A bright red coat in an otherwise pastel image?

[xpatUSA]

In another forum, far far away, a beautiful panorama of a bridge in China was posted this week:

https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/64547350

A painterly capture indeed but there is a person who is wearing a bright red coat. Everything else is low-contrast pastel.

Would you 1) leave the coat as-posted or 2) tone it down or 3) brighten it up? ... and why?

[Polar01]

Me leave the coat reason I like it.

Cheers: Allan

[William W]

I'd leave it, main reason - it makes the Viewer's Eye work hard, hence in most cases would have the Viewer looking for longer than a split second glance: i.e. creates more interest.

> Interesting that the Photographer complains the 24 to 105 lens is not long enough for that shot; stating preference for 135 or 150 being available; yet he chose to make the shot at 95mm, rather than using 105mm or using 105mm and then make a small crop to simulate a FoV of a 135 or 150 lens.

WW

[pschlute]

None of the above.

I would remove the person completely from the frame.

As an alternative, I would aggressively crop/zoom so the bridge is not the centre of the frame, and it and the coat wearer share equal sides of the image.

To me the picture is either of the bridge or of the red coat person. If it is the latter, the framing is all wrong.

[DanK]

I think it's a gorgeous image. I'd definitely keep the people (there are two there); it adds scale and a human element. I would desaturate the red somewhat, as it's too far out of balance in terms of color and clashes with the restful, almost ethereal tone of the image. (I almost typed "painting.") It's trivially easy to do in Photoshop, using select-by-color and creating a mask for use with a hue-saturation slider.

[xpatUSA]

I think it's a gorgeous image. I'd definitely keep the people (there are two there); it adds scale and a human element. I would desaturate the red somewhat, as it's too far out of balance in terms of color and clashes with the restful, almost ethereal tone of the image. (I almost typed "painting.") It's trivially easy to do in Photoshop, using select-by-color and creating a mask for use with a hue-saturation slider.

Glad you said that, Dan!

I did the same thing, more or less, in the GIMP:

https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/64549918

So far we are in the minority, though ...

[William W]

. . . So far we are in the minority, though ...

Being in the minority, doesn't mean that you are wrong: but it is a good indication.

Yes agree with Dan, I too think that it is a "gorgeous image": as point within this conversation, I came to that opinion upon viewing the image, exactly as the Photographer had presented it.

WW

Footnote for those less traveled here - "but it is a good indication" is meant as humour only and to (hopefully) make Ted chuckle.

[William W]

I am terribly adverse to Peter's suggestions. Good that we all see things differently: I am grateful that Peter provided his rationale, which I thought about long and hard before replying to that opinion.

For me, this genre of Photography is not 'technical and of one subject' and therefore it cannot be either 'this or that'.

For me this genre is the Photography is a capture of 'Mood' (Dan's words - 'ethereal tone') rather than a 'subject' per se.

Yes the Red coat does upset the main 'mood', causing a minor chaos within the overall mood: I think that is the point, that's how I read the meaning of the poem.

WW

[senojbor]

The guy who took it obviously likes it and he has no one to please. Good for him I say.
I think we would all shoot it differently to our liking.

[xpatUSA]

An interesting effect is that of the image size on-screen. In the post view on DPR, the whole panorama is only 700px wide and the coat -although noticeable- doesn't stand out that much to the eye. However, viewing this crop at 100% zoom on the screen is quite different. I've read just this week that our eyes can perceive red as 'floating' in front of other colors such as green. And to me, that effect appears in the 100% crop. Voila:



I'm not claiming that compositional properties should remain constant as one zooms in or crops -i.e. unlike the Mandelbrot Set.

I did however view the image in both the DPR post view and the original size and it was the original size view -more or less like the above- that prompted the comment about the coat.

Copyright is by Steve Chong and this crop is posted for the purpose of discussion only - see meta-data but ignore camera info (FastStone Viewer strikes again!).

[xpatUSA]

<>

Footnote for those less traveled here - "but it is a good indication" is meant as humour only and to (hopefully) make Ted chuckle.

LOL, Bill. Perhaps I was a bull in a previous life ...

[xpatUSA]

On a general note, I am much encouraged by the majority. I will now be able to cheerfully ignore advice to remove power wires, poles, bob wahr, etc. from rural scenery around here ...

[Manfred M]

It’s a good image, but not one that works all that well for me. The bridge is too centered in the frame (both horizontally and vertically) and that limits the impact. All of cars in the parking lot are definitely a distraction. The red coat does grab the viewer’s eye, but bothers me less than some of the other elements in the image.

[DanK]

The centering didn't bother me, although I did experiment a bit with cropping. If I were to crop, it would be less for that reason than to remove the kiosk and sign board on viewer's left.

The cars are a minus, but there is probably no way to capture the image without them. I might try removing at least some of them, although it would be a painstaking process and might not work well (at least, with my level of postprocessing skills).

[lunarbo]

I am one of those with eyes that make the red bounce out disproportionately. I would desaturate , as well as crop so that the bridge is not central.
Always interesting how we all have differing viewpoints!

[xpatUSA]

I am one of those with eyes that make the red bounce out disproportionately. I would desaturate , as well as crop so that the bridge is not central.

We might share similar eyes, Bo! I did the same thing here except that the crop was not for compositional purposes.

Always interesting how we all have differing viewpoints!

I was quite surprised how many are for the bright red coat ...

[lunarbo]

Ted ........Why did you crop the left side if not for compositional purposes, please?

[xpatUSA]

Ted ........Why did you crop the left side if not for compositional purposes, please?

Yes, on the other forum my comment and the edit was only about the red coat versus the mainly pastel bridge. Since I assumed that the bridge was the main subject, I left it in and cropped the rest so as to a) avoid obfuscation by cars and b) to save bandwidth (my connection is only 75Kb/sec most of the time).

[lunarbo]

OK thank you

[mariah]

I would leave it because I do not like it.