Train Tracks

[Damian75]

So I got board today and decided to go shoot some train tracks I saw the other day this is the only one I have processed so far it lost alot of detail in the compression sorry.

[Robert_Lay]

That is the best RR right of way picture that I have seen yet. What a moody picture!

Do you have any more work like this? Get it out here!

[Damian75]

Thanks I have a few more from that day I haven't processed yet will post as completed.

[dima1109]

Awesome shot and PP! :)

The only thing I would change is crop out a bit of the OOF area on the bottom

[<AkulA>]

I sort of like the OOF foreground - it really pushes your eyes down the tracks!

[Damian75]

I sort of like the OOF foreground - it really pushes your eyes down the tracks!

Thanks that was kinda what I was looking to do there is a blurred vignette on the image.

[Oliviero]

Great photo. However, perhaps you should consider putting your signature on the left hand side. It's rather disturbing as it is now.

[Damian75]

Great photo. However, perhaps you should consider putting your signature on the left hand side. It's rather disturbing as it is now.

Thanks I will give that a try it is something I have just started doing I usually don't put anything on them.

[1shot4u]

Great capture...I like it alot.

[Robert_Lay]

I sort of like the OOF foreground - it really pushes your eyes down the tracks!


Good point - I think there is something to be said for that argument. I am usually an advocate of sharpness everywhere excepting distracting backgrounds. However, in this case I think a slight blur helps with the appearance of 3-dimensionality.

[mpistone]

Great shot! I agree that the oof foreground is good, let's see the rest of them!

[HappySnapper90]

That is the best RR right of way picture that I have seen yet. What a moody picture!


But the whole look and mood were certainly created in photoshop, so IMHO it's more digital art than a photograph.

The thing is, the original photograph would have been rather ho-hum since the composition and elements in the posted image aren't very strong. My eye is quickly lead down the whole tracks which you are straight-lined on and I'm not kept in the image at all. This image has no "backstop" keeping the viewer's eye to the composition.

[Bill Boehme]

So I got board today and decided to go shoot some train tracks I saw the other day this is the only one I have processed so far it lost alot of detail in the compression sorry.

That is the best RR right of way picture that I have seen yet. What a moody picture!

Do you have any more work like this? Get it out here!

I agree with Robert wholeheartedly. The instant that I saw it, I was immediately drawn to it. Whether you were "board" (all aboard?) or "bored", you did a fantastic job. And ... the blurred foreground idea that was mentioned does work very well.

But the whole look and mood were certainly created in photoshop, so IMHO it's more digital art than a photograph.

Since there is no such thing as a digital image that does not require a considerable degree of post capture processing to even be viewable (such as demosaicing, gamma adjustment, white balance compensation, noise reduction, and input sharpening) whether the processing is done in-camera to produce a JPG image or in a RAW converter and image editing software, please explain how you determine the acceptance criteria for determining whether it may be considered a photograph or "digital art"? I am sure that you are also aware that before the days of digital photography, photographers such as Ansel Adams would sometimes spend hundreds of hours in the wet darkroom working on a single image ... doing dodging and burning to produce exactly the desired results.

Don't forget about the capture process. The shutter speed, aperture, and ISO speed all have a very pronounced impact on the appearance of the final result. This means that we can have a choice of depth of field and motion blur of the subject along with the inherent graininess of high ISO values. Is there such a thing a only one "right way" to capture an image?

All photographic images whether digital or film based, involves subjective judgment of humans to decide the end results. This includes the manufacture of film, of which there are various types, to produce various image characteristics. The design of digital sensors try to mimic film characteristics to a large degree with similar ISO speeds and comparable dynamic range. A digital camera's built in programming to process RAW data into a JPG file involves the designer's subjective judgment of what is desired for the end product.

[Woolburr]

This definitely earns a thumbs up....I really like the processing and the mood created by it. Like has been previously mentioned, it is the best RR r-o-w shot that I have seen to date. I would love to see the print.

[nightcat]

What a cool sinister mood. I like the strange sky in the background. Looks like were on another planet. GREAT shot (and (or) post processing) !

