Critique please =)

Grabbed this shot in an old barracks room at Fort Mchenry. It was the guard shack. I really like the natural light and added some film grain to take the photo back a little.

Drakeskakes wrote in post #10720539
Grabbed this shot in an old barracks room at Fort Mchenry. It was the guard shack. I really like the natural light and added some film grain to take the photo back a little.

It's got the feel of an atmospheric image and I really like the simple composition, which does work well. I thought your image was a little flat in contrast and the highlights of the window were a tad burnt out. I had a couple of shots at it and darkened the wood in one shot while I had increased the contrast and the definition. I more or less left the sepia one to itself but tried to bring an old feeling to it.

hope this helps

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Ive always been a high contrast kinda photog but am constant getting told its overdone, so I backed it up. I like it though, how do u think it would work with vinettes, mild of course?

Drakeskakes wrote in post #10722299
Ive always been a high contrast kinda photog but am constant getting told its overdone, so I backed it up. I like it though, how do u think it would work with vinettes, mild of course?

Like all things photographic, contrast is just a tool to help you tell the story. It is not for nothing that images that can show a full range of tones are, generally speaking, regarded well. Not everything we can shoot requires high contrast but it is a decision by the photographer as to when contrast be exchanged for some other device to tell the story. I especially like the high contrast and deep shadows of chiaroscuro images but then I also like soft high key images. I don't tend to listen to people telling me what is good or bad and what is fashionable. I shoot images because I cannot paint or draw to save my life and I like the whole process of photography.

I had previously tried a couple of vignettes (hard and soft) because there is a natural one created by the pool of light on the wall. The attached file is based upon a very slow film type - Kodak Panatomic X (ISO 32) and it was brought to you by courtesy of SilverEfex Pro (Nik software) running as a plug-in under Aperture version 3.0.3. Is this what you had in mind?

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Not crazy about the white vingnettes. I'm really diggin ur first edit. I'm playing around in photoshop and getting the good contrast back, but I can't seem to get the same detail back in the wood. How did you go about doing that?

good job pixelmangler. my thoughts were the same as yours-- flat! nice fixes the first go. vignettes are (as nice as I can say) are lame, though.

Drakeskakes wrote in post #10724738
Not crazy about the white vingnettes. I'm really diggin ur first edit. I'm playing around in photoshop and getting the good contrast back, but I can't seem to get the same detail back in the wood. How did you go about doing that?

Selectively adjusting the values of the wood but in this case I cheated and used the rather easy to use Viveza 2 to bring both the detail and the contrast back into the image.

mcluckie wrote in post #10724760
good job pixelmangler. my thoughts were the same as yours-- flat! nice fixes the first go. vignettes are (as nice as I can say) are lame, though.

Sure thing.

The man had asked for a vignette, I did one. I just did the wrong one is all.