Second picture uploaded to web.

Since it's really tough to click a hyperlink, I'll use the URL instead so you just have to open this thread...




Fire away with the comments.

Very dramatic.

It is actually white or have you desaturated it?

I'm asking because of the small building to the side that is cream/terracotta and looks rather out of place.

Where is it, and at what time as the sky is surprisingly dark for such a bright shot (wondering how you managed that ).

I like the overall efect but it looks photoshoped.

The amount of light on the mountains and sky doesn't seem to marry with the building.

Is it two images overlaid on each other or is it as taken? If as taken I'd love to know how as the effect is really good

I'm sorry I forgot to post the details. It does however give one honest opinions.

My personal opinion was "Wow. It was just a photo of a church."

Date: 07 September 2006
Time: 09:01 AM

Location: Maca, Peru
Altitude: 13560ft (4132m)

The high altitude makes for some stunning polarizer effects.

Pentax *ist DL
Pentax DA 18-55mm f3.5-5.6 kit lens with Circular Polarizer
1/350th Shutter speed
24mm Focal length
f8.0 Aperture
Multi-segment metering
Auto White Balance
RAW Mode
Spot metering
Single AF
0.0 Exposure compensation
sRGB Bright mode

I'll try and post the original image as it came out of the camera.

Here's the original RAW file converted with absolutely no adjustments whatsoever.

I liked it a lot.

It definitely needed the contrast adjustment you made. I've never seen a sky like that with a polariser.

I wish that coloured building wasn't there though, could you crop it and still get a good picture?

Even better would be to clone it out and 'paint' in a background. I've done this successfully before to remove annoying people from photos. It was only a rough stone wall so not too hard. I tried it on the sea to remove a fence and decided it was not worth the effort for that particular picture.

I could bring the corner of the church down with the mountain, and clone out the remaining portion of the coloured building. Seems to be bit too much adjustment to be unnoticeable at large print sizes (A3).

Actually, I've got a much easier, faster and simpler idea.

Desaturate the coloured building!!!

Done!

Photoshop applied to the real world... "Allows you to just remove annoying people".

Hundreds of uses... I'd pay a lot of money for that.

Funny thing though, this imagery lark. I can see that the first version of this pic is more dramatic, but I don't like it as much as the later one, which looks a bit less manic.

I used to like Konica film, because it enhanced the greens, and gave the same impact in a 6x4 print that you could get by looking at the real thing.

My brother (even more of a reality purist than I am, if you can even imagine that) used to tell me what a pleb I was for liking that.

But these days, I'm liking authenticity more and more. Funny thing, subjectivity.

Great picture but I'm with ChrisA, I like the original more than the PS'd version. It gives credibility to that unusual sky. Have you tried this as a B&W Michael? It has the full range of tones from the brilliant white of the roofs to the black of the doors, and all the other shades of grey in between. That, and the texture of the walls and the dramatic sky make all the ingredients of a fantastic B&W IMO. (and that would take care of the red roof too)

Give it a try.

Drew

PS: Is the Annoying People Removal (APR) feature only available in CS3? That would definitely make it worth the full price.

I like the mountains and sky of the original better, though the white of the building needs crisping up a bit.

I didn't even notice the coloured roof until it was pointed out, and think it would be unnecessary and too dishonest to change it to white. Might not look right like that anyway.