What to do with images of this nature - challenge

[ajohnw]

I've recently taken a number of shots like this in Cappadocia in Turkey. This one isn't a very inspiring one so more of a challenge. I am interested in what could be done with it so have posted a pretty large jpg to leave scope for processing. In the past I have found threads where people process other people's shots useful especially when they list what they have done. The shot is straight from the camera.

Any ideas?



I used the default size image upload so hopefully this will retain the size which should be 2304x1728

John
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[Andrew1]

John, as a learning process I'd be more interested in you doing the work on this and explaining why and showing us the results of each step you take. It's a great way to learn and comments along the way from others will keep you on track and also offer suggestions for alternatives. Go ahead and dive in.

[ajohnw]

Last time I was around on this site working on other peoples shots was fairly popular. I have done a limited amount of processing on shots for a long time but really did gain a lot of knowledge by seeing what was done to these shots by other people who are far more experienced than I am. I even joined in with that and developed an ambition to match Collin - came close on occasion but still some way to go. One day ........

Working on other peoples shots is also a good way to learn. Often they will be shots that people may not be able to take for one reason or the other. Peoples tastes vary too so a good result for one may not look to be a good result for others. Me for instance - I like natural colours but on some subjects that may not yield the most effective result. The variations are endless.

Anyway I leave it as it stands. I made the post because if there are any takers many are likely to find it instructive. Me I am wondering what to do with a number of them including this one.

John
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[Manfred M]

John - I probably would not have shot this scene this way. The lighting is flat and uninteresting and there is nothing to really pull the viewer's eyes into the scene. There are shadows, but they are pretty heavy duty and don't work that well directionally. The problem when shooting while travelling is that we often have to shoot what we see, when we see it, because we are passing through and moving on. This would have been an interesting place to shoot at "golden hour".

If the shot is uninteresting (photographically, as opposed to the natural beauty aspect), I will try a B&W conversion and will play with the colour channels to try to build up some contrast. I will also often add a vignette to pull the viewers eyes into the image.







This is a quick thought of where I might try to go with this image...

[NorthernFocus]

I'll play. Manfred had a good idea going with the B/W. But since I don't roll that way, here's a color version. Cropped to eliminate as many of the modern looking features as possible, cloned out a couple of bright spots with "healing brush", and played around with color and contrast. Click for the large version.

[ajohnw]

I used a 4 pass contrast boost that is available in an application called ShowPhoto. It's a little like tone mapping. Then went to Fotoxx and removed a lamp post and one or two bright spots where there are holes in the back of "caves". Also a distracting building in the back ground. Then some saturation reduction and slight but infective blurring on the back ground. Followed that with a brightness boost that needed reducing once the shot had been resized. The main gain was the contrast and brightness boost at this stage. I then applied a small amount of mid tone tone mapping to bring out a little more detail. No sharpening in camera or later. Then a minuscule colour balance. Aim was to get the lighting as it was, bring the "subject" out and enhance reality a bit. It was shot with at 150mm on 4/3 so mist plays some part in the flatness. Terrible place to shoot as there are no obvious things to frame. I did crop a little but things around the edge will always be there. Worth the trip to see it all though and no choice about shooting times. I wondered about vignetting but couldn't find one I liked. There is a little of that left in the shot.



Switched to PNG too.

John
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[JPS]

Underwater city.

[ajohnw]

Interesting. I did play black and white for a while but went for colour mainly because I used Photivo for that and the new version has been enhanced yet again. Never thought to crop out the foreground and just accept a messy edge. Both that and the B&W are effective.

The underwater city is neat too. I have wondered about that sort of approach. But How did you do it?

John
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[JPS]

Interesting. I did play black and white for a while but went for colour mainly because I used Photivo for that and the new version has been enhanced yet again. Never thought to crop out the foreground and just accept a messy edge. Both that and the B&W are effective.

The underwater city is neat too. I have wondered about that sort of approach. But How did you do it?

John
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Hi John,
I would like to say adding the water effect was very difficult and I was skilled in the art of PP; but I can't, it was done by using effects found at a site called: http://www.picmonkey.com/?y=2&utm_ex...Ck8CMxfx8VUQ.2

There are some interesting effects to play with.
Thanks for posting I'm enjoying this thread.
Cheers
John

[jdathebowler]

The question was asked what would you do with this picture? I have only been taking photographs and learning how to process them for just over a year. I can't compete with with some of you more experienced photographers in trying to make this image interesting and at the same time make it as natural as possible.So I have come up with the surreal look and called the image Spooky Rocks. I have put this image on Flickr to enable me to download it here.I have attributed the original image to you but if you want me to remove it from Flickr let me know.
John

[ajohnw]

No problem John. It would be nice for people to know what you did to achieve that. Of it's type it's very good in my opinion. Some people tend to push "natural" shots in this direction but personally I prefer it used as you have.