[Walczak Photo]

First let me say that like the others, I think this is a very lovely shot. The color, the mood, the composition...all very well done. The one negative comment that I would make here is that the shot does look a bit softer than it should be (and I'm not talking about the foreground...the whole image looks a bit soft). You said that you "lost a lot of detail in the compression"...if it were me, I would re-examine how you are doing this. Very simply there are a great MANY images posted here...-all- of which have been compressed to a jpeg format for posting on this forum (and elsewhere on the internet) and you don't typically see this kind of issue with a loss of sharpness or detail. Not trying to be rude here and admittedly I haven't seen the original, but if you're loosing that much detail in your conversion, I think you could be doing something wrong there.

BTW...I wouldn't sweat the signature thing. Your image, you have the right to "protect it" with a water mark. I'm not pointing fingers at anyone specifically here but typically it's been my experience that people who find a watermark distracting (assuming it's not just stamped across the whole image...and your's isn't) often folks who complain about a signature or a watermark have some "other" intent for the image.

Just my $.02 worth as always,
Jim

[rammy]

Great work, well done!

[Damian75]

But the whole look and mood were certainly created in photoshop, so IMHO it's more digital art than a photograph.

I agree that it is more art then journalism that being said there was nothing done to this image that I have not done in the past in a dark room and the end result shown here is what I envisioned when I took the shot set the exposure and DOF. And while I will agree that the starting photo straight out the camera while well exposed is nothing special with out post processing or darkroom manipulation I would have to wait for 3 mile island that is down the road to explode before I could get a shot with this look LOL. All art photography is manipulated and abstracted in one form or another be it a Polaroid transfer a dodge or burn or a contrast filter added to the enlarger that is what makes it art and not journalism. I once saw one of Adams landscapes that had been straight processed and printed and it looked flat and uninteresting it wasn't until the film was processed his way and printed his way that the image came to life. When we look at a scene we all strive to create the image that we see in our minds and modern digital tools allow more people that opportunity and I think that is a great thing.

[Damian75]

You said that you "lost a lot of detail in the compression"...if it were me, I would re-examine how you are doing this. Very simply there are a great MANY images posted here...-all- of which have been compressed to a jpeg format for posting on this forum (and elsewhere on the internet) and you don't typically see this kind of issue with a loss of sharpness or detail. Not trying to be rude here and admittedly I haven't seen the original, but if you're loosing that much detail in your conversion, I think you could be doing something wrong there.


I agree it was strange the file on my computer was reading a size of 148kb but when I uploaded it, it came up a 92kb I am still playing around with compression as portraits seem to compress better than landscapes for some reason. But yeah there is a problem somewhere in my compression workflow I made an 11X17 print that looks great but hey there is alway more to learn.;)

[HappySnapper90]

Since there is no such thing as a digital image that does not require a considerable degree of post capture processing to even be viewable (such as demosaicing, gamma adjustment, white balance compensation, noise reduction, and input sharpening) whether the processing is done in-camera to produce a JPG image or in a RAW converter and image editing software, please explain how you determine the acceptance criteria for determining whether it may be considered a photograph or "digital art"?

Really? I never to a "considerable degree" of "post capture processing" as you put it though I call it "developing" to my photographs. Though most of what you listed are probably done automatically by RAW converters.

My criteria is when most of the impact/appearance of the image was made/added after the data was recorded, it is digital art. Now if the OP used a picture style loaded in his camera that would be the same as loading a type of film into his camera, it'd be a different story. Like I said I do very little to my photographs as possible which is usually tweaking the WB to be as it looked and curve adjustments to balance the contrast.

IMHO, transforming a photograph into something completely different afterwards on a computer takes away from the element of photography and into digital art. It'd be the same as a sculptor being able to change the material and reflectance of a work after it was completed.

[Damian75]

Really? Now if the OP used a picture style loaded in his camera that would be the same as loading a type of film into his camera, it'd be a different story.


