Spirit of Tasmania..for C&C please...

[IzzieK]

The Spirit of Tasmania ferry trip from Melbourne to Tasmania is about 11 hours and can be good or bad depending on the wind strength in Bass Strait. Summer is usually good. Bass Strait is a sea strait separating Tasmania from the Australian mainland, which is Victoria (capital: Mebourne). Bass Strait can be as smooth as glass one day and very rough the next. It is not a cruise liner. It is a ferry. Saves a lot of space on luggage than taking a short plane trip because you can take your car with you and fill it up to the brim if you like, as you like with no extra baggage fee. Tasmania is simply, should be, in your bucket list!

1 This one was taken from the top of the Eureka Tower in Melbourne. I converted it to B/W because the scene is too busy...I know I shouldn't had included the Pacific Basin at the top but I will not see this one again so I included it in the shot. That was the whole picture, no crop...F8 1/40 ISO 3200



2 This was taken on our first bus trip to St. Kilda and surrounds. F5.0 ISO 125 1/200




I will appreciate any comments from you. Thank you.

[rpcrowe]

Very nice... I especially like the colors and composition of #2...

[Manfred M]

A couple of basic comments, Izzie:

First image - the Pacific Basin looks like she is sailing uphill. I think the image is not level.

Second image - Unless they do things differently in Australia than elsewhere in the world, I suspect those ship are painted white, not cream colour. I suspect that your white balance is off. Looks a bit underexposed too. You are clipping on the black values.

[just me]

Izzie.......I feel the first image would have been nice if posted in colours....I don't know why....but the image looks a bit grainy ?

The second image is fine to my eyes, but perhaps could be a bit lighter ?

Izzie....just my two cents worth........

Greetings,
Griddi.....

[Rita]

Izzie, I am not sure about #1 yet, I have to think about it.
In #2 if you can lighten it up a bit, fix the white balance (as Manfred said) and somehow manage to keep some
of the ominous look to the sky. Just my opinion.

[NorthernFocus]

Hey, Izzie. The first shot is a nice overall view of the harbor. It does need to be leveled as Manfred pointed out. Others have mentioned some of the technical issues with the second shot so I'll stick to content. IMO the FG is simply too messy. If the ferry is the subject of the photo it needs to stand out a bit more from the other elements in the image. I realize you didn't have the option of where to shoot from but the image is what it is. I like the ominous sky but it does look a bit smoky.

You sure have been getting around...

[wilgk]

I like the foreboding clouds in #2 gives a hint of the state of the weather and smoothness or not to be expected on the trip.
Nice work.

[TonyW]

These are both nice shots. In the first, it would have looked better to me if the Pacific Basin had been further to the right but it's too late now unless you're a real whiz at cloning. It actually looks pretty close to level to me, judging by the buildings that are square on to the camera, although the two in the distance do have a very slight lean to the right.

In the second, the colour is a bit puzzling to me. There are a couple of small things like the border around the blue sign that look quite white in spite of the yellow tinge in general. Was this taken early or late in the day?

They bring back memories to me because we did this crossing both ways a few years ago.

[IzzieK]

Thanks Folks -- Richard, Manfred, Griddi, Rita, Kay, And and Tony.

Richard -- Thank you for your comment. I worked my way in #2 via Color Efex using the Graduated Filter, which is my favourite effect when I see a bit of sky like this, just to give it a bit of drama. As a constant user of Nik Software, I guess you would have guess this.

Manfred...The Pacific Basin -- because of the line in the water, I couldn't decided whether the image is going up to the right or not. I reckon it is not straight, just a bit but I do not know which reference I need to use to straighten it up. As for #2, the orangy effect is from the Graduated Filter of Color Efex. I am fond of that effect but I guess it is not everyone's cup of tea. I like the drama that it gives to the clouds in situations like this one. The actual scene is very cloudy at the time and while taking that shot, we were asked to move to another bus unfortunately and lost the scene I had in my head. I should had lessened the vertical shift of the effect but I like the colour it came out of.

Griddy, I tried to make it lighter. It was nicely exposed as I only used my point and shoot in this image but fiddling with Color Efex gave me so many options. I opted for Grauduated Filter as I like that effect very much. Thank you Griddi.

Rita, as explained it was my software. I fiddled too much with it. Mind you, I just calibrated my monitor but I guessed missing my contact lens isn't helping any. I have to use my eyeglasses. And I don't get to see my optometrist until the 25th of this month. Thank you for your comment.

Thank you for your comment Dan...As usual, I appreciate it very much.

Thank you, Kay...it was a bit cloudy, no, really cloudy that day and was a bit of a shower. We lost our spot at the front where the windshield was to protect us from the rain. We took the double decker (geez! I don't like those circular steps.) Day before, in the city tour we experienced the cold winds when we were positioned in the middle. The good thing about these double deckers is that they have a roof at least to protect from the more heavy downpours, but the wind was biting to the skin. It will sure be a rocky ones for the passengers of that ferry...

