Landscape Attempt - Would appreciate some advice

[Brownbear]

Hi James,

I forgot to say that I sharpened in LR at the preset of 25% and radius one.

I exported to Adobe Elements and reduced noise Strength 80% Preserve Details 80%, reduce colour noise 25%. I have a trial of Topaz denoise but it makes my images soft (it could be my skills) so I'm trying to avoid it.

Then I re-sized to 1200 pixels and used an un-sharp mask of 80%, .3 radius and threshold 1.

I have this pasted in a document on my desktop as a reference on sharpening, to learn by... I copied it from a thread somewhere here.



Many members find they have problems with image quality, there are many things that can cause this, I'll start with the easiest to resolve

If you have uploaded a picture by any of the above methods and are unhappy with the quality when you see it in a post here at CiC, please consider these things:

Ensure you have no browser zoom set - you need to display at standard, or 100%, size.
With both IE and Firefox, the quickest way to do this is to use Ctrl+0 (zero).
Now make sure your screen size is allowing you to see the image fullsize; use F11 key to switch browser to full screen mode, then click the image so it opens in the lytebox, it may now display bigger.If they were not the problem, how did you downsize the image?


The first thing to say is, if you're using Adobe Elements, Photoshop or LightRoom; DO NOT USE: File > Save for Web to perform the resize and jpg save all in one go - it seriously knackers the image quality and removes the camera's EXIF data!

Here is a recommended method:
1) Take your full size post processed image before output/final sharpening and if you haven't already; reduce to 8 bits and Flatten the image.
2) You need to downsize the image;
2a) Select Image > Resize from menu in your image editor
2b) Ensure Constrain Proportions is checked
2c) Use Bicubic as the method (not bicubic sharper)
2d) If necessary, set image size units to pixels (not cm or inches, etc.)
2e) Type into either the width or height box, the dimension in pixels you want the image's longest side to be (this varies depending where the image is to be hosted; 700px if here at CiC in album or as an attachment, but can be larger if TinyPic or third party, e.g. PBase or Flickr, etc.)
2f) Click OK to perform the re-size
3) Now you must re-sharpen the image, here's a recommended method;
3a) Ensure you are viewing the image at 1:1 or 100% in your image editor
3b) Select Image > Enhance > UnSharp Mask
3c) Set an Amount of between 100 and 200%
3d) Set a Radius of 0.3 or 0.4 pixels (no more)
3e) Set a Threshold of 1 to 8 levels, depending if the image noise, if clean (100 - 200 iso) use 1 or 2, if noisy (over 2000 iso) then use a high number.
3f) Click OK to perform the sharpening
4) Now select File > Save As
4a) If necessary, choose jpg
4b) RENAME the file, I suggest with a suffix denoting size; e.g. for landscape, "mypicture_W1000.jpg" or for portrait orientation; "myportrait_H600.jpg" or for square crops; "myportrait_S600.jpg"
Don't close the image in your image editor yet, host it (see earlier posts above), review it online, that way, if necessary, you can undo the sharpen and resize and have a second go, saving and uploading as a different filename, without any further quality loss.

Notes:

For image critique and general postings, to avoid excessive download times and prevent images 'overflowing' people's screens, I would recommend the maximum height of any picture is 800 pixels and the maximum width is no more than 1200 px (where ever hosted), occasionally these guidelines may be ignored, e.g for panoramas where the viewer expects to have to scroll around an image.
Following the recommended resize and sharpen workflow above is THE best bet for success, trust me!
Image resolution, expressed as say 240pixels/inch is completely irrelevant for web use - only the actual pixel dimensions matter.
Never re-open a jpg to do this (unless that's all you shot with), always do it as the last stages of PP from RAW, or from a Tif or psd image file.
Never save the reduced size image 'over' the original (fullsize) filename
If you don't get the expected default jpg option when you click Save As, it's probably because you have not flattened a layered image, or converted to 8 bit.
Don't (for CiC image critique) host a huge image at PBase or Flickr (etc.) and then post an image url here using their re-sizing options like "medium" - it will appear here softer than if you do the down sizing and people will notice The answer, is to follow the instructions above

It took some reading to get this far in the thread .. but well worth the crash course I got in editing.
Christina I look at your first post then your last 6 and you definitely improved your pp!
now if I can only retain 50% of it...