Sorry but that is hardly the same thing would you consider a sepia image digital art? There was no film you could load in a camera to produce sepia prints it is a toning process done at printing. I am not arguing that the image is art as apposed to journalistic photography but from a purist perspective any adjustment you make to the original RAW file constitutes manipulation. And in the digital age where it is not even possible to create B&W photos without manipulation of the source file the argument is for not. But I think this topic is best left to the RAW Post Processing Thread.

[HappySnapper90]

But I think this topic is best left to the RAW Post Processing Thread.

My original issue was the person that said it was the best train track image he had ever seen, and it was simply because of color adjustments, contrast all added on a computer because the composition and the elements in the photograph are not anything special. In fact it would be a rather bland photo without all that processing.

[Damian75]

My original issue was the person that said it was the best train track image he had ever seen, and it was simply because of color adjustments, contrast all added on a computer because the composition and the elements in the photograph are not anything special. In fact it would be a rather bland photo without all that processing.

I guess my question to you is would your opinion be the same had I shot it on film done all the adjustment in the darkroom then scanned the print to post it?

[Bill Boehme]

My original issue was the person that said it was the best train track image he had ever seen, and it was simply because of color adjustments, contrast all added on a computer because the composition and the elements in the photograph are not anything special. In fact it would be a rather bland photo without all that processing.

That's being very presumptive to suppose that you know the underlying reason when nothing about it was stated. I think that you are stating your own feelings about the image.

To address your comments about in-camera processing and RAW converter processing, there are no automatic settings save for the interpolation algorithms ... and those are proprietary for each manufacturer so, at the pixel peeping level, you can see differences in identical images made with different camera makes. The other processing in-camera and RAW image processing settings use arbitrary default values, but these all have provision to be user adjusted. The most significant of these is the shooting style parameter which is something that all camera makers use. Using different shooting styles is no different than post-processing manipulation in a photo editor or using darkroom methods to tweak an image. In addition to a number of built-in styles there are provisions for user created styles. To further complicate the picture, there is no industry standardization so Canon's Landscape style is not the same as Nikon's Landscape style, etc.

[Walczak Photo]

IMHO, transforming a photograph into something completely different afterwards on a computer takes away from the element of photography and into digital art. It'd be the same as a sculptor being able to change the material and reflectance of a work after it was completed.


I have to ask...would you consider someone such as...say Ansel Adams to be less of a "photographer" and more of "film" artist?

A lot of people seem to think that adjusting an image "on a computer" is some how cheating in some way because they seem to think that producing an image that is something other than what was captured, as you say "takes away from the element of photography". The problem with that mentality is that people have been "manipulating" photographic images -long- before computers were even around. All of the basic tools in Photoshop are based on techniques that were in many cases created many many years ago in darkrooms. I too began in Photography by learning darkroom techniques and as the OP said, there was nothing here that could not have been done just as easily in a darkroom.

Very simply, be it digital or film, virtually -every- image that makes it to a print has been "altered" in one way or another. Even in the case of photo journalism, the images have had color and contrast adjustments, are often cropped, etc.. Even in the old days of "glamor photography", a photographer would spend hours with something like an airbrush getting the images "just perfect" (you didn't really believe that all those lovely ladies in porn mags really had skin that was -that- flawless did you? LOL). Let's look at issues such as saturation for example...ever compare an image shot with Kodachrome vs. Fuji Velvia? In this case, your images have been altered before you even load the film into the camera! Wait...let's talk about color filters or polarizers or ND filters...would you consider -that- cheating? They do after all alter the image as well. Even your most basic snap shots are "altered" to one degree or another. Let's say for instance that you take a picture on your digital camera and you -never- touch it in a program such as Photoshop...you take your memory card out of your camera, take in into your local 1 hour photo joint, pop the memory card into a kiosk and order some 4x6 prints. Your image -still gets processed-. Automatic adjustments are applied to the image to adjust levels, contrast, saturation etc.. If you take a roll of film into a lab, the exact same thing applies. That said, the difference between a professionally adjusted image is often that the photographer himself/herself usually does the adjustments as apposed to letting a lab adjust it for the person. A "darkroom" be it physical or virtual (aka a computer) is simply another tool for a photographer to express their creative vision....regardless of what type of photography they do.

