TUMACACORI MISSION GRAINERY- THEME

[gary ellwein]

The three large vessels were used for grain storage. They had a rather smooth surface when compared with the rough adobe wall and bench. I tried to convey the difference in texture. I started with Topaz Simplify Watercolor II, blended with a couple B&W Fractalius layers. PSCS6 sandstone texture with a touch of poster edge was selectively applied to the walls. C & C welcomed and appreciated.

[Paul Lagasi]

Very nicely done Gary, texture are good and grain of the sandstone an eye opener. I may have toned down the black on the first pot, just my two cents.

[Kerry Perkins]

Excellent processing Gary, I really like the sandstone texture for this as it reinforces the real textures of the subjects. You've developed a really nice technique for using Fractalius, very well done!

[Cheryl Slechta]

Hi, Gary, I'm liking the judicious and selective use of Fractalius and sandstone combination - it works well with this image. I agree with Paul that you could tone down the blacks just a bit on the closest pot.

[Diane Miller]

Wonderful use of these textures/treatments! I love that the pots are treated differently than the wall. Agree about the dark area. I think brushing on a quick mask and a Curves might be enough to do it, with some color toning in the channels in Curves.

[gary ellwein]

I toned down the black and also reduced the sandstone grain. To my eye it was a bit strong.

[Diane Miller]

You could bring it down further (or up. more accurately) and hold the color without dulling it down. Two curves here, with different masking -- the first left a still-dark area in the middle so a second one on top of it it was needed. A Curve gives you control over contrast, midtones and color, all in one place. Quick and dirty - took about 2 minutes.

BTW -- you don't have a profile tagged here,although it appears you did convert to sRGB. People with wide-gamut monitors, will see the colors too saturated.

[gary ellwein]

Thanks Diane for the minitutorial.

[Cheryl Slechta]

I think I'd like something in between Gary's repost and Diane's repost I do like Gary's repost with the sandstone reduced better than the OP.

[Anita Bower]

There is much to like in each of the versions. I like both the OP and the second version. I like what Diane did with the dark area. The colors say Southwest, though I don't know where you took this photo. Nice curving shapes. Nice similarity between the pots, but not uniformity, letting us know these were handmade. The image does not give any notion of their size, which is OK with me.
I'm the only one to mention this, so it may not be an issue, but, I'd prefer a bit of a CC rotation, and cropping from the right and bottom. The pots seem too centered for this theme--the theme speaks of being off center, of threes, of diagonals, not of symmetry.

[Diane Miller]

I agree with Anita about the rotation -- I didn't want to bring up too many issues. But I'd hate to lose any of that spectacular wall BG. If it were mine, and hadn't been cropped, I'd go back to the file before the texture treatments and add canvas on all sides and see what Content-Aware Fill could do (maybe with some cloning). Then I'd rotate, fix the dark spot, and re-do the texture treatments. I'd also do some carefully masked shading to better separate the upper shoulder of the middle pot from the back one. I absolutely love this image -- it would be worth the work!

[gary ellwein]

Anita and Diane, thanks for the interest in the image. Anita, the image was capture at the Tumacacori Mission in Arizona. The mission is south of Tucson near the border. The pots were quite large, perhaps 3 feet tall. They were used for grain storage. The image was straightened and reworked. It came out a bit different with more detail and a bit more texture.

[Anita Bower]

I thought they looked like the southwest. The indentation they have made in the surface on which they sit suggests they are large. When I rework an image, I'm seldom able to repeat exactly the same look I got the first time, even when I follow the same steps. I hate to write this, but I think you rotated the image just a bit too much. Here is my version of this image. I added a bit of canvas on the left and did a quick clone. Cropped bottom and right.

[Diane Miller]

I really like the rework! That wall is so fascinating, I love seeing more of it than you had in the original. The contrast is a little higher now (or maybe just that the exposure is a little lower), which is OK for me. Anita may be right about the rotation but not a big deal for me. It's just a tiny bit off now, and hard to judge the way the shapes dance around.

All together, a great find and wonderful image!

I'm in the same boat about a re-work never coming out quite the same, even on simple images.

[gary ellwein]

Thanks again Anita and Diane, I'll give this one a rest for a while.