PDA

View Full Version : St Aldhelm's Chapel



Jerry van Dijk
06-13-2016, 08:30 AM
On England's magnificent South Coast, overlooking the seas. We had beautiful skies all day along this coastal path. Just as we came to the chapel, some ominous clouds gathered. This is nearly full frame (except for some cut-offs in the straightening process). I've been contemplating other crops, including a 16:9 panorama (from the bottom up) and a vertical, all of which I liked in their own way. I couldn't really decide which one to keep, so I'm curious to hear your thoughts.
Btw, this is my first use of Nik Silver Efex since it became available for free, so any advice for improvement there is also greatly appreciated.
D7000, 16-85 @ 16mm, ISO-100, f/10, 1/250 sec.
Straightened, curves, some contrast tweaks and sharpened in ACR. BW conversion with Nik Silver Efex pro2 plugin in CS5. Cloned out 2 dust bunnies.

Adhika Lie
06-13-2016, 12:32 PM
Magnificent scene, Jerry. I love this aspect ratio and I think your choice of crop is excellent. If you crop it to a more panoramic AR then you will lose that cloud on the UL corner which I think gives a really nice balance to the image. As for the tonality itself, I would like to see more from the highlights on the right side of the frame, I think you can pull out more from the highlights there but I understand if you are trying to go high key. I think you could use a little more blacks overall even if you are keeping the high key look. The FG and the chapel looks a little too grey for my taste.

dankearl
06-13-2016, 05:54 PM
Classic scene and well processed. I would not take any off the sky at all, those clouds are very nice....
I can see the FG going a tad darker.

Jerry van Dijk
06-14-2016, 01:52 PM
Thanks everyone for your comments. I let Nik Silver Efex take care of the BW version. I'm not familiar enough with the program to quickly find out how to get more detail from the highlights. Also, in the original color version, I see very little that is there that isn't showing now (unless maybe I rigorously rework that image too). I can see about the comments of the FG and chapel being too bright. Here's a reworked version where I darkened the FG a bit with a grad filter by lowering exposure and adding more contrast.

Don Railton
06-14-2016, 11:20 PM
Hi Jerry,

I prefer the slightly darker FG version, but only very slightly... there is a bit of conflict for me with the building (it looks like it needs CCW rotation) and the horizon, which is lower in the center than the rhs (ie CW rotation needed)... i think this is a result of lens distorsion, but maybe there are other reasons...
DON

Jerry van Dijk
06-15-2016, 04:51 AM
Thanks Don. I noticed the same discrepancies between horizon and building. I applied lens distortion correction on this image already, and I straightened the horizon on the sea too, which is now almost straigt (I just measured a difference of 0.5 mm). What is confusing is that the building seems to be slightly sagging, and the cliff it stands on (as well as the fields in the BG) is slightly sloping. Together it creates the feeling that 'something's off' while in fact not too much is going on. I know that there are more advanced ways to play around selectively with distortion and perspective corrections (e.g. straightening only part of the image while leaving other parts intact), but I have had a hard time figuring out how to apply them in PS.

Andrew McLachlan
06-15-2016, 06:25 PM
Hi Jerry...I agree that the comp is fine and those clouds are indeed very nice...my preference is for the repost for its darker tones, but I tend to prefer my B&W images to have more dark tones.

Don Lacy
06-23-2016, 02:44 PM
HI Jerry, Very nicely done like the other I would prefer the tonal values to be a touch darker. I could also see you cropping from the bottom