Stone Horse - C&C Please

[ShaneS]

This in one of many figures representing the animals of Chinese zodiac that surround a monument at the Manoa Chinese Cemetery in Honolulu.



Any and all suggestions welcome.

[easternlight]

Is there a way to avoid the stone wall on the left in favour of the background on the right? My view keeps slipping off the figures to the wall and that is a pity. The dof is good to my idea and the colors too.

[ShaneS]

Koos, that stone wall is my nemesis for sure! I keep trying to figure out what to do with it myself - I tried dodging and burning and neither worked well.

Thank you for taking the time to comment.

[splashy]

I like it very much the way it is now, but changing the background is easy.

[JPS]

Hi Shane,
I must admit the wall does not bother me. Do you have any more pictures of this subject, you are willing to share?
Cheers John.

[shreds]

It may be me, but the nose of the front horse may be a little out of focus? It would be good if the DoF was a little greater anyway in my view, but photographing such white marble(?) statues is always going to be difficult. An argument for focus stacking, whilst still leaving the second horse deliberately OOF?

[JPS]

Shane,
Like Mike I had a little play with your picture to see what I could do with the wall, if you didn't like it.
I will happily remove it if you had rather I had not posted.
John

[easternlight]

The one without the wall I like! Good PP John. Now the photo is much better, as far as my taste goes anyway.

[ShaneS]

Love the creativity on here! I do think that the removal of the wall is an improvement but like others I'm not sure about materially changing a scene in Photoshop. That being said I will have a go at it myself As a newbie I'm not sure how is was done by my guess is cloning? Do share...

[JPS]

Love the creativity on here! I do think that the removal of the wall is an improvement but like others I'm not sure about materially changing a scene in Photoshop. That being said I will have a go at it myself As a newbie I'm not sure how is was done by my guess is cloning? Do share...

Hi Shane,
Yes you are of course correct, on my version I just used the clone tool, using the details on the rightside cloned over onto the left. Certainly you can see it has been cloned so is not an ideal solution. As I said in my ealier post, the wall does not bother me, but if nothing else it gives you another option to consider and allows you to practice youe PP skills, if you wish. As a point of interest I used PSE9 to do this.
With regard to the rights and wrong of carrying out this type of PP, its your picture only you can decide.
Kind regards
John

[splashy]

"I'm not sure about materially changing a scene in Photoshop. "

Me neither and I asked in another forum; is it ok to change a picture or combine different pictures in one with photoshop?
Everybody responded it's ok even combined, because it's art. And I feel sad, because that means often we are not sure what we see.

[JPS]

"I'm not sure about materially changing a scene in Photoshop. "

Me neither and I asked in another forum; is it ok to change a picture or combine different pictures in one with photoshop?
Everybody responded it's ok even combined, because it's art. And I feel sad, because that means often we are not sure what we see.

Mike,
I think it's true, you can never be sure what we see. I always thought that extensive PP was something that only started when computers became popular, but how wrong was I.
Last year I visited the National Portrait gallery in London, they had an exhibition on Hollywood superstars in the 1930's. The exhibition showed how artists used to paint directly onto negatives removing spots / freckles and wrinkles from the stars faces, making them look perfect before printing; PP in its earliest form. Now days I don't believe any picture I see, unless I took it.

[easternlight]

I saw a series about the history of photography on the Arte channel. Even in the beginning of the 19th century, when photography just started they combined different photo's to get a new one, just cutting and pasting like we are doing now. There is nothing new in this!