Houses

[Shadowman]

A few from this weekend's brief outing.

The first is a senior citizen home and the second is a funeral home.

[Donald]

John

Both of them seem quite dark to me and, indeed, the histogram of each is pretty well stacked up on the left-hand side.

[Shadowman]

John

Both of them seem quite dark to me and, indeed, the histogram of each is pretty well stacked up on the left-hand side.

Donald,

I added an edit in the original post. I used PSE8 Auto Color Correct. Any difference?

[Donald]

Much better.

[Geoff F]

The first is a senior citizen home and the second is a funeral home.

Are the two intended to be linked? Possibly a bit disquieting for those of us who have passed 60; but not yet passed on.

The re edit is certainly an improvement but I think I would rotate it to get the lamp post vertical.

[peteshep]

Shadowman: Hi, I'm learning newcomer. But only in case it's helpful to have opinions: I'm an architect -- hence biased in this, but I like to have the light on the focal subject if possible. I find second version of the high-rise to be easier to read, though still a little distracted by the bright sky. And, yes, I agree with Geoff that the light-post would be better near vertical. The effects of vertical perspective can be tricky in architecture shots because our mind knows that buildings are vertical apart from perspective. And our eyes don't see the straight edge of a photo-frame.
What editor do you have? If it was me, I'd make a copy and experiment with the Crop tool set to perspective. I'd drag the top left in quite a bit, the top right slightly, and compare with the original. Then more light on the building, less bright in the sky. But everyone sees things a little differently.

peteshep :-)
And to this one I've only done one quick adjustment: Auto Curves, or Auto Levels, Nothing else at this stage. (I should have checked Levels or Curves in the high-rise too.)

P :-)
And now I've made a couple of quick adjustments to bring emphasis onto what I think is the focal area :-)

P :-)

[Shadowman]

Are the two intended to be linked? Possibly a bit disquieting for those of us who have passed 60; but not yet passed on.

The re edit is certainly an improvement but I think I would rotate it to get the lamp post vertical.

Just a coincidence, they happened to be on the same street. Thanks for the suggestion.

[Shadowman]

Shadowman: Hi, I'm learning newcomer. But only in case it's helpful to have opinions: I'm an architect -- hence biased in this, but I like to have the light on the focal subject if possible. I find second version of the high-rise to be easier to read, though still a little distracted by the bright sky. And, yes, I agree with Geoff that the light-post would be better near vertical. The effects of vertical perspective can be tricky in architecture shots because our mind knows that buildings are vertical apart from perspective. And our eyes don't see the straight edge of a photo-frame.
What editor do you have? If it was me, I'd make a copy and experiment with the Crop tool set to perspective. I'd drag the top left in quite a bit, the top right slightly, and compare with the original. Then more light on the building, less bright in the sky. But everyone sees things a little differently.

peteshep :-)
And to this one I've only done one quick adjustment: Auto Curves, or Auto Levels, Nothing else at this stage. (I should have checked Levels or Curves in the high-rise too.)

P :-)
And now I've made a couple of quick adjustments to bring emphasis onto what I think is the focal area :-)

P :-)

Peter,

Nice edits. I use PSE8 and used the AUTO color correction in the first edit just to improve on the histogram somewhat. I'll review the suggestions I received and do a revision. Thanks everyone.

[Shadowman]

House rotated 1 degree and Auto Level correction.

[MiniChris]

Distortion control as way out of whack on both sides of the frame as was the color saturation...not a particularly good image to work with, but did best I could.

[SpiderBob]

The light post in both pics keeps getting my attention. How about either cropping it out or cloning it out.

[Shadowman]

Here is another version shot on the same day, not edited. And an edited version how I would normally convert.

1. clarity and vibration sliders +43, +25, contrast +45, fill light +54, exposure +1.45

Original image


Edited

[MiniChris]

Not enough workflow. To start with, and I don't mean this in a mean way but it will probably sound that way...this is not a particularly stunning image, nor is it exposed well SOOC. Even so, there are some things that can be done in Photoshop to "save" the image.

As I pointed out earlier, there are some serious distortion issues. These can be fixed with "Edit" - Transform - "Distort."

In Photoshop, I did a white balance check and came to a Temperature of -10 and a Tint of -30.

I gave it one full stop additional exposure, and 31 on the Clarity slider.

On the Tone Adjuster (parametric), I went 10, 8, -6, 14.

Next, I set my black point in the levels adjustment menu14, 1.00, 233,

Curves at 133 Ouput, 123 Input,

Vibrancy at 27,

Hue/Saturation at Sat +9, Light +6.

Next, I added a #80 Photo filter set at 17%,

followed by a second Levels adjustment of 8, 1.09, 255

and a Black & White adjustment at R-39, y-77, g-83, c-54, blue-33, m-98 with a blend of luminosity.

Gave it a mild sharpening and...

[Shadowman]

I originally took this photograph because of the clouds, although strangely I named the thread "Houses". The buildings were included to give contrast and sense of scale. So I can see where you feel this particular image doesn't really grab you. I sort of got caught up trying to fix the wrongs illustrated in the comments, too dark, pole not straight, colors not agreeable and ended up with a totally different image. at least with this senior citizen home, I think Pete's editing of the funeral home was spot on.

Thanks for the comments.

[peteshep]

Thanks all! This is becoming a good learning thread. Different ways of seeing things. Different ways of doing things. I like miniChris adjustment to the high-rise -- I don't know Distortion method yet -- but wouldn't go quite so far as parallel to right edge (nil perspective) myself -- just judgement.
And note we've talked about Histogram, Auto curves, Levels, white balance, etc -- partly similar adjustment but helping our awareness.
Shadowman: As I've never seen Elements, our terms are different.
And for the final funeral home --- I was pleased that it took just a minute to bring out so much of your photo with amateurism :-) Having done One-button Auto Curves, I simply did a rough lasso around the focal area, added a feather (CS3term), tweaked up the Brightness (beam of sun). Then how does human eye see focal area? Better colour saturation, and sharpening. Minor tweaks. Sharpness is partly perception, so I then inverted the selection to the outer area and applied a smidgen of blur. I thought the quick effect showed that the info was lurking there in your photo and now looked nearer what you saw/remembered. :-)
P :-)

[Shadowman]

Thanks all! This is becoming a good learning thread. Different ways of seeing things. Different ways of doing things. I like miniChris adjustment to the high-rise -- I don't know Distortion method yet -- but wouldn't go quite so far as parallel to right edge (nil perspective) myself -- just judgement.
And note we've talked about Histogram, Auto curves, Levels, white balance, etc -- partly similar adjustment but helping our awareness.
Shadowman: As I've never seen Elements, our terms are different.
And for the final funeral home --- I was pleased that it took just a minute to bring out so much of your photo with amateurism :-) Having done One-button Auto Curves, I simply did a rough lasso around the focal area, added a feather (CS3term), tweaked up the Brightness (beam of sun). Then how does human eye see focal area? Better colour saturation, and sharpening. Minor tweaks. Sharpness is partly perception, so I then inverted the selection to the outer area and applied a smidgen of blur. I thought the quick effect showed that the info was lurking there in your photo and now looked nearer what you saw/remembered. :-)
P :-)

Pete,

Thanks for including your editing workflow. Elements has the same tools you mentioned so a near duplication of your edit should be achievable. I agree with your comments on individual's perception of the same elements of an image. I'm pretty sure it is comparable to what one would face in a competition with a panel of judges.