Winter in Norway.

[Slugbug]

Hello.

I'm new here and thought I should share a photo with you. Perhaps you could give me some feedback to help me improve.



I shot this RAW and edited/developed it in Lightroom 3. I'm sure you're familiar with Adobe's software.

For some reason I've started to resize my pictures forcing them to have a 30cm long edge when uploading to the internet. Is this a good practice? Should I just leave it at the original resolution?

Considering the "rule of thirds", should I have cropped the photo? I haven't cropped it as it is now.

Looking forward to sharing photos with you all!

- André

[jiro]

Considering the "rule of thirds", should I have cropped the photo? I haven't cropped it as it is now.

Looking forward to sharing photos with you all!

- André

Welcome to CiC, André. That is a nice image coming from you. Regarding your question about the rule of thirds, usually what they recommend is to place the horizon either on the 1/3 of vertical height either from the top or from the bottom. In your case, I would probably recommend you cut off some of the foreground so that the horizon sits on the lower one third. Hope this helps. Looking forward to seeing some more of your work here. Good luck.

[Slugbug]

Hey Jiro.

Thanks for your reply! I haven't really read up on photography until recently. I've just experimented with different settings without really knowing what I was doing. I think I'm starting to get the hang of it.

Here's a cropped version of the photo following your advice. I think it looks better now. But it's gone and gotten a bit blurry. Must have done a mistake when I shot it.



How does it look?

[tameigh]

The original image looked soft (blurry) to me, so I had sharpened it in photoshop and did jiro's suggested crop.



I am not sure how you do the same thing in lightroom. In photoshop, if you resize, but have a resolution specified in the resolution box for the crop tool, it will resample and likely soften the image. Once again, I don't know anything about Lightroom.

I also reduced color noise with Neat Image, which is a $29 US plug-in download that is like getting a better sensor in your camera.

[Slugbug]

I'm going to have a go at sharpening it myself. It definately looks better with some edges to it.

[jiro]

It looks better now, André. You did great!

[jiro]

The original image looked soft (blurry) to me, so I had sharpened it in photoshop and did jiro's suggested crop.



I am not sure how you do the same thing in lightroom. In photoshop, if you resize, but have a resolution specified in the resolution box for the crop tool, it will resample and likely soften the image. Once again, I don't know anything about Lightroom.

I also reduced color noise with Neat Image, which is a $29 US plug-in download that is like getting a better sensor in your camera.

Nice edit on this one, Tim. Good job!

[PaulMiller]

The first thing that struck me looking at your picture is the amazing blue and purple colours in the sky and the snow. I would suggest darkening the sky a bit to bring out the colour, as well as cropping some of the foreground.

Something like this:

[Slugbug]

I've pretty much incorporated everything you've been so kind to notify me about in this edit. Has it improved at all? I wasn't so hard on the sharpening as Tim was, mostly because I wasn't able to do that much in Lightroom. But I must confess that I like a bit of softness.



I think it's looking better yet again.

[jiro]

I've pretty much incorporated everything you've been so kind to notify me about in this edit. Has it improved at all? I wasn't so hard on the sharpening as Tim was, mostly because I wasn't able to do that much in Lightroom. But I must confess that I like a bit of softness.



I think it's looking better yet again.

Now, that is really a big improvement! Well done.

[Slugbug]

Thanks again Jiro!

I must say I like the burn and dodge tools. I wonder why I haven't tried those before.

I was getting a bit of nasty artifacts while sharpening, so I had to tone it down a bit. Not entirely happy yet, but that's what I get for being a perfectionist. :P

[tameigh]

Every raw photo needs sharpening. You are on the road now.

I took one last shot.

[Slugbug]

I have a lot to learn! Just getting these tips and hints has made me want to go for a walk with my camera.

[Dave Humphries]

For some reason I've started to resize my pictures forcing them to have a 30cm long edge when uploading to the internet. Is this a good practice? Should I just leave it at the original resolution?

