More From the Skagit Valley

[Lon Howard]

I haven't taken many pictures nor posted for a long long while and recently decided to rejoin the fray; thankfully Dan's post on his visit to the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival gave me the jump-start I needed since I was there last week as well, so thanks, Dan!

He is right in that it's not as easy as you would think. Around here the light changes constantly, and the crowds are enormous at this month-long event ; when you do get a nice one set up someone invariably wanders in front of you and the light changes while you're waiting.

I found the reds much harder to control than the yellows, especially when you go to print them, even with a calibrated monitor and soft proofing. Focusing the foreground a little better would also help. But it was a fun day, even with the mud.

[bnnrcn]

Nice images, I like #1 and #2 more

[dje]

Hi Lon

Good to hear from you again after quite a long while. Very nice shots, great colour.

Dave

[PhotoRob]

Hello Don, greetings from Florida. You mind sharing a little about the post processing? The colors pop for sure but the lack of shadows makes them look 'flat', curious what got you there -

[Lon Howard]

Thanks Rob,

Just to make sure I'm on the same page with you, I'll post this re-do of one image. I eliminated three layers that were in the original: curves, vibrance and hue/sat layers, all of which deepened the reds and darkened the image. Then, for 'good measure' I dodged all the flowers. The colors aren't as deep but personally I prefer the re-do over the original.

But anyway, I was just curious to find out if this is the general idea you had in mind when you mentioned the lack of shadows. For me, shadows are there or not there, I don't think I'd ever try to create them. Thanks again for making me think!

Lon

[PhotoRob]

Thanks Don, I have to say those deep reds are really nice. Cooked HDR images have a tendency to loose shadows which can make the image look like a painting; there's something that makes these flowers look like a painting or 'plastic' - red peppers'ish (new word!).

Not better or worse, I'm purely interested in how you accomplished it (or it's just my display and I'm nuts)

[Mike Buckley]

The first one works really well for me. It's amazing to realize how well the distant, tiny sliver of yellow tulips unifies the entire image because it is the same color as the foreground tulips. Very well done!

[Lon Howard]

Thanks for clarifying, Rob. Although I did take three bracketed exposures (as I do anytime I can use a tripod), I only used one so it's not an HDR. Most of the work was done in ACR and after going to CS6 I added a very light touch of Topaz Simplify4 (painting 4, I think), just enough to see some change and masked out the part I didn't want. Then I played around with the adjustment layers I mentioned earlier and finally unsharp mask.

If you go to this event and listen to those around you, you'll hear the same thing repeated: "They're so beautiful they don't even look real." But somehow, after normal processing you don't see that effect on the monitor, so that's why I used the Topaz, just to ATTEMPT to return it to what I really saw ... sometime that works and other times not; every monitor has a mind of it's own, it seems.

Mike, on my calibrated desktop monitor the re-do looks best, but on my laptop here the original is better. Oh well ...

Trying to capture what you saw there on a print ... now that's the real adventure! Thanks,

Lon

[Shadowman]

Very nice.

[Lon Howard]

Thank you John, and to Binnur and Dave as well.

[IzzieK]

I like #4 more...it doesn't have those shiny plasticky look Robert mentioned.

[Mike Buckley]

Mike, on my calibrated desktop monitor the re-do looks best, but on my laptop here the original is better. Oh well ...

When I wrote that the first one looks best to me, I was referring to the very first photo, not either version of the second photo.

[terrib]

All beautiful but I really like the first one. How nice of the sky to have some clouds in it.

[Lon Howard]

When I wrote that the first one looks best to me, I was referring to the very first photo, not either version of the second photo.

Got it Mike, thanks for clarifying that.