Dear Tony -- The Pacific Basin can be put on the right spot using the Content Aware move/scale but I was just too lazy to do it. When I first edited this, it was dark and cloudy and foggy, I tried my best to just use too many things I supposed, to bring out the Tassie. Then I saw it was slightly crooked but I don't know where to look -- I guess I should had used one of the buildings at the bottom to straightened the image.

In #2, the bottom of the shot was quite white too because it was not affected by the Graduated Filter I used at the top. The shot was taken well before 3pm or somewhere around 1 and 2pm because I remember us getting home at 4pm that day. Bill was building a gate on both sides of the house and wanted to get back home. Passengers were already boarding the ship at the time for the nighttime trip.

When we went to Tassie two years back, after getting past Port Philip Bay, there was really nothing to see but the sea so I decided to tackle the food and entertainment. We had a good summerly smooth voyage as the rest of the night, we were asleep. Of course as a precaution I took Peptobismol before I went to bed because I thought I will be dizzy like hell. I didn't want to waste the beautiful food I just consumed that night. Tassie is paradise.

[Manfred M]

Manfred...The Pacific Basin -- because of the line in the water, I couldn't decided whether the image is going up to the right or not. I reckon it is not straight, just a bit but I do not know which reference I need to use to straighten it up. As for #2, the orangy effect is from the Graduated Filter of Color Efex. I am fond of that effect but I guess it is not everyone's cup of tea. I like the drama that it gives to the clouds in situations like this one. The actual scene is very cloudy at the time and while taking that shot, we were asked to move to another bus unfortunately and lost the scene I had in my head. I should had lessened the vertical shift of the effect but I like the colour it came out of.

Izzie - a ship should never look like it is going uphill. We pick that up instantly and that suggests to us that you were not shooting level. In a shot like this. the line where the ship meets the water should be horizontal.

With respect to the second image, applying a filter is fine and had you mentioned this in your post, I might have viewed things a bit differently, as that would have told us that you did this on purpose. On the other hand, that is an issue with "global" filters - they do give the image a colour cast and that is a nice way of saying, they look like your WB is off.

If you want an orange /red tone to the sky, applying it just to that area of the image and keeping the white parts of the ships white might work better in this case. As I mentioned in my initial post, ships tend to have their superstructure painted white, so the cream colour looks a bit strange.

[george013]

I've seen more pictures on this site using the Nik Collection with wrong results. I believe it's much easier and better to use the available tools in your editing software.

George

[Manfred M]

I've seen more pictures on this site using the Nik Collection with wrong results. I believe it's much easier and better to use the available tools in your editing software.

George

George - the Nik tools can be incorporated into one's workflow just as easily as the built-in tools in Photoshop. I don't need Nik Color Efex to drop a coloured grad filter into an image, I can do that just as easily using the Photoshop Gradient tool, with or without a blending mode.

The issue isn't so much the tool, but how it is handled. Local application (say to the clouds) by using a layer mask would look fine in both examples, but the issue is the global application that dropped a colour cast on the whole image.

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Izzie,

I'm late to the party again and I've read the other comments (this time), so as not to unnecessarily repeat stuff.

I agree that #1 is not level; it is high on the left.
To clarify Manfred's statement, I don't think he's suggesting that you make the waterline of the ship parallel to the top/bottom edges, since it may be sailing (motoring?) slightly away from us at an angle. However, there are enough visual clues in close proximity to it, that it does seem to be going 'up hill'.

In #2, the sky filter needs a better transition gradient, or proper masking, to avoid it affecting areas we want/expect to see white.

The other thing I see in #2 which no-one has mentioned, is the sharpening halos around the lamp stands, masts and superstructures that go into the sky.

With regard to the busy foreground that Dan mentions, I think there is a possibility to crop and exclude much of it, the main thing this would leave intruding is the top of the security barrier guard box, which could be cloned out using surrounding blank areas, if you're bored sometime.

HTH, Dave

[Manfred M]

To clarify Manfred's statement, I don't think he's suggesting that you make the waterline of the ship parallel to the top/bottom edges, since it may be sailing (motoring?) slightly away from us at an angle. However, there are enough visual clues in close proximity to it, that it does seem to be going 'up hill'.

Actually Dave, that is exactly what I am saying. I agree that near the bow you will get a bit of wake and near the stern, there is a bit of wake from the propellers, but around mid-ships there should be a fairly clear line where the ship and water meet that is very, very close to being horizontal.

[IzzieK]

Dave...I have to have my eyes measured on the 25th for a new contact lens. The company that made my recent batch do not make the same ones anymore. In the meantime, I have to rely on my eyeglasses and I do not trust it to give me the right colours either. I will PM you. I will always be late in responding to any post or not post at all in the in-between because I am having a hard time trying with my right eye.