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vertical_planar
Jul 17, 2007, 2:31 PM
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Your thoughts?
I would appreciate any advice from the PS gurus. Did play with levels and color balance but still not happy with the result
(This post was edited by vertical_planar on Jul 17, 2007, 2:34 PM)
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krillen
Jul 18, 2007, 12:58 PM
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Your leading lines are good, but your climber is Dead-Center in the pic. Rule of thirds man!
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stymingersfink
Jul 18, 2007, 7:50 PM
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for starters, other than what krillen mentioned, clip to your own anchor, then pull your rope up and coil it or stage it in a rope bag such that it will not be visible in your frame.
alternatively, climb the adjacent route as it would appear you have done, fix your rope at the anchor, then descend the fixed line to your desired location. doing so will allow you to jug the line to get more shots from different angles/locations adjacent to the route your talent is occupying. again, key is to use a rope bag such that you will be able to control the content in your frame, as well as keeping yourself from interfering with the talent's ascent. You could even swing over to the route, clip a bolt to position yourself, thereby allowing for straight-down shots with minimal interference.
the PS thing, well... that's a whole 'nother day
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kriso9tails
Jul 20, 2007, 1:33 AM
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These are some pretty hamfisted edits, and quite likely overdone on parts, but I can only muster three minutes of effort for all people that aren't me. You get the gist though.
Mild saturation increase.
Dodged climber's face. Fixed curves (dodging can flatten things a bit).
Moderate curves boost for climber
Mild curves boost overall, raised red a little more in the mid tones.
Burned area around climber excluding his line of sight.
Blurred background.
(This post was edited by kriso9tails on Jul 22, 2007, 10:10 PM)
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stymingersfink
Jul 20, 2007, 3:07 AM
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kriso9tails wrote: These are some pretty hamfisted edits, and quite likely overdone on parts, but I can only muster three minutes of effort for all people that aren't me. You get the gist though. Mild saturation increase. Dodged climber's face. Fixed curves (dodging can flatten things a bit). Moderate curves boost for climber Mild curves boost overall, raised red a little more in the mid tones. Burned area around climber excluding his line of sight. Blurred background. [img]https://cpweb33.idig.net:2083/viewer/home/kfeen/temp%20files/336820-work-181_8133d-1%20copy.jpg[/img]
sorry kris, that site won't serve up the pic without a login and password... any chance you could fix that? I'm curious how much you can accomplish in three minutes of photo-retouching.
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kriso9tails
Jul 20, 2007, 3:28 AM
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stymingersfink wrote: sorry kris, that site won't serve up the pic without a login and password... any chance you could fix that? I'm curious how much you can accomplish in three minutes of photo-retouching.
I stuck it in the wrong folder. Should be okay now, but if not, the short answer is, you can't do much in three minutes. I can see glaring errors looking at it, but like I said... it's the gist of it.
(This post was edited by kriso9tails on Jul 20, 2007, 3:45 AM)
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melekzek
Jul 20, 2007, 5:05 AM
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kriso9tails wrote: Mild curves boost overall, raised red a little more in the mid tones.
I like the original better since it has an alpine feeling, whereas your edit feel like a sunny crag climb.
kriso9tails wrote: Blurred background.
A touch might be good, but this is overdone imho. Nothing beats a tight DOF from the lens itself...
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kriso9tails
Jul 20, 2007, 6:23 AM
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melekzek wrote: kriso9tails wrote: Mild curves boost overall, raised red a little more in the mid tones. I like the original better since it has an alpine feeling, whereas your edit feel like a sunny crag climb.
it is a sunny crag climb, isn't it? I still think it needs a curves adjustment regardless because the original displays a little flat. The contrast could still be upped but perhaps without additional red, or maybe even a little more blue.
While we're at it, I blew the colours on his face out pretty bad, which I think is the worst issue, but the darkness of the climber compared to the scene was one of my two major issues with an other wise pretty solid image.
melekzek wrote: kriso9tails wrote: Blurred background. A touch might be good, but this is overdone imho. Nothing beats a tight DOF from the lens itself...
It's definitely overdone, and there should be some gradation and refinement to it, but that brings me to my second issue that the image is too busy and my eyes lock somewhere in the middle. The excessive blur creates a similar issue, mostly because it makes the belayer a little hard to make out and removes some of the sense of dimension. Instead of reducing focus on the bottom left it just sort of canceled it out, Even so, if it were my image I'd add a certain amount of blur.
Also, while we're on it, I was sloppy with the burn tool.
(This post was edited by kriso9tails on Jul 20, 2007, 6:26 AM)
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trebork2
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Jul 22, 2007, 7:52 PM
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I like the first one better. The second one is too warm. I think it looks good. The only thing I could suggest is getting your rope and draws out of the shot.
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vertical_planar
Jul 25, 2007, 8:07 AM
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Ok everyone, thanks for the ideas. With some I agree with some not.