Again I grew up (in photographic terms) with a dark room...there' isn't anything that I do in Photoshop that I couldn't do in a dark room. The difference (to me at least) is that instead of spending hours working with hazardous chemicals and sitting there with scissors and Elmer's glue in the case of my comps, I can sit here comfortably at my PC and produce the same results with much greater ease (and less headaches!).

You're comments imply that images that have been processed or altered in some way on a computer aren't "real" photographs and that they become something else...and you should expect that a lot of people are going to take some offense to this. For example you state, "My criteria is when most of the impact/appearance of the image was made/added after the data was recorded, it is digital art. Now if the OP used a picture style loaded in his camera that would be the same as loading a type of film into his camera, it'd be a different story"...why would this be sooooo different in your mind? Whether using a "picture style" or doing it in processing afterwards, the image is still altered....processing before or after...I'm sorry, but that's really splitting hairs. If the image had of been shot on film and altered later in the darkroom...again as -many- professional photographers have done for many many years, would you still consider it to be "art" as apposed to photography?

"Like I said I do very little to my photographs as possible which is usually tweaking the WB to be as it looked and curve adjustments to balance the contrast."While I won't specifically try to invalidate your opinion here...it is -your- opinion and your welcome to it, I can't honestly see where this is something to really brag about either. To me, the process of processing is about making your images the very best that they can be. In my mind, be it darkroom or digital, it's not about "who can make an image in the least amount of steps", it's about creating the nicest image that you can. When I put on an exhibtion of my work, 95% of the people who look at my work don't stand there and say "Gee...I wonder if that image was altered in Photoshop?"...they look at the image and either they like it or they don't. If they like it, regardless of -how- I processed it or how many steps I used to achieve the final image, they buy it...I make money. Telling people that I did that shot "au natural" with no adjustments what so ever, would NOT change that.

Not to steal the op's thread here but to give you a very specific example, here's a shot I did of my parents dog...

http://www.bytephoto.com/photopost/data/500/1839Lady_Test_Portrait_01.jpg?5298

This shot was of course, extensively manipulated in Photoshop. In the original shot, the dog was sitting in front of my parents minivan and as a result, she had a blue & silver bumper growing out of her ears! In this case, because this was the pose I wanted, I shot the background separately and added it later in Photoshop. Yes, I could have sat there with an Exacto knife trimming a print of this image, pasted that onto a print of the new background (after doing some Gaussian blur and exposure matching on the back ground in the darkroom), then re-shot the image...doing it in Photoshop was -MUCH- easier to say the least! Why use a hand saw when you can use a laser guided power tool for the same job! To be even more to the point, when I gave a framed print of this image to my parents as a gift, they did not see it as "digital art" the way you would have, they saw it as a wonderful shot of "my little sister" that they have proudly hanging on their living room wall. Incidentally, this shot (and the background) were shot with a Sony H1 and not a DSLR with expensive glass...something that a lot of people also seem to get really anally retentive about.


You seem to think that if you "do it at the camera" that it's all fine and dandy and that some how this preserves the sanctity of photography but very simply it's not about what you do at the camera or in the darkroom or on a computer, it's about creating the nicest possible images that others are going to see.

Now in all fairness here I will add that in "photo jounalistic terms", that image processing should be kept to a minimum. While I won't go into specific details, I have a family history with the printed page and as such I do have a -very- deep respect for good photo journalism. If a person for example adds elements to an image that otherwise didn't exist and that image is going to be used in a magazine or in a newspaper, etc., to me that is certainly wrong. That said however, not ALL photographs are supposed to be photo journalistic in nature...nor should they be. The OP's image was clearly not intended to be photo journalistic or to represent some "factual event" (at least as far as I know!)...and even with photo journalism, there is nothing wrong with bringing out the elements of an image that are there to add impact to the shot using the tools that are available such as the OP did here.

