garden reflected in a widow

[Valerio Tarone]

it seemed an original idea:the reflection as mirror. Nikon D600 in DX. f5,6 1/125 iso200 wb auto. Rated in ACR for direct sunny, boost a bit the colors. The sharpness has become an obsession, so I thought The original data aren't not bad (iso200, f5,6) , but I treated it in ACR in any way for sharpness. The LR was dull, so I did a selective treatment on it in brightness colors and saturation. contrast.0
You could tell me to crop off the electric wire in the top..yes it's an option.
comments..
thank you.

[Don Railton]

Hi Valerio

My eye is struggling with this a little.. it's a bit Confusing /chaotic for me, and that sharp black vertical line right in the middle is the main culprit I think....

DON

[Adhika Lie]

I echo Dan's voice here. I would also be very cautious with perspective and distortion when it comes to "architectural" shot like this. The window frame is not completely vertical and I think it detracts the image.

[Valerio Tarone]

thank you Don and Adhika: I can't eliminate the line left-right! Here 's a corrected vertical one. I treated again the right area in brightness,a bit also in colors.

[Adhika Lie]

This works so much better for me. I would also consider cropping off the top because the black canopy feels like where the image ends to me. What do you think, Valerio?

[Valerio Tarone]

Thank you Adhika, exactly what I thought. Here..
to have a different light to avoid that line.. yes it's good...but probably the occasion should have been repeat the morning after, before 10 o'clock am.
i like original subjects.

[Diane Miller]

I find it an interesting shot -- makes me look twice. I agree to correcting lens distortion -- looks like there is a bit of barrel distortion on the left. There is a good lens correction tool in ACR, and if done in PS, do it before any cropping. I think there is an option to come down a little more from the top.

This could be interesting in B/W.

[Valerio Tarone]

Thank you Diane. I've done some treatment in ACR before cropping. That's important for me,as I attended a seminar by Marianna Santoni about it. as Marianna doesn't answer I'll make you a question about sharpness and noise in ACR, but the matter should be in digital workflow. I treated this in ACR in the low levels as advised by M.Evening, because is 200iso. In case of high iso do I'll treat with :
brightness100
detail brightness100
amount100
radius1.0
Is it?
Thank you.

[Diane Miller]

Noise:

Although ACR (and the same processing engine in Lightroom) has sliders for sharpness and noise, I rarely use them. I do generally use the default noise reduction of 25 that compensates for the low pass anti-alias filter on the sensor and the slight natural softening that comes from demosaicing (combining the 4 color-filtered pixels, each of which records gray values, into one that contains color information). The values you give from Martin Evening will usually work well, although I would view the image at 200% and see if changing the settings a little will give the best result. In the English version (and the current software version) the sliders for Noise Reduction are Luminance (probably what you translated as brightness?), Detail and Contrast. The Amount and Radius sliders are under the Sharpening section. I generally use the defaults of Amount = 25, Radius = 1.0, Detail =25 and Masking = 0.

But noise is best dealt with in PS using plug-ins. Nik Dfine is free and extremely capable for most images even with a single-click to let it read noise values and correct them. It has a surprising ability to reduce noise on an out-of-focus BG and leave fine feather detail on a bird. Neat Image has more capabilities but is more trouble to use. But I use it in cases where Dfine doesn't give a good result. Topaz Denoise operates on a much simpler level and generally gives poor results. It seems more targeted to JPEG shooters.

Although not very relevant to this image, it is common practice to do separate amounts of NR on different parts of an image such as a bird with fine feather detail on a noisy but softly focused background. Doing this requires going beyond ACR and using the layer capabilities of PS.


Sharpening:

ACR/LR also provides sliders that can do some sharpening. There are sliders to minimize the effect, but sharpening generally works against noise reduction. Reducing noise causes loss of sharpness and sharpening emphasizes grain (luminance noise).

Softness from focus issues is on a much lower frequency scale and it should dealt with in PS with sharpening plug-ins. But they will not sharpen an image that is soft from focus issues without causing artifacts and emphasizing grain (luminosity noise). That is true in any raw processor. Nothing will compensate for poor focus, although it may not be so obvious in a web-sized image.

[Valerio Tarone]

Hi Diane, Very precise. Thank you very much. i think to print it. I'll practice LR. (although Marianna Santoni, PS guru ordered us: use ACR now,farewell within one year to learn PS). Yes it's 'luminance'. Within 15 days you'll see my landscape photos after ACR treatment.They seems sharper and brighter. I'm going outdoor in the Alps.

[Diane Miller]

For raw conversion, ACR is the same as LR, just a different interface. It is enough to learn it and PS for a year!

You have some great scenery there -- I'll look forward to seeing it!

[Andrew McLachlan]

Hi Valerio, sorry but this scene is not working for me...I agree with Don R in that it is somewhat chaotic and confusing...I do understand what you were aiming for but as presented I feel it does not work...perhaps if you included more of the room in which the window was located.