Wheat field

[TonyW]

I would appreciate any critical comments about this.

056A6020a on Flickr

[Shadowman]

Nice crisp conversion, the small tree tops could be considered a distraction or a nice elemental device. Have you considered eliminating one or more? Also the leading lines could be emphasized more with dodging and burning or just cropped to the beginning of the formation.

[Manfred M]

Tony - this is one of those images where I wonder why you went to B&W? There is limited colour range in the original (I suspect) and going monochrome throws away the little bit of colour information that might (or might not) have resulted in a stronger image.

[Geoff F]

It definitely looks better in the Lightbox option; but even then I am tempted to make an alternative crop suggestion. Lose some of the foreground and go to a more panoramic image size to concentrate on the sky.

[Black Pearl]

For me keep the mono, crop the bottom and make more of that fabulous sky.

[John 2]

For me keep the mono, crop the bottom and make more of that fabulous sky.

I agree. In particular, pull back on the highlights. There is a lot of detail in that sky that is hiding behind the brightness at the moment. one interpretation might be:

[TonyW]

Thanks for all those great suggestions.

This is my colour version. Possible, but I think I prefer the black and white, especially as I am on a B&W kick at present and wanted to explore all the possibilities.

056A6020 on Flickr

Following all your pieces of advice, I have produced the following which takes note of them. I have cropped both ways to preserve the 3:2 aspect ratio, which I think works especially without the two little trees on the left. It is perhaps a little too dark overall but the same thing on Flickr looks lighter for some reason.

056A6020b on Flickr

[John 2]

That does it for me Tony. The additional crop finishes it off nicely.

[ionian]

I really like the edit Tony - I can't view it on Flickr (private page) and I haven't seen the histogram but the edit looks like it needs a boost to the whites, especially in the sky. The overall tones are ok, but it just lacks the white clouds of the original.

Nevertheless, great capture.

[Manfred M]

Tony - I still am not particularly in love with any of these versions, but I would tend towards the colour one, but would probably look at a punchier, more contrasty view.

My suspicion that I look at things this way is that most of the wheat fields I have seen are in the Canadian Prairies and in"big sky country", where you can see the horizon in all directions. There always seems to be the sun poking out somewhere, so this scene looks dark and moody, whereas I would expect bright / big sky moody. Obviously, I wasn't there when you took this shot, so I have no idea what this scene looked like in your mind's eye..

One of my personal photographic goals is to get out into the Canadian Prairies when the wheat is ripening and being harvested. I suspect that won't happen this year so I look forward to doing an in-depth view of this type of scenery.

[wilgk]

Im very keen on this image
looks great
I think the wee shrubs at the edges detract, rather than attack if that's ok, so last one is my favourite!

[IzzieK]

I like the last image better, Tony...the first looks like it is tipping to the right ...

[joebranko]

Both shots look great; but I wonder how the colour version would look if cropped on the bottom as the mono version was, and also without the little trees. I really like the colour of the wheat with the blue sky.

[TonyW]

Thanks again for all the comments.

Manfred, one of my reasons for not being so keen on the colour version is that the colours in reality were uninteresting. In the colour version I posted, the colour of the ground has been enhanced to make it look straw coloured and the sky was no more interesting than it looks in the image. It was in fact a barren scene and the wheat had been harvested some time ago leaving dry drought-ridden ground at the end of summer. The title of the thread is misleading. The field was a large one, measured in square kilometres rather than acres, but that did not show up in the picture because of the low hill.

Izzie, it is hard in this case to know what should be horizontal because of the hill on the horizon. This was the same place as the image of the abandoned homestead that I posted before, just looking in a different direction.

[Rebel]

I really like this image Tony, your last B&W version is the best rendition for me.

[Manfred M]

Manfred, one of my reasons for not being so keen on the colour version is that the colours in reality were uninteresting. In the colour version I posted, the colour of the ground has been enhanced to make it look straw coloured and the sky was no more interesting than it looks in the image. It was in fact a barren scene and the wheat had been harvested some time ago leaving dry drought-ridden ground at the end of summer. The title of the thread is misleading. The field was a large one, measured in square kilometres rather than acres, but that did not show up in the picture because of the low hill.

I guess I am standing alone here, as the B&W version does not work particularly well for me. Regardless of whether you shoot colour or B&W, if the light is not good. the image is not going to work, and the light really does not seem to be all that great.

This is the type of scene that works well on one of those late summer days, when the wheat is ripe and ready to be harvested and the sun is setting with those puffy summer clouds in the sky. An alternative is those angry storm clouds coming in with a few crepuscular rays poking through the clouds.

[xpatUSA]

Thanks for all those great suggestions.

This is my colour version. Possible, but I think I prefer the black and white, especially as I am on a B&W kick at present and wanted to explore all the possibilities.

056A6020 on Flickr

Following all your pieces of advice, I have produced the following which takes note of them. I have cropped both ways to preserve the 3:2 aspect ratio, which I think works especially without the two little trees on the left. It is perhaps a little too dark overall but the same thing on Flickr looks lighter for some reason.

056A6020b on Flickr

I like that crop of the B/W conversion.

I wondered about the difference in tone between the blue sky in the color version and that in the B/W. If the conversion to B/W was on a luminance basis then that would explain the much darker sky tone which is almost drawing the eye.

Not a conversion expert at all but I've read that are several ways to do BW conversion.

[TonyW]

I like that crop of the B/W conversion.

I wondered about the difference in tone between the blue sky in the color version and that in the B/W. If the conversion to B/W was on a luminance basis then that would explain the much darker sky tone which is almost drawing the eye.

Not a conversion expert at all but I've read that are several ways to do BW conversion.

Thanks Ted. I am certainly not an expert in B&W conversion either. In this case, I was not interested in realism at all and did not try to depict the scene as it was. I used photoshop to do the conversion and that allows me to use the colours to change the tone of the B&W. By pulling back the blue, I darkened the blue part of the sky to give more contrast.

I am still not happy with the conversion because on a larger scale some artefacts of the processing appear. I will have to fix those.

[Manfred M]

Ted - in Photoshop you can lighten / darken specific colour channels. I tend to do all this with an adjustment layer and that allows me to individually adjust the red, green, blue, yellow, magenta and cyans. These can be set to any value from 0 to 255.

It's even better than in the old days of shooting film with colour filters to enhance things like the sky, skin, etc.

[xpatUSA]

Tony, Manfred,

Quite a fascinating subject all by itself. RawTherapee too has a good few options including about six "filters" which I've never quite understood but I guess they simulate real filters somehow.