I realize that there are people here who seem to think that anything done to an image that doesn't involve the camera itself is something other than "photography" but it is -my- opinion that this is a horribly mis-guided attitude and very narrow minded. Computer or darkroom or lab, images have been altered for years and will continue to be. This isn't a disadvantage or something to be "ashamed" of. Like the camera itself, Photoshop and similar programs are just another tool towards creating great images. Except for my previous comments in regards to the sharpness/detail issue, the OP did a -wonderful- job with this image...and should be very proud of it!

Lastly, I would like to say that I do get people who when I tell them that I do my own processing in Photoshop will say, "Isn't that cheating?" and my response is simply "Would you consider Ansel Adams to be a cheater? After all he invented many of the processes that we "digital" artists use now a days". If a person wants to be anally retentive about doing everything at the camera, that's certainly their choice (and their loss) but don't critisize others for using the tools that are available to them to enhance the quality of their images.

Just my (extended) $.02 worth,
Jim

[HappySnapper90]

This shot was of course, extensively manipulated in Photoshop. In the original shot, the dog was sitting in front of my parents minivan

That's my issue. When people see a photograph, they traditionally expect that it appears as it was in reality when you've just stated you moved the dog to a fake/different background. Just like the box of PHotoshop Elements showing how you can move grandma from her couch to the beach with a bit of work. Wouldn't it have been far less work to just take the dog to the backyard to shoot it in the first place? :D

This is why people have to ask "are these photographs?" when they walk into my booth at art shows. Because they know/have seen what people can do with photoshop - create what didn't exist.

[Walczak Photo]

That's my issue. When people see a photograph, they traditionally expect that it appears as it was in reality when you've just stated you moved the dog to a fake/different background.

And this is my point exactly...virtually no photograph, Photoshop'd or otherwise is exactly "what you see in reality" and they never have been. More over, it simply doesn't matter to most people in any substantial way. In fact as a matter of specifics, often what you see in reality isn't what you see in reality anyways...color, contrast, lighting...all highly subjective things dependent solely on this thing we call human perception....no two people see a given scene -exactly- the same way. When it comes to "reality" in terms of photography, it's simply a perception. None of my photos are exactly what you see in reality...they look "natural" (at least that's my goal) but that's a different issue.

Now, let's be quite clear here...if I had not of said that this image of mine was a manipulation, would you have really known? Honestly? At the risk of sounding a tad bit arrogant here, my guess is no...you probably would not have known. So had I of posted this image elsewhere without any mention of the manipulation, would it really have mattered -at all- as to how I achieved it? How exactly does knowing this image was actually a composite detract from the actual image itself? Because you now know that the image was in fact a composite, somehow you feel "cheated"...somehow that I was less than "honest" with the subject matter, but if you had not of known, it would NOT have made any difference at all...dude...it's a perception and nothing more.


Just like the box of PHotoshop Elements showing how you can move grandma from her couch to the beach with a bit of work. Wouldn't it have been far less work to just take the dog to the backyard to shoot it in the first place? :DYes and no. In my case at least, unlike a person where you can "pose" them...tell them that you want that exact same position with that exact same expression...often times with dogs, the expression is simply a moment. I could have shot for days or weeks and not gotten the same expression on the dogs face. Other good and usable ones, yes but not the same expression. In addition to that, I only have limited time to work with this (or most) specific subjects...my parents live 45 minutes from my house so driving back and forth and back and forth hoping to get this same expression could easily end up costing me far more time and effort than the time I spent at the PC. So "far less work"? No...not really.

In addition to this, I shoot -a lot- of pictures of dogs at places like local dog parks. In most cases, this isn't an ideal setting at all...there's fences, gravel, cars parked outside the fence, etc., so again I will alter the images to create the best final prints that I can...and the people who buy the prints -love- them! They don't really care that I may have replaced the gravel and fences with something more aesthetically appealing, they look at the shots of their dogs and say "Wow!".