John
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[jdathebowler]

Thanks for your reply,I will leave it on Flickr and see how many views it gets.For PP I use GIMP and all I did was A little crop,lightened the image and applied Dream Smoothing. It does have some interesting effects.
John

[MrB]

The aim in the following edit was to attempt to give more depth to the image, by bringing out the layers in the scene, using the effects of changing both colour and contrast in the three main layers - the background (the far distance), the mid-ground (containing mainly the pinker-toned rocks), and the foreground (containing mainly the yellower-toned rocks).



Has it worked?

Philip

[ajohnw]

I think so Philip. I was trying to achieve the same thing in the one I posted and I think yours is more effective. I would be very interested in just how you achieved that and must admit I have problems manipulating colours that way due to the fact that package generally offer r g b or magenta etc adjustments.

I have just upgraded my machine and most of the software on it so must make a note of Dream Smoothing. I have noticed that some of the Photivo developers push straight photo colouration in the same sort of direction as do others but have no idea how it's done.

John
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[MrB]

John, I'm pleased you approve the edit. The only software used was PaintShop Pro X4. It has a selection tool called Smart Edge, which was used to select the different layers of the photo. First, the distant background - the colour of the area was altered using RGB to give the hazy blue look, by decreasing red and increasing green and blue in small steps until it looked OK. The selection was then inverted to work on the middle and foreground layers together - the rocks and buildings: the saturation of the warm colours was increased slightly; the overall contrast of this area was increased gently; the local contrast was enhanced slightly by applying unsharp mask, radius=50px and amount=15%. The foreground layer alone was then selected - the area including the yellower rocks: the same unsharp mask was used again, to further enhance the local contrast in this area; a bit of normal sharpening was also applied. See the full-size view to see these effects better.

Hope all that makes sense!

Philip

[Stagecoach]

John,

At times I will simply use 'Auto Smart Fix' in Elements to see what ideas my software has.

Here's what Elements 7 suggested

[Manfred M]

Of course, we can always live on the wild side and apply a day-to-night / alien world look...

[Glenn NK]

The problem when shooting while travelling is that we often have to shoot what we see, when we see it, because we are passing through and moving on. This would have been an interesting place to shoot at "golden hour".

When I first read the OP, this is what came to my mind.

That and the fact that to me, the buildings at the bottom didn't "fit" the main subject. So I imagined cropping off the bottom (which Dan - aka Norther Focus - has done). I think the crop helped.

I recently spent two weeks shared amongst Luxembourg, Paris, and Northern Italy, and most of the time the light and time I had to work with didn't contribute much to my efforts.

As a result I have a fair number of "record" images - essentially proof of where I went - but they sure aren't winning any prizes.

Glenn

[jcuknz]

I have a very simple approach to my shots and the first thing I do is to add an adjustment layer and see wht the histograme looks like. Often there is a space when the blacks do not extend to the bottom left corner and likewise on the right the highlights do not extend to the right edge [ although the line is at the top. So in you case I moved the bottom left marker in so I was slightly 'clipping'? the black and the top marker to the left until it 'clipped' the highlight slightly .... I had no more thoughts on the matter and find others ideas most interesting.

The steeper line has increased the contrast but I like to work using curves rather than other tools.
I'm also using PSP14.

[ajohnw]

I'm a big fan of curves as well. Fotoxx does it in a slightly different way so I don't use it directly very often now. It shows a straight horizontal line representing light to dark that can be modified in any way by adding points.

To me the buildings don't detract from the shot at all. LOL believe it or not I did spend a little time framing it - pity I missed the tree tops. I probably decided I could copy paste over them as a change of position may have involved falling off a cliff. Views vary but to me a good shot can have attention grabbing features and further detail that will be noticed later. That's why I left a hen in a shot I posted in one of the competitions recently. I feel it's too easy to study shots to much and try to follow rules. I think it's best to walk away for some time and then take a quick look and gauge your own immediate reactions. That's how I view shots - then look at it technically based on colours and things like over sharpening etc. Pity I didn't do that with the one I posted on this thread - didn't like it as soon as I saw it after uploading. Some of that may be down to png and a built in colour profile.

Not so sure about golden hour etc. Doesn't leave much time for taking shots. Software can change lighting. One application called LightZone has direct lighting control, soft or hard. Otherwise it's a mix of contrast, brightness and tone mapping. This shot was taken fairly early in the day at about 1800m from memory. I didn't notice that the camera had lost date and time settings. From memory it was taken about 9 - 9-30 am. LightZone was written and supported by some one who was recruited by Apple to do similar work which speaks for itself. Previously it was sold at low cost for support. It's now gone open source, Linux,Mac and Windows. Just hope it hasn't changed to much.

Just fix it processing often gives good results. The nearest thing I have is the contrast boost in ShowPhoto. I really should have played with it's sliders.

Had a go with the dream smoothing after selecting the background and using a painting effect. This was at it's minimum setting. It's included in the GMIC Gimp plugin.



John
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