Urban Decay

[Katy Noelle]

If you were going for the "feel" of abandonment,the wide angle shot doesn't work for me.It looks like the park could still be in operation.
The other 2 work pretty good because of the obvious(weeds and spray painted sign).
I can't help much with angles.Maybe try some shots through the windows if there is anything interesting behind them.

In my mind, I was thinking of empty parking lot, close to the ground near a weed coming up out of the cement and huge roller coaster looming. It's possibly an impossible shot anyway. Silly because I haven't been there. In other words, at least, I had the weed! or, in other words, I see what you mean.

Awwww, that sweet kitty..... she's (he's) back!

[Clactonian]

when you say "bite". Do you mean compositionally, or tonally?

.. what Rob's done!!
Sorry I didn't explain myself better. I should have said that they appeared a little flat and lacking in contrast.
You'll find in general that black and white images need quite a contrast boost to make them stand out, but beware that somebody on this forum will shortly post an image to defy that generalism!!

[dragonaxe]

I'm getting addicted to this!!!
Some pics that were taken this morning...

[Donald]

Already Gareth, you should be starting to note your learning. The last two B & Ws have more of the 'oomph' that the learned gentlemen (and Rob!) referred to above. So, score 10 Brownie points!

This is great subject matter to stick with on that learning curve - you'll be able to make direct comparisons with the 'then and now' as your knowledge and skills develop.

[Katy Noelle]

Oh, my goodness, Gareth! These make my heart well up! (emotional female, perhaps???)

[carregwen]

This one - it's a good shot, but it does look a litte 'tale of two halves'. The gutter splits it down the centre and the two different building also do that. Try standing to one side (the right) and get the gutter starting in the bottom-left corner going in to the centre of the shot, which will give it more depth. Also try getting lower down and look up more and tilt the angle of the shot (you can get away with that on dereliction shots). Did you shoot them in RAW? If you want to post any of the RAWs (either these or later ones) we can 'have a play with them' to use Colin's expression. You can load them here and send me the link to download. Up to you, of course. http://uploading.com/signup/

[dragonaxe]

This one - it's a good shot, but it does look a litte 'tale of two halves'. The gutter splits it down the centre and the two different building also do that. Try standing to one side (the right) and get the gutter starting in the bottom-left corner going in to the centre of the shot, which will give it more depth

Excellent advice! Thanks Rob I'll let you know about uploading the RAW files. It would be awesome to see what someone, who knows what they're doing with PS, can produce. (as opposed to me, who almost randomly clicks stuff and sees what happens, lol)

[arith]

I'm getting addicted to this!!!
Some pics that were taken this morning...

That putty cat, do not trust it, it will get you when you least expect it, it will be on your doorstep and you will think, ohhh poor putty and then it will be in you house kicking you out cos there isn't enough room for it and you.

[carregwen]

Hi Gareth

Got the RAW download. thanks. I created three exposures myself (didn't use yours) and created HDR using Dynamic Photo HDR. I then used Silver Efex Pro plugin to convert to BW. The vignette was added in RAW edit. I also did quite a bit of dodging and burning to get more punch into the shot. Looks OK, I think. Are you on CS2, did you say?

This was the your original



And this is the best that I could do...

VIEW ON BLACK

[dragonaxe]

that looks awesome!! SO much better than the original
Forgive my ignorance....dodging and burning is the process of selectively darkening and lightening the parts of the image isn't it?
Yes, I'm on CS2.

Actually, as a general aside....for a beginner, would CS2 provide sufficient power for the general "nuts and bolts" PP that I'm likely to need (while learning the basics)? Even though the newer versions (NOT CS5...cos it's £600!!!!) just give me fancy stuff that I'm not really going to use? Or would a later version make things more easy to understand?

cheers

[carregwen]

that looks awesome!! SO much better than the original
Forgive my ignorance....dodging and burning is the process of selectively darkening and lightening the parts of the image isn't it?
Yes, I'm on CS2.

Actually, as a general aside....for a beginner, would CS2 provide sufficient power for the general "nuts and bolts" PP that I'm likely to need (while learning the basics)? Even though the newer versions (NOT CS5...cos it's £600!!!!) just give me fancy stuff that I'm not really going to use? Or would a later version make things more easy to understand?

cheers

Gareth

Dodging and burning is a way of selectively lightening and darkening respectively. You use the dodge/burn tools in Photoshop. There is a more general (and often better) way of doing it, particularly for BW. To do that you select a small part of an image, feather the edge, then either using a plugin that boosts contrast, or a Levels layer to boost highlights and shadows in that small area. What that does is give more contrast in specific areas. If you use doge/burn I'd suggest adding a layer first and work on that in case you screw things up, as I often do.

CS2 is fine. You should be able to get the basic adjustments done using RAW edit, then finish it off in Photoshop. It's certainly good enough while you are picking up the basics. Most people just have Elements.

[Dave Humphries]

Actually, as a general aside....for a beginner, would CS2 provide sufficient power for the general "nuts and bolts" PP that I'm likely to need (while learning the basics)?

Yes, it probably will ....

Even though the newer versions (NOT CS5...cos it's £600!!!!) just give me fancy stuff that I'm not really going to use? Or would a later version make things more easy to understand?

Althoughh, if you buy Elements 8 from, say Amazon for £56, Adobe will offer you a chance to buy CS5 at 1/2 price £321.95 to be exact, plus a little for shipping, so that just reduced £640 to about £380.

One big advantage is it gets you the latest ACR, which has a lot of improvements over that in CS2 and the decoding for all the latest camera's RAW file formats - but you'd get that with just Elements 8. In fact I gather Elements 9 is just out now, I assume the same CS5 offer will exist, but no promises.

I think this is a "UK/Europe" offer only unfortunately.

[dragonaxe]

yeah, I was wondering about Elements. Think it might be a good investment for the first year or so. Certainly good enough to see me through most of my PP needs )

[Shadowman]

I like the putty cat and the weeds.

The cat steals the picture.