Home · Register · Join Upload & Sell

Moderated by: Fred Miranda

FM Forum Rules
Landscape Posting Guidelines

FM Forums | Landscape Photographer | Join Upload & Sell

Archive 2014 · Monument Valley - 4 Views reduced to 1 with a lot of LR 5 thrown in

billsamuels
Offline
• • • •
Upload & Sell: Off

p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · Monument Valley - 4 Views reduced to 1 with a lot of LR 5 thrown in

Justin Grimm made a great comment that I never thought of regarding the large area of black below the cliffs in my four Monument Valley photos. This had me thinking if the camera recorded any details below the peaks in the nearly black areas of the photo, especially given the distance and poor light and, not to mention that although I was using a Canon "L" lens, the camera itself was only an older 10 megapixel body.

What do you think of this photo, which is one of the photos you commented on earlier, just altered a lot in Lightroom 5?

Canon Rebel XTI, Canon 17-40mm F/4L

May 28, 2014 at 09:28 PM

JimFox
Offline
• • • • • • •
Upload & Sell: Off

p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · Monument Valley - 4 Views reduced to 1 with a lot of LR 5 thrown in

Hey Bill,

Edit your post to add a link to your original thread. That way those that don't recall the original can see it.

As for me, first off you need to lose that green frame immediately.... there is nothing that will ruin a photo faster than a colored frame. Pretty much, frames should be Black or White... that's it. So for me, the combination of the green frame with the orangish scene makes for a bad combo. I personally think the colors look off still, and pushed too much. It does look like you did pull data out of the black areas, which is good. But unless you can get the colors to look natural, it won't help much. One option would be to go to B&W on this. But I would prefer to see if you could back off on the saturation and then correct the color tone in this.

Jim

May 29, 2014 at 01:32 AM

Greg Campbell
Offline
• • • •
Upload & Sell: Off

p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · Monument Valley - 4 Views reduced to 1 with a lot of LR 5 thrown in

I assume you've heard of the dreaded 'HDR hole?'

IMO, I agree that your original pics were significantly unbalanced, with the dark/black area overwhelming the rest of the image. That said, applying retina-searing HDR is not the solution. (Is it ever?) Since you can't fix the original compositions, how about going back to the unmolested pics and cropping a little off the bottom? That might help a lot.

May 29, 2014 at 06:39 AM

dgdg
Offline
• • • • •
Upload & Sell: Off

p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · Monument Valley - 4 Views reduced to 1 with a lot of LR 5 thrown in

You've got a cool starburst going on here in a great place. It's worth working on.
The view from outside the cafe area (I suspect) is very nice but it has that hill on the left that can be distracting.
The processing color balance is way off for me. I'd go back and work on this some more if you want to print this.

David

May 29, 2014 at 11:37 AM

Justin Grimm
Offline
• • •
Upload & Sell: Off

p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · Monument Valley - 4 Views reduced to 1 with a lot of LR 5 thrown in

Wait.....I said to NOT push the shadows and suggested a crop of your original shot instead....

May 29, 2014 at 11:41 AM

Ben Horne
Offline
• • • • • •
Upload & Sell: Off

p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · Monument Valley - 4 Views reduced to 1 with a lot of LR 5 thrown in

my ears hurt.

May 29, 2014 at 04:17 PM

JimFox
Offline
• • • • • • •
Upload & Sell: Off

p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · Monument Valley - 4 Views reduced to 1 with a lot of LR 5 thrown in

Hey Bill,

You are obviously still growing and learning in your processing skills, and what ends up being visually acceptable. So for sure, don't get your feelings hurt because this version is not going over well. It's a process, and sometimes the best thing we can do is look back and laugh at ourselves...

The good thing for you is you didn't get the "great shot" crowd giving you false pats on the back with this one. Honest feedback, even if it stings our pride a bit is always better than false praise.

Jim

May 29, 2014 at 04:35 PM

dgdg
Offline
• • • • •
Upload & Sell: Off

p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · Monument Valley - 4 Views reduced to 1 with a lot of LR 5 thrown in

Sometimes OP will offer others to download the raw/original image and let others process it. This can be instructive.

Davis

May 29, 2014 at 05:00 PM

Nigel Turner
Offline
• • •
Upload & Sell: Off

p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · Monument Valley - 4 Views reduced to 1 with a lot of LR 5 thrown in

Hi Bill,

Well.. just stick with it and all will become good. Learn from your mistakes and everything will turn out for the better. Believe it or not we've all been there and photography of any standard is a learning process, nobody becomes an expert overnight and very few even get close to it.

The thing here is to learn how to be your own self critic and progress from there. Enjoy your photography first and foremost and learn to take it to another level.

Hopefully I won't be breaking the forum rules if I post a link to an image of mine on 500px, but hopefully Bill will get a better idea.

http://500px.com/photo/70853917/monument-valley-sunrise-by-nigel-turner?from=user_library

Cheers,
Nigel.

May 29, 2014 at 05:38 PM

billsamuels
Offline
• • • •
Upload & Sell: Off

p.1 #10 · p.1 #10 · Monument Valley - 4 Views reduced to 1 with a lot of LR 5 thrown in

JimFox wrote:
Hey Bill,

Edit your post to add a link to your original thread. That way those that don't recall the original can see it.

As for me, first off you need to lose that green frame immediately....
Jim

Okay, here is the link to the original post:

https://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/1296809/0#12371295

And here is the picture with NO frame at all.

Thanks for your suggestions. Let me work on a couple of them and see where I can get with them. I have a big event on Saturday, so I'll probably work on them Sunday. But thanks again.
Bill

May 29, 2014 at 11:52 PM

billsamuels
Offline
• • • •
Upload & Sell: Off

p.1 #11 · p.1 #11 · Monument Valley - 4 Views reduced to 1 with a lot of LR 5 thrown in

In the meantime, check out this post where I used one photo much like this one (same mountain, same sun-burst) and I converted it to B&W, followed by enhancing the lower portion of the image AND enhancing the star burst.

https://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/1297609/0#lastmessage

Bill

May 30, 2014 at 12:39 AM


FM Forums \| Landscape Photographer \| Join Upload & Sell

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.