Some pictures of my trip to California

[Rhoads238]

So i just got back home from a long trip to California and here are some of the pictures that i liked
C & C please









Thanks a lot for feedback

[Shadowman]

Jason,

A couple of questions:

1. Are these images from Northern California?
2. For photos #1, 3, and 4 were you standing on an observation deck or the side of the road? It looks like you had limited access to the view.
3. 1st photo, any reason for taking this image, it doesn/t have a center of interest and wondering what you wanted to achieve.
4. 2nd photo, I would include more of the flower in the image.

I like the b & w photo, would love to see more of the ridge.

[Rhoads238]

Jason,

A couple of questions:

1. Are these images from Northern California?
2. For photos #1, 3, and 4 were you standing on an observation deck or the side of the road? It looks like you had limited access to the view.
3. 1st photo, any reason for taking this image, it doesn/t have a center of interest and wondering what you wanted to achieve.
4. 2nd photo, I would include more of the flower in the image.

I like the b & w photo, would love to see more of the ridge.

they are all from san fransisco, the orchids being from a tea shop in china town. but anyway. i did have limited access to the views because the trails were very narrow and high that i was walking along. also in back of me there were thick grasses and pricker bushes that i didnt feel like walking through. none of those were maintained trails. the first picture i wanted to show the rolling trail along the cliffside. it was a hard shot to capture because of the lay of the land. where you see the ocean there actually is a long drop off although its hard to tell the trail continues along the evergreen shrubs near the top of the picture.

[Klickit]

That first one - .there is some lovely golden light in it, but maybe crouching right down and showing a little horizon would add depth and some more interest? Of course, that may not have been possible because of lens, position etc, but just a thought.

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Jason,

The biggest issue I have is that they all look a bit dim to me.
I wonder if you monitor is correctly set up for brightness and contrast?
Even if not, are you making best use of the histogram in your PP software?

On that first one; a check on the histogram reveals that although there was some highglight detail on the right, this was probably only a few pixels in the wave tops.

Here's your original and my slightly adjusted version:


You can flick between them in Lytebox.

What I did:
Levels dialog; white point to 200 grey point to 1.30
USM sharpen; 0.3px, 140%, 3 threshold
Hue/Saturation dialog: +20 saturation boost to restore golden glow after levels

This makes the path more obvious, but the huge gap between where it apparently ends and starts again in front of the bushes is really to wide to associate in this shot - I'm not sure it's possible without a radically higher viewpoint, which is probably impossible.

Cheers,

[rick55]

Hi, Jason;

#2 is my favorite. I love the flower and its sharp detail with the sign (or whatever) behind it with nice bokeh. More of the flower might be nice, as shadowman said, but I don't know what else is available.

Cheers,
Rick

[eNo]

The first and last seemed under-exposed by at least one stop. #3 needs a bit more contrast to work as B&W: try some curve adjustements. The composition in #2 seems a bit odd: either more or less of the flower needs to be included.

[Rhoads238]

Hi Jason,

The biggest issue I have is that they all look a bit dim to me.
I wonder if you monitor is correctly set up for brightness and contrast?
Even if not, are you making best use of the histogram in your PP software?

On that first one; a check on the histogram reveals that although there was some highglight detail on the right, this was probably only a few pixels in the wave tops.

Here's your original and my slightly adjusted version:

You can flick between them in Lytebox.

What I did:
Levels dialog; white point to 200 grey point to 1.30
USM sharpen; 0.3px, 140%, 3 threshold
Hue/Saturation dialog: +20 saturation boost to restore golden glow after levels

This makes the path more obvious, but the huge gap between where it apparently ends and starts again in front of the bushes is really to wide to associate in this shot - I'm not sure it's possible without a radically higher viewpoint, which is probably impossible.

Cheers,

I really like your edited version and how the trail is more obvious. maybe one day if i move to the west coast ill bring a ladder out there one day and reshoot hahaha. but anyway i really need to get a post processing program.

and i dont think that my monitor is set up for saturation as well but i dont know how to do it truthfully.

Klickit- i would love to have been able to show the horizon in this picture but its on a downhill section the trail so getting the horizon would make the trail not visible. i really wish i could have got the whole trail in one shot.

I also have many other shots of the flower. ill post up a few once i find the charger for my labtop. ive been looking for a few days and cant find it anywhere