2017 PROJECT 52, Second Quarter by Janis (purplehaze)

[Wavelength]

All-ma- favorite

[bnnrcn]

Hi Janis I love #8. Are those colors real? Lovely environment and I like the composition very much. I would crop the dark line of bushes at the very top as it distracts a bit.

[purplehaze]

Thanks Sandy, Nandakumar and Binnur. Binnur, the colours are not all that far off the original. I applied a steep curve, and two layers of reduced clarity on the background, and actually reduced most of the resulting saturation. Glad you like it; it is one of my favorites from that outing.

[Shadowman]

Nice stuff week 20, cool look to the marsh.

[purplehaze]

Thanks, John. Man, the weeks are flying by. Here's my report for

Week 21

I shot quite a few frames on moody Monday, and will likely share some more with you in a different thread. My main goal for the week was to resume learning my Wacom tablet. I watched a tutorial on Lynda.com and I am glad I did as it likely saved me some time. I have an Intuos Pro and, despite the name, I do not find it exactly intuitive.

Anyhow, I have started customizing the function keys for Capture One and here is my first image masked with a pen, a calla lily I shot with my Nikkor 105 mm macro in window light.



f/11, 2.5 sec, 100 ISO

C&C welcome as always.

The other thing I did to advance my learning was read about finetuning my autofocus. I am going to try to check the accuracy of the AF on all of my lenses in the days to come, correct it where necessary, and then start trying to perfect my focusing technique.

[leprechaun]

Nice shot Janis.
I to have a Wacom pro that I have never really used, I do not get into much PP. I will however look at the tutoral you mentioned.
Pat

[purplehaze]

Pat, one of the nice things about the pro is that you can use it as a touch pad for all your apps. I have been missing the touch pad on my stolen laptop, so it is nice to get one back.

[joebranko]

Beautiful shot Janis. Interesting comment on fi e tuning AF. I did not know it could be done. Having done some research I bow feel that it is something I won't need to be concerned about as most of my shots are landscapes, and if my focus is out by a few mm in a landscape I don't think it affect anything.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

[skitterbug]

This is an interesting pic and I am fascinated that you are using a Wacom pro tablet to do your editing. I know nothing about this piece of technology and I am considering that it might be fun to purchase it to see what I could do. I am curious if you can use it to draw your own artwork? I'm guessing that it has to have the proper application to be able to use it draw, etc.

I do like the colors of the calla lily. Beautiful and well done!

[purplehaze]

Thanks, Joe and Sandy. Sorry I didn't see your question earlier, Sandy, and perhaps you have already found the answer, but yes, you can use it to draw with any drawing app.

[purplehaze]

Weeks 22-24

I accomplished very little in these last three weeks. I shot a few remaining head shots of members of my dragon boat team over two nights, but did a bad job of it, forgetting to take along my lightstand one night, and the flash diffuser panel the other. I have yet to process them and it is weighing on me, but they are going to take more work than the others, and I am not very knowledgeable about processing portraits.

I would have liked to shoot the dragon boat festival I raced in a few weeks ago, but the weather was extremely hot and I could not coax any family or friends to come guard my equipment while I was on the water.

As mentioned in another thread, I took my 70-200 mm sans teleconverter out on a new wetlands interpretive trail this weekend. The trail is gorgeous, and traverses a variety of ecosystems including cedar forest and fen. I was with my sister, who doesn't much linger, but the area is so rich, I will be going back often. These are a couple of the images I have processed thus far.

#1


Not sure what this plant is, as I have misplaced my guide to Manitoba wildflowers. I am guessing it is a type of orchid.

#2


Some variety of Lady's Slipper, not sure which.

[Wavelength]

The first one of this pair just amazing; could you have bent the the other plant so that it did not come into the frame? I think it mars the view much!!! or one may view it another way as jungle friendship!!!

[purplehaze]

LOL, yes, Nandy, I was viewing it as a kind of embrace. I could not resist this shot as the leaves were so beautiful and the bud so delicate in colour and near to bursting with promise. As I explained in the other thread, this was shot in a very fragile ecosystem, and visitors are asked to keep to the boardwalk. The plant was out of arm's reach, so I had to shoot it as it came.

[bnnrcn]

I love the first image Janis It seems a bit on the dark side but I don't know if fixing it would spoil the mood or not.

[purplehaze]

Thanks. Binnur. Perhaps I should have made selective adjustments. I had to pull back on the highlights because of all the yellow, and was maybe too quick to accept the results and move on.

[Geoff F]

I think a tiny bit more highlight brightness on #1 could give it a bit more zip but you will certainly have to do a bit of masking over the more sensitive areas and be careful of making the background too prominent.

My workflow usually ends up with saving the image when I think the editing is about right; then giving it a little bit more highlight brightness with Curves and having another think about the scene. Which means asking myself, has a bit more highlights given the desired effect or gone too far?

[purplehaze]

Well, thanks for pushing, Binnur and Geoff. I trust this is an improvement, but let me know if it is still wanting. The background is somewhat brighter than in the first, but it is masked, so I can easily pull it down further.

[bnnrcn]

The flower certainly looks better Janis The BG is a bit distracting in this version though.

[Geoff F]

Yes to the flower but I think the background is a fraction too bright now. Perhaps brush in some partial masking over the brightest areas? Maybe end up with something half way between this and the original image?

[skitterbug]

Well, thanks for pushing, Binnur and Geoff. I trust this is an improvement, but let me know if it is still wanting. The background is somewhat brighter than in the first, but it is masked, so I can easily pull it down further.

I like this flower pic. I am curious how it could be "better"? On my computer screen the flower stands out as it should and the DOF looks decent. Maybe the BG could be a darkened a tiny bit? I don't know........ I do like it though!