Theme: Snowflakes in the Land of Snow

Folks,

Seasons Greetings & Merry Christmas! I was happily able to shoot the Santa Cruz Ballet Theatre's production of The Nutcracker this year. This is my daughter as a snowflake in the Land of Snow scene.

Attachment 136070

Conversions to Monochrome and a blue - orange duotone (my own plugin) overlaid on original color, uprez detailing. Stage lighting is always a challenge & ballet as difficult as anything I shoot (that this was taken from the furthest seat from the stage in the rafters adds to the challenge ;-). Thanks for looking.

Cheers,

-Michael-

I think the lighting works really well with a lovely glow focused on your lovely daughter! I also like how the lighting captured the snowflakes around the dancers and on the floor, yet drifting off the edges making them with more black, all together adding a very dramatic and natural framing.

Happy Holidays to you and your family!

Good job. I agree that the dramatic lighting is a plus. I like the processing, as well as the graceful dancer--your daughter.

Hi, Michael, I always enjoy your ballet images and this one is really nice, especially since your daughter is one of the ballerinas.
Happy Holidays to you and your family:S3:

Never thought it had a duotone added. Was that to counteract the lighting? It looks so natural. Interesting take on the theme.

Nancy, Anita, Cheryl, Jackie,

Thanks much for your comments. They are much appreciated.

Jackie,

I've been playing with the blue-orange duotone for selective warming of the highlights and cooling of the shadows. I should mention that this is at about 25% opacity soft light blend of a fully saturated blue to fully saturated orange palette. I've been thinking of making a duotone tool for myself so that I can adjust the crossover point between the two colors over the brightness level to pick more precisely where to cool and where to warm.,, along with endpoint saturation and hue adjustments. Simple matter of programming ;-).

Here I think it worked well since the stage was bathed in blue with overhead orange spots. Ah, stage lighting. Gotta love it ;-). So happy my daughter lined up under a spot for this shot!

Cheers,

-Michael-

Absolutely beautiful picture of an absolutely beautiful daughter! You can both be equally proud!

I rarely use duotone, and rarely get beyond a simple use of Split Toning in LR. I'm curious to know more about how your filter would differ from that, which has a Balance slider.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Diane Miller

Absolutely beautiful picture of an absolutely beautiful daughter! You can both be equally proud!

I rarely use duotone, and rarely get beyond a simple use of Split Toning in LR. I'm curious to know more about how your filter would differ from that, which has a Balance slider.

---

Thanks, Diane. The short answer is LR split toning is based on the HSL color model and I have a preference for HSV. I'm not aware of any HSV based photo processing software so I'm rolling my own. Why I prefer HSV is a long story, but I think it is a lot easier to develop an intuition about the impact of a color/tonal adjustment than with other models. I'd love a HSV curves and histogram.

Cheers,

-Michael-

Very well done, and a group of three nicely arranged.

Thank you for the short answer about HSL and HSV. I've been puttering around with color theory and had assumed that Lightness and Value were just different terms for the same thing. Now, I see it's a bit more complicated than that. It was already obvious there was more puttering to do, but now there's more than I'd thought.

HSV is a new one for me. I'd also think Lightness and Value weren't that different, but obviously they are. I'm happy enough with what I'm offered in HSL, but will be interested in the continuing story.

Beautiful capture and processing. The 3 images flow into each other so well. Your daughter is lovely!

I like the end result a lot but I am confused. Is the posted image one photograph or 3 images combined?

What is HSV?

Judy, Artie,

Just one image. Thanks for the comments.

Artie, Dennis, Diane,

HSV (Hue, Saturation, Value) is a color model or a way of organizing colors by different qualities. HSL (Hue, Saturation, Lightness (sometimes called Luminosity)) is another way of organizing colors as is RGB. I should caution that this is not the same thing as gamut (sRGB, Adobe RGB etc).

Attachment 136157

RGB depicted as above (I should have included an image) would be a cube. The digital approximation of the upside down cone and double cone has a hexagonal cone shape.
The colors Red, Yellow, Green, Cyan, Blue, Magenta are the hues on the vertices of the hexagon at the widest part of the diagrams.

Those colors are also at the corners of the RGB Cube. If you turn the cube up on a diagonal, with 0, 0,0 at the bottom and 255, 255, 255 at the top (for 8-bits of color) it sort of approximates the HSL diagram (on right).

To a degree the choice between how one uses these models is a matter of taste. I prefer thinking and if the controls are available using them in HSV. The difference isn't in the "number" of colors since they can each represent any color.

There isn't any simple way of describing the various differences in use of the different models. So, I'll end this here. The Wikipedia entry (search HSV color) isn't bad.

Cheers,

-Michael-

Thank you very much for the additional information, Michael. I'm not sure what the outcome will be, but I'm hoping to explore this further.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Michael Gerald-Yamasaki

Judy, Artie,

Just one image. Thanks for the comments.

Artie, Dennis, Diane,

HSV (Hue, Saturation, Value) is a color model or a way of organizing colors by different qualities. HSL (Hue, Saturation, Lightness (sometimes called Luminosity)) is another way of organizing colors as is RGB. I should caution that this is not the same thing as gamut (sRGB, Adobe RGB etc).

Attachment 136157

RGB depicted as above (I should have included an image) would be a cube. The digital approximation of the upside down cone and double cone has a hexagonal cone shape.
The colors Red, Yellow, Green, Cyan, Blue, Magenta are the hues on the vertices of the hexagon at the widest part of the diagrams.

Those colors are also at the corners of the RGB Cube. If you turn the cube up on a diagonal, with 0, 0,0 at the bottom and 255, 255, 255 at the top (for 8-bits of color) it sort of approximates the HSL diagram (on right).

To a degree the choice between how one uses these models is a matter of taste. I prefer thinking and if the controls are available using them in HSV. The difference isn't in the "number" of colors since they can each represent any color.

There isn't any simple way of describing the various differences in use of the different models. So, I'll end this here. The Wikipedia entry (search HSV color) isn't bad.

Cheers,

-Michael-

---

Thanks Michael. I was confused by Judy's comment in Pane 11. My choice is to not choose any of those models--I am not a very technical person and like to work by the seat of my pants. I will admit to making a few adjustments on the HSL sliders when I used to do my conversions in ACR. Now I do them all in DPP :)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Arthur Morris

Thanks Michael. I was confused by Judy's comment in Pane 11. My choice is to not choose any of those models--I am not a very technical person and like to work by the seat of my pants. I will admit to making a few adjustments on the HSL sliders when I used to do my conversions in ACR. Now I do them all in DPP :)

---

The different color models would have a subtle impact in any tonal adjustment but in particular any saturation or "brightness" adjustment such as processed exposure. Lab mode might be a more familiar alternate color model in it's difference to "brightness" adjustments in RGB mode vs. L channel adjustment in Lab. Anyway, it is all technical. Seat of the pants is good.

Cheers,

-Michael-

Thanks again MG-Y. I need to keep things as simple as possible :)

For comparison it would be helpful to see w/o the blue/orange duotone added if you have it as a psd.

Gorgeous photo gorgeous subject.... Ballet must be a toughie to shoot nicely.