Landscape4

A geothermal area in Iceland.
The colours are as they were.
C&C welcome;

The photo doesn't do much to me.
I think it looks a bit greyish and is lacking contrast, why don't you tweak it a bit so that it come out more?

ps. Davex is it okay to play a bit with your photo?

I agree, looks like you could get a lot more out of this picture with a bit of tweaking.

Considering the subject matter, the colours and contrast are a bit of a disappointment. Perhaps the light was really poor.

Please do Stefan.

It was, for two weeks, one of the drawbacks of a trip to Iceland

Davex

Thank you Davex

Adjust the levels so that you got true shadows and highlight so you got more contrast in your photo. You can read more about that here link
Then some other small tweaks to locally change the contrast and added some sharpness.
I also change the colour slightly, made it a bit more blue since it became very yellowish after the processing.
[IMG]http://i282.photobucket.com/albums/kk244/Anvh/lscape41.jpg[/IMG]

The edited version is better, needs levelling too I think, seems to be leaning to the left

simon

I prefer the original. It reminds me of the clay pits out on Dartmoor. The light was often subdued so the contrast would have been down.

This brings me back to a basic question about photography - are we trying to accurately record something, or produce something that looks nice.

Think this is the version I prefer;


Helpful comments guys.
Cheers,
Davex.

Very nice Davex, that looks a lot better.
More contrast and the differences between the colours come out more with that one.

Depends entirely what you took the photo for. I take hundreds of images (of layers, features and finds) where the aim is to accurately record what is there. Images I take for fun and to use in comps or frame on my wall are (hopefully) something that 'looks nice'. I have many images ready to go on my wall which do not look like reality simply because they are in monochrome!

How far we go in that manipulation is a personal preference and the subject of many long --- and to be frank dull --- dialogues.

Best wishes, Kris.

On this site.

Talking about photography, no and no.

But if you're asking about PUF, then yes and yes.

Even if you are trying to record the scene accurately, tweaking is not necessarily cheating - it's a vital part of the process of recording the scene as you would actually see it.

Sometimes you take a picture of something, and when you get back, the colours and contrast are disappointing compared to how you remembered the scene. Your eye, or rather your brain, will perceive and differentiate colours and tones a lot better than the sensor on a camera.

Now I am really confused.

I agree entirely. Some PP could serve to increase the fidelity of the image and overcome limitations of the camera compared to the eye.

Other PP may be to create a whole new effect.

To take the question one stage further, do you take a photograph to please yourself or to earn the approval of others?

And does one ask for C&C to get back slapping, or constructive hints for improving an image :

Davex.