Clashnessie Bay

[Donald]

Flickr just doesn't get the details in the shadows nor the subtle tone differences in this image. I'll put it up to see how it appears on CiC. I am also working on a new monitor and am trying to get it right. Any comments about this being too dark or too light would be welcome in that regard, e.g. can you see details in the rock.

I am now thinking much more about my finishing (post-processing) and looked at what other people are doing. I need to be much bolder in order to do what I wanted to do.

Your comments are always welcome.

[mugge]

I like this picture a lot. I think that the cloud LHS should be lightened a tad, especially the bottom part. I keep focusing on it for some reason. That is only my opinion.
Cheers Ole

[Shadowman]

Image looks fine overall but there are some dark spots that show very little detail, for instance the lower left corner and the edge of the rock formation appear completely black. For output do you print yourself or send to a lab, I ask because I have similar concerns with some of my edits and did a tonality test of my printer which showed me that my printer can't handle blacks very well in zones 0 and 1 with the standard photo black cartridge. I do have a photo grey cartridge option but rarely print black and white or if I do modify the image with levels adjustment or tweak the tones in NIK.

[Donald]

Thank you, John. That is helpful.

For output do you print yourself or send to a lab, I ask because I have similar concerns with some of my edits and did a tonality test of my printer which showed me that my printer can't handle blacks very well in zones 0 and 1 with the standard photo black cartridge. I do have a photo grey cartridge option but rarely print black and white or if I do modify the image with levels adjustment or tweak the tones in NIK.

I do print my own. I haven't printed this because I'm waiting for my computer-guy to come out and find out why my computer won't kick the printer into life, since I've installed a new broadband hub and also reconfigured my system to cope with a multi-monitor set-up.

I have a Epson R3000 which uses 3 blacks at any one time. I never have any problem with blacks.

[Geoff F]

The blacks are black while the whites are white (almost) with a nice gradient between the two in the sky colours so I think that is working OK.

The only thing I wonder about is slightly reducing the amount of black sky, with a similar amount taken from the left side?

[Donald]

The blacks are black while the whites are white (almost) with a nice gradient between the two in the sky colours so I think that is working OK.

Many thanks, Geoff. My histogram tells me the whites are white. But 'almost' will be good enough!

[Manfred M]

Donald - when I import the image into Photoshop, I see very much the same as Geoff does. You have a good tonal range, and that is what you want. You need to push the output values to around 15 and 240 for printing, so the very minor bit on the whites will disappear at output prep.

[Donald]

I stand corrected. I held it slightly back.

[rpcrowe]

Lovely image as usual from you Donald.

However, my only problem (I say "my problem" because it could very well be my monitor) is that I have a hard time seeing the differentiation between the top of the spit of land in the center of the image and the cliffs across the Bay in the background.

The differentiation is definitely there because I can import the image into Photoshop and place a NIK Viveza Control Spot on the spit of land and use the shadows control slider to reveal the differentiation.

[Donald]

Lovely image as usual from you Donald.

However, my only problem (I say "my problem" because it could very well be my monitor) is that I have a hard time seeing the differentiation between the top of the spit of land in the center of the image and the cliffs across the Bay in the background.

The differentiation is definitely there because I can import the image into Photoshop and place a NIK Viveza Control Spot on the spit of land and use the shadows control slider to reveal the differentiation.

I hope that somebody will respond to say whether this is Richard's problem or not. This is the sort of information I wanted to hear about the gamma. I am seeing the split very clearly, but is everybody else?

[Stagecoach]

I hope that somebody will respond to say whether this is Richard's problem or not. This is the sort of information I wanted to hear about the gamma. I am seeing the split very clearly, but is everybody else?

Donald, I can very clearly see the differentiation between all foreground and land behind. For info, it's night time here and my viewing conditions are in a darkish room with dim warm lighting.

[Donald]

Donald, I can very clearly see the differentiation between all foreground and land behind. For info, it's night time here and my viewing conditions are in a darkish room with dim warm lighting.

Thank you, Grahame.

[billtils]

Nice moody composition. I can make out the detail in the rocks - and can also see the halo at the hill/sky interface, but then I've been sensitised to these @$!% halos of late .

[george013]

Be aware that with jpg compression you loose detail in the blacks. I don't know where this image comes from, I mean from the camera, but consider to compare it with a non jpg example.

George

[Donald]

Thanks George. A good point, bit not the one that I was addressing. I know that we will loose details in the blacks. But what I wanted to ask was if people were seeing the same as me in the jpg above on their monitor. It was a monitor calibration question.

Bill - I hate you! I though I dealt with the halos and now you've pointed out more. I can get rid of them by posting this at 2048 pixels on the long edge, but at 1024, there they are.

[billtils]

[ST1]

Donald, I can quite clearly see the separation when viewing using the forum lytebox (though it is more difficult when just viewing the image within the forum page) that Richard cannot. Bill has already made reference to the halos, they are visible when I view the image on Flickr too.

[Manfred M]

I hope that somebody will respond to say whether this is Richard's problem or not. This is the sort of information I wanted to hear about the gamma. I am seeing the split very clearly, but is everybody else?

It is fairly dark on my machine as well, but then I had assumed this was your style as this has been a feature of many of your images. It gives the shots a certain moodiness.

What output level have you set your screen to? If you are above 120 nits (candela / square metre) then those of us who are running our computer screens in the "recommended" range for photo editing (80 - 120 nits) will be seeing them "too dark".

[Manfred M]

I hope that somebody will respond to say whether this is Richard's problem or not. This is the sort of information I wanted to hear about the gamma. I am seeing the split very clearly, but is everybody else?

Donald, I always thought that you were keeping the images that dark from a stylistic standpoint. What is the output level of your screen set to? The recommended output should be in the 80 - 120 nit (candela / square meter) range. If your machine's output is set to the standard "office environment" setting of 200 - 600 nits, these image would look quite different to you than they do to me. I'm running my screen at 110 nits.

If I had edited this scene, I would have left the endpoints where they are and shifted the gamma to give me an image that looks like this:




Here I get good definition in the rocks and the lighting is still moody.


One quick check if you don't have a screen hardware calibration device is to set up your screen with a white image. If you set your camera up to get just the white, 100 nits is when your camera's light meter shows a correct exposure of 1/30th sec at f/6.3 at ISO 200.

[george013]

Donald, I always thought that you were keeping the images that dark from a stylistic standpoint. What is the output level of your screen set to? The recommended output should be in the 80 - 120 nit (candela / square meter) range. If your machine's output is set to the standard "office environment" setting of 200 - 600 nits, these image would look quite different to you than they do to me. I'm running my screen at 110 nits.

If I had edited this scene, I would have left the endpoints where they are and shifted the gamma to give me an image that looks like this:




Here I get good definition in the rocks and the lighting is still moody.


One quick check if you don't have a screen hardware calibration device is to set up your screen with a white image. If you set your camera up to get just the white, 100 nits is when your camera's light meter shows a correct exposure of 1/30th sec at f/6.3 at ISO 200.

Looks more to my taste too.

George