Probably not your intention, Trevor, but I wonder if color images would emphasize seasonal differences more?
Thank you for adding the colour ones; lovely
Great idea and good images (the B & Ws).
Trevor, that is mighty green grass compared to down here in Texas!
Two thoughts, which have probably occurred to you already:
1) How about saturation but not adjusting color?
2) If possible, are you able to adjust a particular hue in the image to a different hue? (e.g. RawTherapee's 'hue equalizer').
For example, increase the saturation in the spring grass; then reduce it in the summer grass and also adjust the hue a tiny bit toward yellow?
Your thoughts broke the dam. I ended up making the greens overall less yellow and the yellows more green then dropping the saturation and luminence on both. It was the comment about the yellow that prompted me as I immediately twigged that the problem; the grass was too sickly yellow.
Out grass is a deep vibrant green from the minute it sprouts until late fall when it dies and quickly goes the colour you see around the fence rails in the Spring shot. I think it may be adaption to the short growing period; it is chock full of chlorophyll.
Looks quite pristine in B & W. Nice shots.
I find the B&W images more powerful
Certainly the B&W images are nicely done but, if the intent is to show the four seasons as a set, I would have though that color would help in distinguishing them. In other words, if a set is is captioned "The Four Seasons" it should not be necessary to caption each image indiviually, to my pedantic mind.
If the images in the OP had not been captioned "Spring", "Summer" would anyone have known the difference? (No criticism intended, Trevor).
How about a set of four monochrome images with a different color tint for each one?
Last edited by xpatUSA; 22nd July 2016 at 02:27 PM.
I will have to figure out how, if at all, I can differentiate the four seasons in monochrome and colour. Spring will be the hardest challenge as there will be some resemblance to summer in some aspects and fall in others. Definitely I need to go out there in April or early May and reshoot Spring so I have more RAW material (pun intended). I found the fence on May 23 so earlier there should be some differentiating traits.
On the monochrome side, I tried a green tint for spring with slightly reduced contrast (less sun) and a pink tint for summer with more contrast (brighter sun) . . well, as bright as it gets up there in Canuckistan
Not that wonderful and a bit too much with the pink, so I'm wondering if tinting was a good suggestion or not . . .
You know that wonderful low slanting light referred to as the Golden Period? Well we get that all the time as the sun stays low in the sky even i summer Fantastic . Except for the period from mid October to Mid February when we get even lower slanting light we refer to as the %@#&* period.
The colourization is a concept I will consider. Except the pink.
Thanks Paul I will check those. I think my best bet is to back to the RAW and start over. Too much bad weirdness (technical term) has gone on with this version.
I just went back to the version, your suggestion worked beautifully. I will save that one but still go back and rework the original to see what can be done.
I am late here again but I prefer the coloured version as per Ted's suggestions.