations, I retorted to my instructor "He Cheats !!!"

But, it wasn't till decades later that I began to associate with his concepts of conveying presence ... i.e. what it was like to be there. That might sound like the same thing as "as seen", but it really takes in more than just what your eyes saw (which btw, is a fabrication of your brain anyway), it strives to establish the presence of being there.

Here ... we have a pano that spans I'm guessing more than 90 degrees. The points on the compass being NESW of course are at the same interval. That noted, the lighting in the West sky should be different from that of the North > Northeast sky. For me, the OP sky didn't really do much to help convey the amount of span being encompassed by the pano. In that regard, I want to render the sky in such a way that it was evident that the you weren't looking in a "singular" direction as part of establishing the presence of being in a spacious viewpoint in concert with the width of the pano.

Then, from there, it was a matter of considering that the flat illumination of the open sky was not creating any contrast. So, the only lighting that was available to create such contrast was coming directionally from the West. Noting the direction from which it might be derived, I then tried to bring up the contrast in the areas that I felt could be receiving illumination from that Western light ... as it is the only plausible specular light available.

Thus, if the specular light is to be the key light for providing exposure, it is also the key light for providing the WB (i.e. not the blue open sky), and a corresponding WB shift was applied to emulate the warmer key light. As noted, it is a bit over the top for illustration, but I wanted to present the directional attributes that the lighting could associate to the scene.

NOTE: The halos behind the formation is NOT intended to be backlighting (that's not plausible, given the direction of the lighting). It is simply lazy artifact generation from pp.

I think the various areas are opened up too much in my rework (i.e. too great an expanse, too little difference for directional falloff), but I mostly wanted the OP to see what he might have to make decisions about. As to the HOW, I mostly use layers and blending modes (i.e. multiply, overlay, etc.) and color balance in concert with channel (or other) masks.

Landing it where you want it ... that'll be your call ... based on the message you desire to convey. Looking forward to watching it unfold as you decide where you want to take it.

HTH








Aug 07, 2017 at 08:43 PM
solarishead
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p.1 #14 · p.1 #14 · Valley of Fire Pano


RustyBug (Keith?),

Thanks for taking the time to share thoughts. This is such a great community where people like yourself take the time to write really constructive comments that are longer than a text message. Seems to be less and less of this type of information sharing today and I really appreciate it. I hope to contribute more as time goes on and I become more knowledgeable.

I'm starting my PP from scratch again with full-size images. I'm going to recalibrate my monitor and apply a Passport ColorChecker profile in LR to see how that affects the overall colors before I start merging. I really wish I could quit my day job!

Just out of curiosity, would you be willing to share your PhotoShop edit? Just curious to see specifically what changes you made. I don't plan to copy what you've done verbatim, but I do suspect you're using some techniques I'm not familiar with. I can provide my private email address or drop location if you're willing. I realize you may have discarded it by now as well, in which case no big deal.

Mark



Aug 08, 2017 at 10:18 AM
RustyBug
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p.1 #15 · p.1 #15 · Valley of Fire Pano


Willing ... but as you correctly guessed, no gots the details anymore. But, I process iteratively, so even when I show my layers, it only tells part of the story.


Aug 08, 2017 at 06:47 PM
solarishead
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p.1 #16 · p.1 #16 · Valley of Fire Pano


No worries. I have lplenty of things to try the next itteration..


Aug 08, 2017 at 07:06 PM





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