Beautiful Sunny Southern California

[Radtech1]

Sombody mentioned that So Cal has no photo opps....

I think that you just have to take what you can get. Please respond to this.

http://home.ripway.com/2004-2/78486/Canon/Cacti.jpg

[Leighow]

Well I am not sure what camera you are using but I think that the image does not really bring out that sun that you advertised. I see signs of the sun on the right hand edges of select plants, but the color tints , etc do not seem to drive it home.

The window and the plans do say dry climate however. Maybe a B & W would work better.

[Radtech1]

Thanks for the comment. I was actually trying to go for the bleached out, parched look. BUT - I did not want it to look TOO photoshopped. I decided against monochrome only because I my HD crashed and I lossed my good monochrome plugin. (Glad that I had all my photos backed up.) As far as the title, "Beautiful...." - well, I was being ironic, but I forgot to put a :? in the title. Anyways, here is the original - but do you think that I achived the look I was seeking? [BTW - part of Mission San Juan Capistrano. Most of the rest of the place is under reconstruction, so anything other than a tight shot reveals orange cones and Do Not Cross tape :evil: ]

http://home.ripway.com/2004-2/78486/Canon/CactiU.jpg

[Leighow]

GRACE

I am no whiz -- but this sems much better.

The greens in the plants are much more natural to my eyes.. you can see into the wondow a bit (and right thru the room) .. you bring out a yellow tint around the widow and across the wall that seems to me to be more convincing and that glows and is disperrsed along the apparent angle of the sun .. the cracks in the wall take less of our atention. The only comp issue to me is the cut-off plants bottoms (I guess there could be some bright Spanish color somewhere too!!!)

So I guess that it depends on what you saw with your own eyes. Certainly there is a dramatic change here -- the reduced ink-black colouring of the wall's surface cracks. And the sunny glow. If that's what you saw -- it is better than the camera's reaction. Camera's can be off !

PS:
I am judging this with my ultrabright Viewsonis Pro Series P95f mnonitor that I calibrared "by eye"!

PPS:
I am not sure what to say about PS overuse! Recently I have seen a few really profesionally printed B & W images. They were outstanding .. and .. it seems to me that they ewmbidies a quality that surpassed "nature" herself!