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Hazel Grant
09-09-2014, 10:35 PM
I posted this in bw a while back but need to work on the color version for a project. Could I get some feedback on this version? would greatly appreciate it. I did some distort correction but otherwise it is pretty much as taken thanks

Diane Miller
09-09-2014, 11:00 PM
I love European architecture! I think it's a very nice view, but for me the dynamic range is a little too high. Probably easy to tweak in raw processing. The sky color is more to the cyan than I'd expect, too.

Don Railton
09-09-2014, 11:19 PM
Hi Hazel

What do you think?? Cropped of LHS and made a graduated selection of the lights (control RGB in channels) and backed off the brights by 15%)

Don

Hazel Grant
09-10-2014, 08:52 AM
Thanks. this is the kind of "eye" I need.

Hazel Grant
09-10-2014, 08:56 AM
Thanks. I really debated about that left side. Still unsettled. I can see where the crop focuses more on the street and buildings, but I keep wondering if the cropped left is just then detriment--an uninteresting element....????? Maybe I'll get some more comments posted to help me here. thanks for your input and re-do. helps a lot.

Diane Miller
09-10-2014, 10:29 AM
I might go for an in-between crop -- just enough to lose the blue windows. Or desaturate them.

It appears some lens distortion is showing in the original in the verticals near the edges. Maybe they're just leaning in (perspective) but it looks like some curvature as well. That should be easy to correct. In raw conversion you can fix both in either order. After an image is in PS you need to fix the lens distortion first, then perspective. But if the image is cropped from the full frame, the auto lens correction won't work right (as it makes symmetrical moves) and fixing it can be difficult, needing Edit > Transform > Warp.

Morkel Erasmus
09-12-2014, 03:04 AM
Still a nice scene - however the lighting and dynamic range here was just too broad to cover in one exposure. Bracking exposures from a tripod would have been nice, as even in the reworked version the highlights are overcooked IMHO.

Hazel Grant
09-12-2014, 07:46 AM
Yes, I see what you mean. Bracketing is a technique I plan to work on more. Thanks

Diane Miller
09-12-2014, 12:05 PM
I've been amazed how much dynamic range I could correct in the recent versions of ACR / LR. I used to shoot HDR a lot and now I can often get a better tonal result by working on the middle exposure. It can take a little finesse, but so does using HDR software.

Diane Miller
09-12-2014, 12:33 PM
Here's a quick lens distortion and perspective correction, and a crude shot at tonal balance by pulling the image back into LR and using the Shadows and Highlights sliders -- should be done in raw, though. Once tonalities are cooked into a PS file there's not much recovery you can do. Fixed the sky color also -- it was a little heavy on cyan.

I noticed the OP doesn't have a profile embedded. Doing so will help more people see the colors more accurately.

Must have been a wonderful trip -- would love to see more from there. I hear it's a target-rich environment.

Hazel Grant
09-14-2014, 02:45 PM
ok, showing my ignorance here.....how do you embed a profile?

I have worked on the perspective/distortion. will work on the tonal balance. thanks

Diane Miller
09-14-2014, 04:59 PM
If you Export from LR it's done automatically. With Save for web just check the box, and also the one that says Convert to sRGB.

Here's my tutorial in the Educational Resources forum:
http://www.birdphotographers.net/forums/showthread.php/122407-How-to-Prepare-Images-for-the-Web

Hazel Grant
09-15-2014, 06:32 PM
I use Photoshop CS6. The process I've been using is to work in PS. Save the final as jpeg. Go to automate, fit image (900x1200). Go to file, save for web, optimize file size 190K. save. These are steps sent to me by one of the moderators several years ago. They seem to work when posting, but maybe not with embedding. No one ever said anything about it. I don't have LR. Any suggestions? Thanks for your patience.

Diane Miller
09-15-2014, 06:49 PM
Things have changed over the years, and especially our understanding of them. That's not the way to do it today, and hasn't been for many years. Save for Web in PS will do all the steps for you, directly from your master file, without any chance of error. Fit Image relies on whatever sharpening algorithm you have specified in the PS Pref's. Save for Web lets you change it on the fly to suit the image (i.e. look at the result and redo if necessary).

The PDF I posted gives you the information to do it from either PS or LR. If it isn't clear, let me know and I'll fix it.

And if you mean by "save the final as a JPEG" that you are converting all your images to JPEG after you worked on them, I'm absolutely horrified that anyone would have been told to do that, even years ago. (Hope that's not what you meant!) Your "master file" should be the PS file (.psd or .tif format), brought into PS optimized as nearly as possible from the raw converter, as 16 bits, and worked on in layers, with adjustment layers being used whenever possible rather than pixel layer duplicated and having adjustments "baked" into them.

Hazel Grant
09-15-2014, 08:49 PM
Thanks for the updates on changes I should be making in getting photos ready to post for BPN. I will do this

By "save the finall as a jpeg, I do not mean to change my "working" final. I always keep a psd final, but bpn requires jpegs as I understand it, and so I make a duplicate of the "final" psd and convert that to jpeg for web. I do work in adjustment layers as you wrote about.

Diane Miller
09-15-2014, 08:56 PM
Good! Yes, you want a JPEG to post here (and for most web uses). But, no need to make a duplicate. Just open your layered psd doc and do a Save for Web. The original will not be touched. The different file format of JPEG won't overwrite your .psd doc even if you don't rename it. Different formats can have the same name.

There is one oddity I've never figured out, though. After the JPEG is saved (by Save for Web) PS will ask if you want to save the changes to your original. Since the whole idea is NOT to change your original, I always answer NO and scratch head about why they would ask.

Hazel Grant
09-15-2014, 10:20 PM
Yes, I've noted that question too re saving. guess that's why I don't trust it and make a duplicate .. Diane, I really appreciate your time and input on all this.

Don Railton
09-15-2014, 11:25 PM
I use Photoshop CS6. The process I've been using is to work in PS. Save the final as jpeg. Go to automate, fit image (900x1200). Go to file, save for web, optimize file size 190K. save. These are steps sent to me by one of the moderators several years ago. They seem to work when posting, but maybe not with embedding. No one ever said anything about it. I don't have LR. Any suggestions? Thanks for your patience.

Hi Hazel

Note the file size maximum has been increased to 400KB

Don

Diane Miller
09-16-2014, 12:30 AM
Good catch, Don. Thanks! And I can't fault being careful!

Andrew McLachlan
09-19-2014, 03:59 PM
Hi Hazel, I like Don's crop and Diane's repost that reveals more details in the highlights. Nice scene and I do love the cobblestone.