Sea Gulls

[grislybear5]

Took this picture while on board a BC Ferry going to Vancouver, BC. The picture is untouched except for framing. Your comments appreciated.

http://www.photosig.com/go/photos/view?id=1143939

Grisly

[Leighow]

This is a tough one.

We have all marveled at the sea and the gulls that follow the shrimp and fishing boats, etc.

So I played with this a few minutes in PS.
-- The image needs a bit more contrast (histogram is centered, but vacant at both ends.)
-- Then it seemed to me that left to right motion was stunted by the white clouds -- so I flipped the image horizontally.
-- Then I dropped the white frame and the image seemed a bit stronger.

That said on close it carries a sense of flight and freedom -- with gorgeous sky and white shades .. but... there is not quite enough content and mood here to lock our interest. I am not sure why. When I see a V of Canada Geese I get excited. Maybe these gulls need a somewhat different setting to take off (I have one where two are illuminated by the sun and hovering over a Heron-in-pond.).

Trying to help.

HOWIE

[grislybear5]

Howie,

Thanks very much for your feedback. I am new to photography and photo touchups. So every word is helpful.

I am not sure what you mean by 'histogram', in photography context. How do I view this and what does it represent?

Grisly

[ryuwulf]

in photoshop 6
I believe you choose image>>histogram

you can also view the levels which is basically the same slope as the histogram

ctrl + L

or image>>adjust>>levels

from there you can tweak your image.

nice pic by the way

[Leighow]

Howie,

I am not sure what you mean by 'histogram', in photography context. How do I view this and what does it represent?

Grisly

RYUWULF filled you in .. let me add a bit as I too am learning about this stuff.

You need PS or PSE (Pgotoshop Elements). Here you have a LEVELS control tht creates a histogram = a frequency distribution of the tone of all the pixels from black to white .

If that graph is not spread out and touching side-to-side, then in most cases the scene is a little light re full spread of "tones" and so it is recommended that you move the sliders so that they touch the left and right side of your image's graph and so set full black & full white points. Try it.

Also, depending on your camera , you will be able to see the histogram of the CCD in the field. Here you probably want to at least center the graph to get a better chance at a well exposed image. Check out the topic on The Luminous Landscape. It turns out that camera film/CCD's cannot respond to nature's full range of light (Black and White with Color). So, in a sense all shots are a bit of a poker shoot. When the CCD is challenged, it seems that underexposuse is better than overexposure and in such cases we can use levels to mine some of the details otherwise lost in the shade.

But these are just tools. You are the artist. You have to call the shots. For example, I often leave an image's histogram the way I like it (which is usually closer to what I think I saw than what the "best" rendition might be. I felt that way a bit with your shot. Shooting up like that at gulls and in sea light produces a bright image. Levels darkens the birds and the wings a tad and brightens the cloud and sunlite wings -- and does more than nature may have done at the location.

[grislybear5]

ryuwulf & Howie

Thank you for sharing your knowledge. I tried adjusting the Levels on the my Seagulls photo, and it does slightly brightens up the photography. In the next day or so I will upload a revised version so that you can critique my PS work. (still looking for a free online repository of photos)

Howie: you quite rightly mentioned that 'you are the aritist'. The challenge is to be a good artist and produce quality that most people would admire. Having a good eye is important. I am what a good eye is or whether I have one or not!

I have viewed both of yours photographs and noticed that they are highly appealling. Do you alway have to touch up your photos? If so what are tricks or workflows you generally use on your photos?

Thanks.

Grisly.

[ryuwulf]

hello leighow,

longtime no critique :D

just playing


grisly,

the best thing to do is to get the picture right the first time. PS is just a helper tool. Just like the term digital darkroom.

Practice makes perfect.

[Leighow]

ryuwulf & Howie
Do you alway have to touch up your photos? If so what are tricks or workflows you generally use on your photos?
Grisly.

GRISLEY

I think that you will find a lot of info on workflow at a number of resources.
I think (I am not positive) thsat Luminous Landscape offers some help, maybe Don Ellis (at his website), this site (past posts), and others.

I touch up a G2 image anyway I want,
and I usually touch them all 'cause that is the magic of a digital darkroom. Frankly, I never get them right the 1st time. My work flow usually invloves:

1: Crop
2: Consider any other physical changes that I want via rotation
3: Recrop
2: Adjust bightness and contrast via levels or curves or a review of the B & W image in Lab mode (sometimes here I use brightness and contrast).
3: Then I concentrate on the color issues. I will alter hue and saturation, or adjust levels via "Options" to bring the color back to what my mind's eye remembers
4: I may alter color balance a tad to warm an image.
5: I try to remember to save the original before sharpening as prints et al require alterations to file size as well as sharpening
6: I alter image size for posting on the forum
7: I sharpen before posting.


Here is an example that I cooked up in the past hour for this thread.

Here is the original image:
http://members.rogers.com/hleigh/IMG2.jpg

Following the above flow I:
- cropped out the small tree,
- rotated to straighten the trees (they seemed to be off a tad as I had not paid attention to same inthe field), Byu the wat I did the rotation becasause I have this "idea fixee" that the movment should be lft to right!
- recropped following the rotation
- upped (a tad the yelows and reds
- downed a lot the blues and cyans ( some say that this is taboo -- but I never "see" snow this blue!)
- warmed the color balance (i.e. i added yellow and red to all the image (shadows, highlights and mid tones). This was a matter of taste as it was a cold blue day !. I kind of like the warming
-- and I think that I forgot to sharpen either image !

http://members.rogers.com/hleigh/IMG1.jpg