Another B & W effort

Taken on a walk along the shore between East Wemyss and Buckhaven with the trusty old *ist D and DA50-200.



1/750s f/8.0 at 50.0mm iso200 @50mm

As always, comments and suggestion welcome.

I like the tree Brian (nice sweep upwards to fill the top of frame), but the sky looks a bit odd.

Dan

I like the photo but why are you trying to put one into the mourning frame? And you are not alone here.

Hi Brian,

nice shot.

There's a similar, knarly old tree near me, and I wanted to get it with the snow the other day, but this being the South, it had melted off the branches by lunchtime..

I didn't see a problem at home this morning when viewing it on my CRT screen. but looking at it on the work's monitor, the sky does appear a bit blotchy. Dan, are you looking at it with a TFT monitor, because if so, then this is a problem with TFT screens. Especially Mono pictures. Perhaps they can reproduce colours better than tonal values????

Dunno.. where's Matt..

Cheers

Liam

Oh how nice to see some monos

Nice subject, if it was me tho, I would be tempted to dodge around the highlights of the tree more - it looks a bit flat
I would be also tempted to use the healing tool bottom left of bank
it distracts the eye that void and burn in the bank a wee bitty perhaps?

Forget the frame too...
Hope you dont think I am too picky but it comes naturally

lossless Lil

Nope, CRT. Just doesn't look like smooth tones to me - perhaps it's my set-up.

Dan

Hi Dan,

I'm looking at it back at home now, and I can see a slight blotchiness to it, but nothing compared to the TFT at work. In which case it could be just the compression to 72dpi that's doing it. I have seen some rather stripey sunset shots, where the tones of orange etc seem to emanate in a clearly defined rainbow fashion from the sun outwards; it's happened on mine occasionally. Again, I think this is just the reduction in size not leaving enough room for a nice gentle curve in tones/colours.

Cheers

Liam

Hi folks.

First many thanks for the comments, no problem with anybody being picky thats how I/we learn.

Regarding the blotchiness, it looked pretty good last night on my TFT at home, but I may have made a crucuial mistake.............I had the BIG light on when doing the manipulation, I think I have pushed it just a little too hard without realising.

This is the original (resized and saved for the web)




The subtle change in the blue is proving difficult for me and my limited PS skills to control.

Doesn't look as though there are many tones in the blue, so when you're increasing the contrast it's streatching them out and increasing the 'steps' between them.

Not sure what to suggest... Matt!?!

Dan

Ya, the tones in the blues are very narrow.
I'm guessing you used the Channel Mixer on this and by using too much of the red channel for this particular image will compress the tones in the sky even more... but the Jpeg compression for the web version is probably what makes it stand out the most.

Try these setting with your original in the Channel Mixer and see if you like them:

Red: 0%
Green: +160%
Blue: -30%
Constant: -10%

I tried it on you colour image here but the jpeg compression was a bit of trouble. So try these and save it as a higher jpeg quality.
Not sure if it suits your taste... but what the heck.

BTW, I love tree pics like this! Nice composition.

WOW!! a bit dramatic Joshua, I actually rather like it but I'm still getting blotches, how does this one compare........................




I removed all the blue with the select colour mask then re-created an even sky.

You got that from the settings I suggested? hmmm
A lot different than what I had.

No No No!!! missunderstanding.... I tried your settings and they gave a very damatic image but I was still getting blotchiness.

ooooooooh! ok
I like the flat grey sky in this one, it makes the tree stand out.
It would be nice to have those clouds though.

Now it looks futuristic but imho the first one is better.