Curves and Masks

[Rasbury]

Played around with this image using curve adjustment layers and masks to try and make this a better looking b&w image last night.C&C are welcome.
Ron.

[jiro]

Good use of diagonal lines, Ron. It made the shot more "dynamic". The foreground on the lower right is brighter than the sea or lake at the top left so that's a good way of directing the eye of the viewers near the middle elements. My only comment is the lost of subtle textures on the top side of the wood planks below the highest wood plank. It kind of makes an optical illusion to me whether the white areas are a part of the lake or was it still the top part of the woods below. What I would probably suggest is to burn (or darken) those white areas a little bit more so I can see the wood textures better. Other than that, a very good captured image. Congrats.

[Rasbury]

Good use of diagonal lines, Ron. It made the shot more "dynamic". The foreground on the lower right is brighter than the sea or lake at the top left so that's a good way of directing the eye of the viewers near the middle elements. My only comment is the lost of subtle textures on the top side of the wood planks below the highest wood plank. It kind of makes an optical illusion to me whether the white areas are a part of the lake or was it still the top part of the woods below. What I would probably suggest is to be burn (or darken) those white areas a little bit more so I can see the wood textures better. Other than that, a very good captured image. Congrats.

Thanks Willie!I thought the same thing about that section of sand your talking about when i converted it to a b&w photo as it does look like the top of the wood.But on closer inspection i realized that is where the water line is meeting the beach and the darker colors are the sand from the inlet that are being washed up on shore by the high tide and boat traffic.I will burn that area though to try and bring out the textures in that area and the ones below it.Thanks again. Ron

[jiro]

I really have poor eyeseight, I thought they were water areas. Hahaha! I did not realize they were sands until you explained it to me.

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Ron,

Yes, this is a weird one; I like the top rail (with grain) and the boards on the deck, but the bit between them looks so flat (i.e. 2 dimensional) and is high contrast and texture-less.

The lack of sand texture in the brighter bit between the rails contributes to this feeling.

One additional thought that occured to me was that I wondered what it would look like with the perspective 'corrected' (or should I say 'fudged') to get the handrails non-converging; making the composition more 'geometric' with the diagonals all parallel to each other, but running in two directions (rails and boards)? It would look like it was shot from much further away, but zoomed in/cropped down to a small angle of view - if you know what I getting at

An interesting shot for discussion.

[Rasbury]

I'll give it a try Dave as i have a good idea of what your talking about and i'll post the results when i finish it.Thanks for the input.