Hi André,

Welcome to the CiC forums from me, great to have you join us, especialy with such a lovely picture.
Willie, Tim and Paul have that angle well covered, so I'll jump on my hobby horse and answer your question

Personally, I would strongly recommend that for internet use, you change the units from cm to pixels when resizing for online use.

If you use cm, how big it appears depends upon the ppi you have set, we don't know what that is and you could catch yourself out one day by changing the ppi (to do a print) and all your internet images start coming out a different size (unless you remember to compensate by choosing a different cm size).

I don't know how you arrived at that 30cm figure, but of course, although 30cm (12") is about the horizontal size you'd want it across a typical 23" (diag) monitor, there is no correlation between the two sizes - the internet works on pixels only and what physical size they appear to viewers depends on their screen size and resolution, plus many other things.

When I said "the internet works on pixels" I meant some things happen at specific pixel dimensions, like 'maximum size' limits, etc. and it will be impossible to predict (without in-head maths) when these things are going to affect your pictures (usually adversely )

For example, the images in the CiC forum re-size to 700 px for display inline - if you click them, you see them bigger, sometimes life size, other times less (depending on many factors). Why does that matter?
Your images actually come out at 850px across, so CiC resizes them to make them fit the page nicely and in the process, they will appear a little softer because any output sharpening you applied after the downsize to 30cm gets 'diluted' in the downsize.

Try a test;
First ensure your browser isn't also zoomed (that's another thing that really makes images look soft when they aren't), so press Ctrl + 0 (zero),
Then hit F11 on keyboard to get rid of the browser header and footer panels,
Now have a look at your picture, specifically at the edges and fine detail,
Now click the image; it should open in a Lytebox a bit bigger, it is sharper, isn't it?

Our associated TinyPic hosting service has a 1600 pixel (on longest side) limit
The CiC albums maintain a 700px (on longest side) limit
If those sizes are exceeded, both will permanently downsize your images to their mximum when saving to them (although you have not needed to use them).

So yes, you do need to downsize, rather than leave at original resolution, but please do it to a pixel size

Sorry to labour the points here, but;
a) I did warn it was my hobby horse and
b) even if you knew some or all of this (oops, sorry), many others may not and they are here to learn too

Dave dis-mounts from hobby horse

Cheers,

[Slugbug]

Thanks for the reply Dave!

I'm not entirely sure how I landed at the 30cm thing myself, but it's a habit I should stop. I've got plenty of space available on my own website, so uploading them in their original resolution shouldn't be a problem.

I noticed the blurry bits earlier, and allthough that can be pretty cool sometimes, it wasn't what I was aiming for in this picture. I still have things to learn! Yay!

Thanks again for the reply, and I want to say that I feel very welcome here.

[Slugbug]

Every raw photo needs sharpening. You are on the road now.

I took one last shot.

Oh! Didn't notice you had edited your post there! I think it looks good! Wish I was able to get that result when I tried earlier.

[tameigh]

You are free to assume cheating. I have a lot more software at my disposal than just Lightroom, and I used it. The noise reduction is big, and you can get a demo version of Neat Image, and use it for free as long as you like. As long as you don't sell any of your pictures. It makes a huge difference. Also I used my version of Adobe CS5, which has a lot of tools that there will be plenty of time to learn later. For now work on sharpening.

[Slugbug]

I had a go at a different picture just now. I resized it to fit the scaling here on CiC for now.


ISO 200, 45mm, f/10, 1/200s.

I think I avoided the blurry bits better in this one. The picture itself probably has a lot to do with that.

[jiro]

I had a go at a different picture just now. I resized it to fit the scaling here on CiC for now.


ISO 200, 45mm, f/10, 1/200s.

I think I avoided the blurry bits better in this one. The picture itself probably has a lot to do with that.

Nice shot, André. There's always an advantage when you are on a great location. Landscape shots are a plenty!

[Peter Ryan]

Hi Andre,

Nice work. It is always great to see images of far off distant lands. Jiro is a great help and I see his work here with you.

I was wondering about the colour. Both images have a blue colour cast to them and I was wondering if this is what you see in the real world or is the white balance setting not fully compensating for the colour of the light?