I like the look of the new 'Recent Gallery Photos' display on the front page, the different shapes of the images and the thin separaters look good, it invites more exploration of the photos themselves. We know the site structure overall wasn't broke, but a change of look, when keeping the main structure intact, will add interest and encourage involvement IMO. And should prompt people to explore areas they hadn't before, and maybe get to more content quickly.

I'd better stop or someone will come on thinking I'm a PU staff member ...

It looks modern and clean, refreshing. I like the button styles and fonts ... There seems to be good use of space, I don't see any large areas of wasted space? I think its good ... More attractive, and being refreshing in itself will encourage more involvement... Good work so far!

Thanks Alan, that sounds fairly simple in terms of the control choices at the HDR mapping stage. Have you tried the K3 HDR functions yet?

Here is a different sequence of Dorset coastal images than the recent ones, this time not focussing on the rock formations, but rather the beaches themselves. There are three main beaches on the National Trusts's Studland estate, known as Shell Bay (near to the mouth of Poole Harbour, more open and with wide sandy stretches), Middle and Knoll Beaches (tightly packed against the cliffs with a narrow rocky shore and then soft sand - they are divided by a rocky outcrop in between which can be walked around at the lower tide times).

The feature in this area is the golden rock faces, and dense tropical looking ancient forest that extends right near the waterline. All in all it adds up to an amazingly rewarding place to visit both for photography & the families beachy splish & splash!

All shots with the K7 and lenses as described - the 14mm comes into its own in this environment, but I also found the DA 18-55 AL WR very useful.



1) Middle Beach from the Point ... Samyang 14mm f2.8, f13 / ISO 100







2) Middle Beach north-east looking, towards Bournemouth ... DA 18-55 AL WR, f8 / ISO 200







3) Shell Beach, looking towards the Mouth of Poole Harbour ... DA 18-55 AL WR, f8 / ISO 200







4) Knoll Beach, just before the Point .... Samyang 14mm f2.8, f13 / ISO 100







5) Area overview, from the Handfast Point peninsular .... 'A' 28mm f2.8, f13 / ISO 100








6) The Peninsular, from Knoll Beach (plus yellow features!) ... DA 18-55 AL WR, f8 / ISO 200










7) Middle Beach, north-east looking .... Samyang 14mm f2.8, f13 / ISO 100








8.) Knoll Beach towards the point (this is a landscape version of the one I showed in my '5-in-a-row') ... Samyang 14mm f2.8, f13 / ISO 100

Nice HDR work Alan, obviously it was not obvious! What process did you use .... I've read that the K3's HDR features are more advanced than the K7 / K5 series and apparently it is possible to extract the bracket of 3 RAW files used for the camera's HDR sequence ? It certainly sounds worthwhile exploring anyway, as camera HDR's are so much easier than doing it all in software ... but the downside, for me anyway, has been that you only get a JPEG, and that's not ideal for me as a Master working file.

All beautiful shots, they all have the advantage of the sky lighting from the end of the golden hour with lovely blues (perhaps the sky in the 3rd should be toned down? ...) The first wins out over the second as the railings curve around more to complete the foreground, whereas the water in the second is not so strong in that role.

The sky colours from the sunset are great in the first as well. The Sage one doesn't appeal much due to the vast bland sky spaces, and car light trails are not my thing, but I appreciate the success of the technique here. Some great night scenes of Newcastle, thanks Alan!

We're a helpful lot although it can sometimes be a bit tricky these days to know precisely where we are at any given time

It's been a good discussion thanks, and thanks also to Mal for giving us the colour version also. It's ironic really, I'm the last person here you'd expect to be seen as a standard bearer for artistic, creative mono conversions, , quite the opposite. But its best I find to treat each shot as unique and look at it based on its own particular merits, and even colour freak me can appreciate the effect in mals image here .

Magicman, thanks for the response to my questions .... I don't see that there is any conflict in opinions about processing or pixel peeping ... I was just unsure what it was exactly you were saying about the photo itself .. it seemed contradictory. It is perfectly valid and ok to disagree and not like something that others do - I'm often the very one taking the off-tangent view, and the place would be fairly dull if we all agreed with each other about photographs all the time!

I think you're right about how far processing should go .... we often hear from people that an image looks 'over-processed', certainly some of mine are seen that way by some others .. although there's not usually any concrete reason or specific process identified as to what has caused the 'over-processed look'. And these things are very subjective ... for example in my current thread 'Handfast Point & the Pinnacles', one member specifically described the colour as 'great' ... and another said the some colours were 'queer' ! Of course, colour is subject to monitor and viewing software variations, so we all see things a little differently anyway .. (The colours are great bye the way
:mrgreen

Anyway, back to this image ... mono conversion is something that can be achieved by many different methods - some dedicated processes like the one here, or others using more traditional photoshop toning and de-saturation appraches, colour filters and contrast controls for example. I guess any of them could be overdone. Mals shot here (the mono) has (to me) an impressive looking, clean, gleaming quality, which I feel suits the subject and brings out the best in it (having now also see a colour version to compare). Are you seeing something different, less positive in the processing style?

Thanks Mark ... I tend to process fairly sharply quite early into the chain ... Maybe I should switch to just 'bicubic' mode in the web-size plugin?

Yep, mono was best probably mainly because of the sky ... If it was earlier in the night with some lovely deep colour in the sky then the colour might nudge ahead.