This is why people have to ask "are these photographs?" when they walk into my booth at art shows. Because they know/have seen what people can do with photoshop - create what didn't exist.I simply have to say here that while Photoshop is a very powerful tool, it's not "magic". It doesn't "create what didn't exist", at least in regards to typical photographic images. Using my dog image again as an example, I didn't just sit down in front of my computer, open Photoshop, click a button and have a picture of a dog materialize on my monitor. I, the photographer, had to take that image of the dog in the first place. I had to frame and focus the camera, expose the image with a relative degree of proficiency, work with the subject, pay attention to the lighting...and all the other "little things" that are required to capture a good image to start with. I then had to take the second image to use as the background -and- do so in a way that it would work with the first image to provide a seamless and natural look. These subjects in both images I shot...the dog and background both had to exist in order for me to capture them and combine them into a single shot. To have simply created this image graphically and completely without the photographic images, the end result would -NOT- have looked like a photograph...it looks like a photograph because it -is- a photograph (2 of them) taken -by a photographer-.

Again you have a terrible misconception about this. In your mind you seem to think that because something is done in Photoshop, that somehow that makes the final image something other than what has been done traditionally in this thing we call photography. Again using Ansel Adams as a prime example here...do you really believe that when you are looking at an Adams image such as his work from Yellowstone or Yosemite, do you really believe those famous images were printed verbatim the way he shot them? The fact that his more famous work is all b&w suggests that these images were NOT exact reproductions of the scene that Adams actually saw with his own eye....that does not however detract from their beauty in the slightest. If Adams had of shot these with a digital color camera then converted them to b&w (the way so many people do today), would -that- detract from their beauty? Certainly not! And again, Adams invented many of the tools and processes that photographers use today in programs such as Photoshop. Photographic images have been "retouched" and manipulated loooooooong before computers were around but somehow you see a person who does their work in Photoshop as something bad and something other than photography.....

You clearly have a bias against using Photoshop to make your images their very best. That's your choice and certainly your loss. If you were truly that much of a purist though, you shouldn't be using digital anyways...go get yourself a Kodak "Brownie" and have a ball. You also seem to be of the opinion that somehow your work is better than others who use tools like Photoshop because somehow you feel it's a more "pure" form of Photography (ya just gotta love elitist snobbery!)...and I'm sorry here but that's just plain rubbish for all the reasons I've already explained. To you it seems to be about doing everything at the camera end with little consideration for the rest of the process, otherwise it's something other than "photography" where as for a great many of us, it's about the final output and simply creating nice images...and if photography isn't about creating nice, beautiful, dramatic or otherwise interesting images as well as capturing a moment in time or telling a story, then what's the point? In my mind the term "photography" isn't solely about using a camera, it's about the -process- of creating imagery and that process includes everything from the click of the shutter to the way the image is processed to the final output.





It's quite clear that no one here is going to change your mind about any of this but the general consensus appears to be that most people think that processing an image is a good thing if it creates a good final image. Either way, the OP created a very fine image and all of your hair splitting over perceptions and definitions isn't going to change that.

Have a nice day.

[Damian75]

This is why people have to ask "are these photographs?" when they walk into my booth at art shows. Because they know/have seen what people can do with photoshop - create what didn't exist.

I think you are trying to lump art photography and photojournalism together and they are not the same thing it is like saying that only documentaries are movies and that anything with a special effects shot is not a real movie. Art is abstract that is what makes it art otherwise it is simply are record of an event in time but if you adjust your DOF to bring focus to as section of the time you have made it abstract you have changed it from how it originally was. And you don't need photoshop to create what didn't exist take a look at the work of Jerry Uelsmann he has been doing this since long before photoshop I took his class in college.
http://www.uelsmann.net/
also check out some of the tilt shift photography on this forum.

[Woolburr]

My original issue was the person that said it was the best train track image he had ever seen, and it was simply because of color adjustments, contrast all added on a computer because the composition and the elements in the photograph are not anything special. In fact it would be a rather bland photo without all that processing.

Is there some particular reason why you feel it necessary to belittle the OP's work? While it might not suit your tastes, numerous others have commented that they find it very appealing. Your initial slam of the image was ample. I am fairly sure that no one has appointed you as the sole arbiter of photographic good taste and for that...I am very grateful. :rolleyes: