Elsewhere in the Arboretum

[Michael Gerald-Yamasaki]

Greetings. While shooting hummers at the UC Santa Cruz Arboretum, I'm midst some pretty cool foliage and take an occasional shot, always thinking I should bring something shorter... I suppose I could take off the 2x telextender.... Anyway... thin dof and all at 600mm...

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Nik Color Efex Pro - Infrared Film backed off the brightness & contrast a bit. Uprez detailing. Sharpening on BPN sized image before saving as jpeg.

Thanks for looking... (looking at this while scrolling up and down is interesting :~}

Cheers,

-Michael-

[Diane Miller]

Striking! And beautiful sharpness! I'm undecided about cropping some off the top. Maybe just lower contrast there??

What would you think about darkening the piece of a leaf coming in from the lower center?

[Dennis Bishop]

I like the contrast and the composition. Diane's suggestions are interesting. I'd probably not crop any off the top, myself, but that's a judgement call. Her idea about darkening the leaf is worth a try, I think. It might make something good even better.

[gary ellwein]

Great detail with an interesting repeating pattern. Scrolling up and down produces a novel effect. Don't do this if prone to seizures.

[Michael Gerald-Yamasaki]

Diane, Dennis, Gary,

Your comments are greatly appreciated. I like the top for the completion of the leaf. Yes, I'll darken the partial leaf in the bottom middle & give some though to the contrast on top. Good ideas.

Thanks much.

Cheers,

-Michael-

[Judy Howle]

This is a striking image with good contrast and sharpness. What a cool plant! I agree with Diane's suggestions.

[Hazel Grant]

I think I would crop a bit off the top. But not too much. Very sharp esp with 2x. Yes, scrolling does make me dizzy, but it's fun.

[Nancy Bell]

Very dramatic blossom with the patterns, contrast and sharpness. B&W really brought out that drama. The bkgd adds context and I like that leaf on the left mimicking the shape of the blossom and extending above it. You might play around with a little less contrast for the entire bkgd, however, or add some blur, just enough to have the bkgd elements recede a bit more visibly. I think it is that stem coming up directly behind the blossom & that line going off to the right that is causing the distraction.

[Michael Gerald-Yamasaki]

Judy, Hazel, Nancy,

Thanks much for your comments. They are much appreciated.

All,

Some subtle changes: Softened the bg slightly with heavy denoising, pulled down some spots and the bottom leaf with curves and generally pulled the top part down with curves. In the process got bit by tonal changes in RGB mode curves disrupting the color (sigh) and readjusted back to monochrome with Silver Efex.

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Cheers,

-Michael-

[Diane Miller]

Hi Michael,

Just curious -- when you say, "got bit by tonal changes in RGB mode curves disrupting the color" did you try setting the adjustment layer mode to Luminosity? Or maybe I'm not sure what you encountered.

That seems to be simpler, and as effective by my standards, as going to LAB mode and doing tonal work on the L channel.

[Michael Gerald-Yamasaki]

Diane,

It's being lazy and just using straight curves in RGB mode. Most of the time for small changes just popping up a curves adjustment and yanking on the RGB curve works fine, though I know it introduces subtle color "errors" if you just want a luminosity change. But, hey, I save a pull-down menu click ;-). If I'm working color tonal issues I usually accept the work and go to LAB mode. When I say got bit here I mean the curve adjustment in straight RGB turned my blacks purple and threw in banding for good measure. Sigh.

Cheers,

-Michael-

[Diane Miller]

Purple blacks and banding for good measure -- sounds like you're journeying at the edge of the universe! Are you seeing the same sort of things as pushing Hue-Sat or Selective Color too far, (or even HSL in LR / CRAW?) where the apparently smooth transition between colors gets really ragged?

Don't know if anyone else here is interested -- if you'd like to go offline, shoot me an email. I've often wondered if PS saves energy by working in 8 bits too often, but that is probably a different issue. Color adjustments in LR / CRAW should be in "16" bits (or whatever the camera captured, more likely 14).

[Anita Bower]

I like how the main flower (?) stands out from the rest. The busyness of the background bothers me. Outstanding detail and light on the flower.

[Michael Gerald-Yamasaki]

Purple blacks and banding for good measure -- sounds like you're journeying at the edge of the universe! Are you seeing the same sort of things as pushing Hue-Sat or Selective Color too far, (or even HSL in LR / CRAW?) where the apparently smooth transition between colors gets really ragged?

Don't know if anyone else here is interested -- if you'd like to go offline, shoot me an email. I've often wondered if PS saves energy by working in 8 bits too often, but that is probably a different issue. Color adjustments in LR / CRAW should be in "16" bits (or whatever the camera captured, more likely 14).

[before I get started, it is highly unlikely that PS saves energy by working in 8 bits, an issue might be that their interfaces only allow interaction in 8-bits for the most part. e.g. levels are 0 - 255 (8 bits) not say 0 - 16K (14 bits). From what I've seen in the plugins SDK, the image mode chooses what bit depth is used in the calculations. ]

The artifacts that I saw were caused by how PS adjusts on a luminosity scale in RGB mode. The explanation is complicated. The quick explanation is almost all change of tones in PS RGB mode involves small changes in hue. Usually the small changes are not noticeable. Occasionally, one will get a bad color artifact that is noticeable (like turning black to deep purple) and one has to deal with it as was the case in my processing this image.

The longer explanation is RGB mode adjustments to luminance levels is requires a translation in color spaces (since luminance strictly speaking isn't an axis in the RGB color space). For speed purposes PS employs a quick calculation that has a small impact on the hue (which is also not an axis in the RGB color space). This leads to occasional bad color artifacts where the small difference in hue is very noticeable (like turning black to deep purple). One solution (to not creating the artifacts in the first place) is to use LAB color mode (where luminosity is an axis).

In any event, switching to LAB mode every time I want to change some tonal values is a drag, so I take short cuts (like RGB mode curves) and occasionally have to deal with the errors.

Cheers,

-Michael-