Landscape - interested in feedback

[Mike Buckley]

Terri, if it was mine I would not change it.

With the lighting, the interest and the way you have PPd it there is a certain 'delicacy' to it that we so rarely see these days in the era where we are constantly told to 'push the sliders'

Exactly my thoughts insofar as the color version is concerned. Even so, if it was mine, I would change it to monochrome.

[Mike Buckley]

It did occur that the range of tones would make a good B&W image.

There are at least two factors that made me immediately think "monochrome" when I saw your image. One of them is the time of day that you captured it; images captured near noon often work better in monochrome than in color.

[Mike Buckley]

composition is what I struggle with

I literally chuckled out loud when I read that comment. For the people who weren't hanging out here a couple years ago when Terri first really, truly began struggling with landscape composition, her landscapes were atrocious and she knew it. She didn't know whey they were atrocious, but she knew they were and asked all the right questions. She caught on extremely quickly. When she says now that she struggles with landscape composition, I'm very, very tempted to remind her of what her struggles used to be.

Everything in life is relative and there is absolutely no comparison with her present-day struggles and her past struggles. She is now such a good photographer that she continues to "struggle" if something doesn't meet her exacting demands pertaining to quality.

[bnnrcn]

Hi Terri, as soon as I saw the image I downloaded it to my laptop and converted it to B&W and I said WOW !, this is a super shot for B&W. Why I converted it to B&W immediately is that, there are too many differing tones and coloured details in the colour version which cause distraction.Also light is a bit harsh. If you upload a B&W version IMO most members would like it

[terrib]

Grahame, Shane, John & Nick, Thank you also for your thoughts. It is a balancing act on how much to push the sliders. I like the description of delicacy. I think not pushing too far adds to the feeling of serenity.

[terrib]

Mike & Binnur,
I took the photo into Silver Efex Pro and went spiraling into a world of too many choices and lost total sight of where I wanted to go with the image so I need to step back. The "problem" with the power of that software is that I can enhance the initial mood I wanted or I can totally change it. Being inexperienced with using these types of software, it's easy to fall into the rabbit hole and end up with something that initially attracts but, on reexamination, just looks bazar. I'll give it a shot later, perhaps in a new thread.


(Oh, and thanks Mike for the encouraging words. )

[Mike Buckley]

I took the photo into Silver Efex Pro and went spiraling into a world of too many choices

That's completely understandable. I started this thread with you and other people sharing that frustration in mind.

[ShaneS]

Terri;

Mike's thread is a good starting point with SEP2 in regards to your issue:

I took the photo into Silver Efex Pro and went spiraling into a world of too many choices and lost total sight of where I wanted to go with the image so I need to step back. The "problem" with the power of that software is that I can enhance the initial mood I wanted or I can totally change it.

At first it is very overwhelming and after working with it for a few months I have come to a better understanding of how the various sliders and sections impact the final image. When I first started I would click through the various presets and find the one that most closely matched my vision of the image and then made further adjustments from there. Now, I find that I tend to start with the basic conversion and just go from there and don't spend very much time at all clicking through the presets.

So, my suggestion would be to play with the sliders and start with the presents until you get more comfortable with the various adjustment sliders and their impact.

Unfortunately, having said all that, none of it will help you figure out how it 'should' look and how you 'see' it in black & white. I just ran across a situation where others thought an image would look good and black and white and all my efforts at black and white were unsuccessful because I did not see it that way...go figure!

Good luck!

Shane

[terrib]

Shane and Mike, thanks for the info and the other thread on Silver Efex. I will definitely take a look at it.