Here is what I think
1. I don't find the rule of thirds is applicable here. if you put the climber anywhere else than the center of the picture the long reach looses its dynamic.
2. The washed-off colors were pretty accurate. The shot was taken in the afternoon on a north facing marble quary. Light conditions were pretty bad. I
Blues where a bit higher on the original (typical on my camera) so I reduced them a bit.This is still obvious as a blue hue on the (normaly) white marble stones at the base of the cliff. Could not get rid of it without meshing up with the rest of the colors.
I thought about the articifial DoF effect too (PS CS2 has an excellent lens blur) but due to the multiple levels of perspective it looked fake to blur only the base of the climb. It also took out the sence of scale and the wow effect which is particularly strong on non climber viewers. So I kept it as it was
I find the dodging suggested by kriso9tails very effective. The face stands out better like this.
finally about the rope it seems to bother every climber viewer of the photo but on the other hand most non climber viewers seem to like it there.
I find it very interesting how some of my climbing photos become popular on photo.net or flickr while they are completely ignored on rc.com or the opposite.
Anyway, thanks again for all the ideas/ opinions!
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kriso9tails
Jul 25, 2007, 6:49 PM
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Just a note on the blur, whether you use it or not in this instance, the lens blur feature (in isolation at least) isn't really a reliable way to mimic depth of field. If I had the time I'd spend more than a couple minutes, but it has to be done with a gradient mask... actually, probably two or even three on seperate layers with possible sharpening for the base layer.
And a second note: dodging the face was bad beta (I'm a lazy ass, what can I say?). It's better to adjust for the the face in levels, stepping back to the original in the history palette and then painting the adjusted levels back in with the history brush. This way it won't flatten the face or screw it up when trying to bring the contrast back up.
As for colour, what was it you initially wanted to fix? I thought you wanted the blue to orange thing you had going on there, but if all you wanted to do was to drop the blue from the base then it should be relatively easy, especially if the marble is truly white.
(This post was edited by kriso9tails on Jul 25, 2007, 10:32 PM)
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melekzek
Jul 25, 2007, 10:28 PM
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vertical_planar wrote: I find it very interesting how some of my climbing photos become popular on photo.net or flickr while they are completely ignored on rc.com or the opposite.
Because there is no decent way to navigate the photo galleries right now. Sort by date only, what a joke
(This post was edited by melekzek on Jul 26, 2007, 6:17 AM)
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vertical_planar
Jul 26, 2007, 6:25 AM
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kriso9tails wrote: And a second note: dodging the face was bad beta (I'm a lazy ass, what can I say?). It's better to adjust for the the face in levels, stepping back to the original in the history palette and then painting the adjusted levels back in with the history brush. This way it won't flatten the face or screw it up when trying to bring the contrast back up
I am not sure I know what you are talking about but sounds like good advice (!) I ll try it :)))
(This post was edited by vertical_planar on Jul 26, 2007, 6:25 AM)
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vertical_planar
Jul 26, 2007, 6:27 AM
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melekzek wrote: vertical_planar wrote: I find it very interesting how some of my climbing photos become popular on photo.net or flickr while they are completely ignored on rc.com or the opposite. Because there is no decent way to navigate the photo galleries right now. Sort by date only, what a joke
Not entirely sure thats the only reason but anyway I agree the galleries need a better sorting method (by views etc)
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kriso9tails
Jul 26, 2007, 7:16 AM
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vertical_planar wrote: kriso9tails wrote: And a second note: dodging the face was bad beta (I'm a lazy ass, what can I say?). It's better to adjust for the the face in levels, stepping back to the original in the history palette and then painting the adjusted levels back in with the history brush. This way it won't flatten the face or screw it up when trying to bring the contrast back up I am not sure I know what you are talking about but sounds like good advice (!) I ll try it :)))
To be more explicit (forgive me for the parts where I tell you stuff you already know):
i) Open the file.
ii) Open levels.
iii) Make adjustments for the area you want to correct, in this case the face, and most likely you'd want to pull the middle arrow on the slider under the little histogram to the left a bit and the left arrow to the right a bit.
iv) Go to the history pallet and highlight the first item ("Open")
v) Click the box to the left of where your levels adjustment appears in the history pallet (a brush icon should appear in the box).
vi) Select the history brush and paint the areas you want the levels adjustment to apply to (so in this case the face).
vii) If you find your levels adjustment was too much and you want to tone down the effect without redoing everything, go into the menus: edit --> fade history brush
viii) if you bugger up or want to clean up what you painted in with the history brush, it's easiest to just 'undo' but you can also select the eraser, check the 'erase to history' box and so long as you check the box next to 'Open' in the history pallet so the brush icon appears there, you can erase back to the original state.
You can do pretty much the same thing with a masked duplicate layer, which is way easier to edit, but for this sort of edit it adds needless file size.
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vertical_planar
Jul 26, 2007, 9:35 AM
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Thanks dude!
Learned something today. Did not know how the history brush works.
Good advice -Thanks again
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