[dubaiphil]

Well done, Christina.

Regarding the ND filters, this might be quite an investment as what was suggested previously was two graduated filters (which I would agree with), one for the sky and another reversed for the lake.

Screw in filters are possible but not a very flexible or easy to use solution. If you will be going down the line of landscape photography more often it might be worth investigating but otherwise they'll be gathering dust for the majority of the time. I would go for a filter system which gives you the flexibility to place the filters where you want and stack effectively - this means Cokin or Lee or similar - and for this kind of image (or cityscapes, of anything without a clearly defined 'horizon') you'd want a soft grad option rather than a hard grad or 2.

So give the software solution a try - not ideal for purists but it can get the job done if you only need it very occasionally.

[Manfred M]

Christina - shooting with a polarizer is another way to draw the sky out (with some limitations; you have to be close to right angle to the sun; it doesn't work with the sun directly behind or in front of you, and you can't shoot with too much of a wide angle setting, as you can get banding in the sky), and these are a lot easier to use than GND (I shoot with both). You might want to consider that as well.

The D80 does not have the greatest dynamic range to begin with, so that is part of what you are fighting here.

When I get a chance, I will dig out some more wildlife shots (as per your hints). I'm actually not much of a wildlife photographer, but do it when I have the opportunity.

[Stagecoach]

Hi Christina,

I think you have done an extremely good job with your edits.

One of the great things about going through an exercise like this is that you soon get to learn to follow a controlled workflow and also learn how to look at the SOOC image and have a good idea of what you can achieve with it.

[shreds]

Well done, Christina.

Regarding the ND filters, this might be quite an investment as what was suggested previously was two graduated filters (which I would agree with), one for the sky and another reversed for the lake.

Screw in filters are possible but not a very flexible or easy to use solution. If you will be going down the line of landscape photography more often it might be worth investigating but otherwise they'll be gathering dust for the majority of the time. I would go for a filter system which gives you the flexibility to place the filters where you want and stack effectively - this means Cokin or Lee or similar - and for this kind of image (or cityscapes, of anything without a clearly defined 'horizon') you'd want a soft grad option rather than a hard grad or 2.

So give the software solution a try - not ideal for purists but it can get the job done if you only need it very occasionally.

Christina

I should have been more explicit and Phil has nailed it. Use something like a separate holder and filter system. Screw in ones have their place for protection of the lens but for creative photography I would use a Lee every time. Not cheap, as the filters are quality, but they do allow you to stack as I suggested and you could even add a polariser too, as the Lee system allows for multiples, but it will reduce your exposure and IQ (image quality) marginally. The stack could even mix a polariser with ND grads.

With those sort of vistas on your doorstep, I would have thought the investment was worthwhile, as you can really start to get creative in the field, and you can build your filter collection over time. Take a look at what they offer.

http://www.leefilters.com

[Brownbear]

Thank you to all for your comments and helpful advice and recommendations. It has given me lots to think about and review as I don't know anything about filters and I'm still learning to edit. There are a lot of beautiful vistas here so I should take advantage of them.

I just purchased a Nikon 7100 but I used my D80 for this shot because I had the 7100 set up with the long lens as I was hoping to find the eagle. (avoiding lens changes outside - dust etc) When I return I will use the D7100.

Graham - Thank you so much... What is a SOOC image?

Manfred - Thank you for the info on polarizers.. I'm looking forward to seeing more of your wildlife images.

Again thank you to all. I learned a lot about processing a photo. After I posted this I tried to delete it because I thought it was a very poor landscape (other than the actual vista) but I couldn't delete it and I'm very happy about that.

[shreds]

Christina

SOOC - Straight out of camera....e.g. no manipulation of image

[Cantab]

Christina, I've learned a lot from you and others on this thread. Thanks for starting it!