Rockface

[purplehaze]

My brother-in-law took me to shoot a favorite spot of his this summer, an island rockface near his cottage on Lake of the Woods. Most of my shots suffered from too slow a shutter speed to overcome the bobbing of the boat, but luckily, I got a few at 1/125 that appear to me to be reasonably sharp. I would like to print one on metal for him.

Do you think this would make a good candidate, and do you have any suggestions for improvement, or for printing on metal?

[Shadowman]

Nicely done.

[DanK]

Beautiful colors. However, I think the reflection is far more interesting than the rock face, and the image is mostly the latter. As a first try, I tried cropping it severely, placing the waterline around 60% up from the bottom. That was just a quick and dirty effort, but I think it makes it a much better image. I'd try playing around with different crops that give more of the space to the really beautiful, gently curved surfaces in the reflection.

Just my taste.

[Wavelength]

Very nice image

[purplehaze]

Funny you should say that, Dan. This was the edit I made this summer:



I was hoping to print big, but I guess I should have trusted my first instinct. Let me know if you think I can improve on this in some way. Other than a custom curve, I added some saturation in C1 (not a lot) and increased Clarity by +30. I left Structure alone.

[joebranko]

Dan,s perspective is very interesting to me. I tend , almost always to put the waterline in the middle. Apologies for hijacking.

[purplehaze]

You're not hijacking, Joe. All comments welcome.

This is a version where I added +50 clarity and subtracted an equal amount of structure in the reflection and added moderate clarity and structure to the rock. I also upped the saturation considerably. Just messin' around, throwing off my natural conservatism, seeing what appeals.

[Geoff F]

To me, the edit now has that little bit of extra zip which was missing from the original.

[skitterbug]

I could definitely see this photo (post #7) on steel but I wouldn't have a clue how it is done.
This photo reminds me of totems from ancient times! It would be a terrific present especially because it is his favorite area!

[DanK]

I've tried without success to find a detailed description of what Nik's structure slider actually does, but I believe it is somewhat similar to clarity in that both are forms of local contrast enhancement. If that's so, increasing one while decreasing the other, or vice versa, should partially cancel out. Can someone explain more or let me know I am wrong?

[Shadowman]

I'm sure the NIK website provides details but also Tony Corbell's website especially if it references his text "Nik Software Captured". The Structure slider also softens skin, exaggerates details, and lessens any halos which might be created by any other preset or slider.

[purplehaze]

Thanks, Geoff and Sandy.

Dan, these adjustments were made with Capture One 11. Both Clarity and Structure affect micro-contrast, but Clarity works on coarser details and Structure on finer ones, though not so fine as the Sharpening tool. I don't have time to send you comparison screen shots just now, but I liked what the + and - combo did for the reflection, a kind of softening that still preserved considerable detail.

Edit: Actually, it might suffice to flip between the two crops. Image 2 (first crop) has +30 Clarity, no added Structure. Image 3 (second crop) has +50 Clarity, -55 Structure. I think you will see that the coarser detail is preserved, and the finer detail smoothed out, obliterated even.

[tbob]

I like the reflection, so much so I would try to emulate the darker colours from the reflection in the actual rock face. Since we both use Capture 11, for once I have a mutual reference point for processing. I would make two masked layers of the rock face,one of the main rock face and one of the blue band at the water line, then use the colour editor in advanced mode to pick out every colour variant in the rocks as a separate item to work with saturation , hue and lightness to emulate the darker reflected rocks. May not be "natural" but could be effective as an interpretation of the scene.

[purplehaze]

Yes, thanks Trevor; I have been thinking along those lines myself. I think I would like to bring out the blue and green especially. I will see what I can do tomorrow.

[billtils]

Janis, I think that Trevor's suggestions are well worth trying.

Trevor and Janis - how are you finding V11? I'm on V10, am not on the subscription plan, and tend to delay updates until every other release, but was tempted ...

[tbob]

Janis, I think that Trevor's suggestions are well worth trying.

Trevor and Janis - how are you finding V11? I'm on V10, am not on the subscription plan, and tend to delay updates until every other release, but was tempted ...

Not a major change, but then I probably use a fraction of the capacity of the program One aspect worth the upgrade is Refine Mask, does a brilliant job of separating the edges so the mask is sharp. I do a lot of separating sky/ ground/objects of interest in my processing and it is really nice to have defined edges. Nothing worse than separating sky from ground and having some nasty black, or worse white, line along the horizon

[billtils]

One aspect worth the upgrade is Refine Mask, does a brilliant job of separating the edges so the mask is sharp.

Thanks Trevor - that's of interest to me as I have come to like C1's masking with soft edges that work well in some circumstances and can be erased where they don't. When there is a need for a sharper edge I call up Affinity Photo and do the masking there but it would be nice to be able to do it all in the one go. I may download the free trial version and see how it works in practice.

[purplehaze]

Bill, just thought I would warn you that I have had multiple crashes and performance issues with version 11 on Mac Sierra and have been checking for an update daily. Having converted all my catalogue images to the new engine, it may be too late for me to roll back now, but I am thinking I may need to reinstall.

[billtils]

Thanks Janis. Did you mean "Sierra" or did you mean the latest MacOS "High Sierra"?. I'm still on Sierra on the MBP and iMac and have no intention of "upgrading" any time soon as there is nothing of interest to me in the High Sierra version.

Do you have a Time Machine back-up that you can restore from - just in case? It would certainly be worth doing a fresh install, and if you still have problems open a case with PhaseOne support - scroll down here https://www.phaseone.com/SupportMain.aspx until the Contact Support icon near the bottom of the screen.

[purplehaze]

Yes, Sierra; I too am taking my time upgrading my OS.

Yes, I have TM backups, but want to avoid a reinstall if I can. I saw a couple of possible solutions on the user forum yesterday that I am going to try to dig up. It may have something to do with the fact that I still have version 10 installed; there may be some file conflicts buried in the system somewhere.