Which Landscape is a Better Photo?

[jbkalla]

Or are neither one of them cropped right?

<edit> SEE PICS BELOW. (originals removed due to color conversion issues)

[beachgirl]

Beautiful shots. Why did you crop them? I'm guessing the tree's?I have friends in colorado. I think we need to visit them.
I like #2.
Jenny

[flyb0y]

#1 for me. All that white snow on the left of #2 is so bright it kinda distracts my eye.

[ImagineTNT]

Compositionally I like #1 better because it seems more balanced (focal point hits top 1/3 horizontal line) as opposed to #2 where the eye is drawn to the white snow whic is close to the top of the photo. I also like the subtler framing effect of #1 where the U shaped foreground trees frame the mountain nicely. #2 seems like it has more "dead" space where the eye gets lost and doesn't have anywhere to go.

[jbkalla]

Thanks, all! I agree with you that the blown-out snow is distracting. I also didn't like the dead space in the second crop.

Jenny, you're right. I cropped them because the trees were there in the foreground (and a guard-rail). I think I took the shots framed like that on purpose, but I don't remember for sure. It was only with my poor old S50 P&S, so only 5MP and not any real bokeh abilities! :-)

[solus]

I prefere the 1st one

[KO_300D]

#1 for me too - just the right balance of colour and texture. In the 2nd I feel there is too much dead space in the middle.

[jbkalla]

Holy cow! I just noticed how bright and saturated these look! They weren't that way before. Did my monitor go out of calibration or did I just convert the colorspace wrong? Yikes!!! I'm going to repost them...

[jbkalla]

OK. Hopefully these are correct! I converted from the original Adobe1998 to sRGB...

[jbkalla]

OK. This is annoying! They're still more saturated than when I see them in Photoshop. I converted them to sRGB, so what am I doing wrong?

Damn. Thought I had this down...

[newbie_photog]

I like #1 color and all. Reminds me of Fuji velvia slide film. #2 seems unbalanced.

[jbkalla]

Thanks, everyone for your comments! I think I'm going to search for a post on converting color profiles. Or maybe the info I need is in the posting instructions. I'm going to check all that out before I post again. Sorry for the eye-bleeding colors! :-(

[sugarzebra]

Hi John, I like the first as well. The second has too much 'framing tree' on the right, but if you reduce it, it looks funny without the trunk. It perhaps works if you take it out completely as then the tree line on the left almost bisects the frame diagonally. You sure live in a beautiful part of the country.

[Tee Why]

I personally prefer more framing by the trees. Out of the two, I like 1 better.

[jbkalla]

Thanks, all. I just recalibrated my monitors, so I'm going to attempt to get properly saturated pics up later. AUGH! Color calibration is a pain!!!

You know, the right monitor now looks pink! WTF?

[ImagineTNT]

I had this problem once... have you tried previewing the photos for RGB? (CTRL+Y) I had that problem for a little while. Also, for some reason on my 20D I had the saturation setting bumped all the way up (+2) and when I turned it down to +1 the colors came out better.

[jbkalla]

I had this problem once... have you tried previewing the photos for RGB? (CTRL+Y) I had that problem for a little while. Also, for some reason on my 20D I had the saturation setting bumped all the way up (+2) and when I turned it down to +1 the colors came out better.

Thanks, ImagineTNT! I'll try that later tonight. My XT is set for Adobe1998 (though I don't think that matters with RAW, right?) and so is PhotoshopCS2. The pics look fine on my computer, but when I do a "Save As" or and ImageReady Save, the contrast and saturation increase substantially. BTW, this is AFTER I've converted the pic over to sRGB colorspace. I'd like to keep using Adobe1998 Colorspace, but this is really annoying. I'd hate to have to desaturate/de-contrast after I have the picture where I want it, especially since I'd just be guessing at the final product.

Oh, and before anybody asks (cuz I know that's the first thing I'd ask!): Yes, I did CONVERT, not ASSIGN to sRGB!

Other info: Just re-calibrated my monitors (Samsung 19" and Mitsu 18"). For some reason, the Mitsubishi has a pink tint to it, so I'll have to do that one again. I'm running MacOS X 10.4.6.

Anybody else have these problems? :-(