Opening

[JBW]

Got my hd back and for unknown reasonsw Capture 1 has upgraded me to 11 from 10.2. Lots of new whistles and bells to learn. And yes I did get in touch with C1 but so far no reply.

[DanK]

A very nice capture, but (I think you can guess what I am about to type) it's dark and lacks contrast. Look at the histogram. Those are beautiful white flowers, but they are rendered as a drab almost-gray. In this case, if you do just two things with a curves tool--bring the white point down and impose an S curve for contrast--you get three things. The flowers are whiter. There is more contrast and pop. And because the flowers are so light, the contrast gives you a free bonus: more separation between the flowers and the background, because the former are lightened and the latter is darkened. I'll post an example. It's not carefully done, but it shows the general idea.

[JBW]

A very nice capture, but (I think you can guess what I am about to type) it's dark and lacks contrast. Look at the histogram. Those are beautiful white flowers, but they are rendered as a drab almost-gray. In this case, if you do just two things with a curves tool--bring the white point down and impose an S curve for contrast--you get three things. The flowers are whiter. There is more contrast and pop. And because the flowers are so light, the contrast gives you a free bonus: more separation between the flowers and the background, because the former are lightened and the latter is darkened. I'll post an example. It's not carefully done, but it shows the general idea.

yours are brighter but mine are more realistic

[xpatUSA]

yours are brighter but mine are more realistic

I take it that the light was such that your original image was representative of that light.

I am reminded of shooting on a dull day with little contrast in the scene compared with sunlight. Does one keep the output dull like the actual scene, or immediately get to work upping contrast, saturation, etc. ?

I often wonder about that ...

[JBW]

I take it that the light was such that your original image was representative of that light.

I am reminded of shooting on a dull day with little contrast in the scene compared with sunlight. Does one keep the output dull like the actual scene, or immediately get to work upping contrast, saturation, etc. ?

I often wonder about that ...

If I'm going for 'pop' or natural (as the mood takes me...)

[DanK]

I take it that the light was such that your original image was representative of that light.

I am reminded of shooting on a dull day with little contrast in the scene compared with sunlight. Does one keep the output dull like the actual scene, or immediately get to work upping contrast, saturation, etc. ?

I often wonder about that ...

All a matter of taste, no? My own view is that I am rarely doing documentary photography. Neither I nor anyone viewing my photos is particularly interested in my replicating dull lighting when I encounter it. I and they are interested in the image. In this case, my immediate reaction was "what a beautiful bunch of flowers, and Brian framed them well." Sometimes, a small tonal range is part of the image I want to create--for example, in some images taken on foggy days. However, in this case, if the image were mine--and of course, it isn't--I would want the point of the image to be the beautiful flowers, and their beauty--IMHO--is partially obscured by the drab lighting that they happened to be in at that moment.

There is a great example of this in Jeff Schewe's The Digital Negative. I now forget the details, but I remember the story line. The lighting happened to be awful when he reached someplace he wanted to photograph--if I recall, mid-day on a day with dull lighting. The original image was truly boring. So, he set to work in Lightroom, doing more sophisticated editing than I usually do, e.g., split toning, and he ended up with an image that was unrealistic in the sense that it resembled what he would have captured if he had picked a better time to be there but that did convey the beauty of the scene.

All a matter of taste. To each her or his own. But my reaction when I read that case was "I want to be able to do that."

[JBW]

All a matter of taste, no? My own view is that I am rarely doing documentary photography. Neither I nor anyone viewing my photos is particularly interested in my replicating dull lighting when I encounter it. I and they are interested in the image. In this case, my immediate reaction was "what a beautiful bunch of flowers, and Brian framed them well." Sometimes, a small tonal range is part of the image I want to create--for example, in some images taken on foggy days. However, in this case, if the image were mine--and of course, it isn't--I would want the point of the image to be the beautiful flowers, and their beauty--IMHO--is partially obscured by the drab lighting that they happened to be in at that moment.

There is a great example of this in Jeff Schewe's The Digital Negative. I now forget the details, but I remember the story line. The lighting happened to be awful when he reached someplace he wanted to photograph--if I recall, mid-day on a day with dull lighting. The original image was truly boring. So, he set to work in Lightroom, doing more sophisticated editing than I usually do, e.g., split toning, and he ended up with an image that was unrealistic in the sense that it resembled what he would have captured if he had picked a better time to be there but that did convey the beauty of the scene.

All a matter of taste. To each her or his own. But my reaction when I read that case was "I want to be able to do that."

I don't see a lot of gray in my shot. I even went and used a colour checker. The flowers were not particularly bright but in many places they were nicely white.

I intentionally did not go out until there was no bright light. I wanted soft and gentle.

There is nothing wrong with your version. On another day I might go the same way. But this day it was soft and gentle

[Wavelength]

Beautiful

[xpatUSA]

I don't see a lot of gray in my shot. I even went and used a colour checker. The flowers were not particularly bright but in many places they were nicely white.

I intentionally did not go out until there was no bright light. I wanted soft and gentle.

There is nothing wrong with your version. On another day I might go the same way. But this day it was soft and gentle

A pity that there is no EXIF in the posted image. So it is not possible to comment on the exposure value for this shot.

Still, a shaded petal was rendered close to mid-gray (L* = 51%) which seems OK to me.

[JBW]

A pity that there is no EXIF in the posted image. So it is not possible to comment on the exposure value for this shot.

Still, a shaded petal was rendered close to mid-gray (L* = 51%) which seems OK to me.

I'm not sure why the info gets stripped.
Exposure compensation 0.0 ~ ISO 100 ~ aperture 1/6s ~ F/16

[JBW]

Beautiful

it is an enjoyable shot (though possibly a little dull)

[xpatUSA]

I'm not sure why the info gets stripped.
Exposure compensation 0.0 ~ ISO 100 ~ aperture 1/6s ~ F/16

Thanks Brian,

Sometimes it is interesting to figure the implied scene Light Value from the camera settings. In this case, it would appear that the scene lighting was log2(16^2/1/6) = 10.5EV = not a lot.