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Old 01-30-2011, 07:32 AM
 
Location: on top of a mountain
6,992 posts, read 12,637,787 times
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appears to have more "vibrance" or warmer colors and a small amount of filler light in the middle photo.
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Old 01-30-2011, 09:11 AM
 
Location: Rust'n in Tustin
3,124 posts, read 3,823,279 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Floyd_Davidson View Post
I'd expect everyone agrees that the bottom one still has a lot of blue; but are the top and middle pictures actually better than your corrected image? And if so, is the color of the snow the only difference detectable?
Who the hell knows. I like the middle one better.

That's why I don't pp. When ever I go on vacation, 25 out of 100 pic's are "keepers". Good enough for me.

If I come back with 50 "keepers" I don't have time to pp all of them. I'd rather take beter pic's to start with.
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Old 01-30-2011, 10:10 AM
 
Location: Barrow, Alaska
3,539 posts, read 7,601,931 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ysr_racer View Post
Who the hell knows. I like the middle one better.

That's why I don't pp. When ever I go on vacation, 25 out of 100 pic's are "keepers". Good enough for me.

If I come back with 50 "keepers" I don't have time to pp all of them. I'd rather take beter pic's to start with.
If you like that middle one the best, it is purely because it has in fact been post processed! I doubt that anyone is going to suggest the middle image is not the best, but the questions I've posed ask what people can detect as the reason it is better. For you perhaps the question should be is it possible to get that effect straight out of the camera, or not? (There are two sides to that too... is it possible at all, and the other is can you do it?)

Whether or not to do post processing is a very subjective and very personal judgment call. Some people simply don't grok computers. It's not fun for them, and while they may well like the results better, it isn't worth the effort it takes.

That's an acceptable view to take if one is willing to also accept that it means your pictures are virtually never going to be the best they can be. If not so good is indeed good enough, that's okay. And that is exactly the case for snapshots intended to trigger wonderful memories! (I've got some faded polaroid shots from 40 years ago that cause the same effects in my mind today that they did originally. That is clearly "good enough"!)

The problem is when what someone wants is "good photography" and claims their pictures out of the camera would not benefit from post processing. There are actually professional photographers who say that, and they often enough cite Henri Cartier-Bresson, the inventor of photojournalism as we know it today, as their guiding example... totally unaware that he drove half a dozen darkroom technicians stark raving mad trying to make decent photos from the film he shot.

Absolutely 100% of all images benefit from being processed, and it is a simple fact that guessing at what the process should be before the shutter is released is not possibly as good as making a judgment of what processing looks best when the image has been taken and can be viewed. That is true if for no other reason than the proper processing for viewing on a computer is one thing and is very different for printing on paper. You can't get both correct "out of the camera" in a single image.

Incidentally, post processing does not necessarily take a lot of time. It does require learning how to do batch processing (which as noted above might not be something any given person is willing to do). I can literally post process 500 images in the same way I did the three copies of your picture in less than 10 minutes. It's something I do fairly often too. I only spend much time on images that I'm going to post to the web, and only spend significant time on images that will be printed (that might take a lot of time, depending on the image and the purpose).
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Old 01-30-2011, 05:08 PM
 
Location: Anchorage, Alaska (most of the time)
1,226 posts, read 3,634,669 times
Reputation: 1934
Quote:
Originally Posted by Floyd_Davidson View Post
The question is, which looks better, the top? the middle? or the bottom? and do any of them look better than ysr_racers' number 2? (And for the brave, what differences can you see between them and why is the one you like best actually better?)
I'll be different and say I like the first one the best. (Of course, if I view it on another screen I might feel differently - our screens are calibrated differently and my screen is currently a lot darker than usual since it's late and my eyes are tired of too much light against a dark background.)

I like the first one better because:

1) It resembles what I believe the scene would have looked like had I seen it with my eyes directly (second version looks too pink on my screen, and the bottom one looks too blue).

2) It looks more "natural" since more luminance appears to have been added to the second version (can't tell what tool you used though - fill light, curves, brightness/contrast etc. can all create that effect), while the third version has lost some luminance (the "glow" on the snow on the roughs shows that it must have been brighter out when the picture was taken than it is in the photo).

3) Eventhough it doesn't appear that you added either contrast or sharpness to the first picture, it is still better than the middle one that (for me) has had too much contrast added (I'm guessing you "sharpened" it through contrast and not a sharp mask because of the way the trees look - when I use Smart sharpen or whatever the tree tops usually look more narrow and pointy compared to when I use contrast for sharpening).

4) And also eventhough the first picture is a little low in colour, it is still better than the (a bit) oversaturated second version (I'm guessing you used Vibrance not Saturation as it doesn't appear as if the red in the cars have blown out. Granted, the walls are a bit oversaturated, but since I don't know if that effect was achieved already through the adding of luminance or contrast, I can't tell for sure what tool you used.)


I've been brazen enough I think, so I won't say what version of them all (ysr_racers' versions + Floyd's) I think looks the best. Short answer, I don't actually know. As you pointed out Floyd, they all look different. How about #2 of ysr_racers' pictures, and #1 of Floyd's.


(And it should be added to the discussion that if one does not want to make any alterations to what the camera ACTUALLY saw and took, then you need to shot RAW. Because if you shoot .jpeg, then the result you get on the screen is not what the camera actually saw and shot, but a version of that which the camera did while compressing the picture.

So when I shoot RAW and then alter it in ACR to achieve what I believe the scene actually looked like, then I am not better but also no worse than those of you who shoot .jpeg and think you got the "real" version.)
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Old 01-30-2011, 05:36 PM
 
Location: Rust'n in Tustin
3,124 posts, read 3,823,279 times
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At what point does a picture become a digital painting.? I've seen HDR pic's that look great, but bear no resembance to what the scene really looked like.

HDR is when you combine many images to make one.

This pic looks great, but it's probably 5 to 7 pic's combined.

When someone asks, "how can I take a picture like that", the answer is, "you can't".

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Old 01-30-2011, 06:01 PM
 
Location: Not far from Fairbanks, AK
20,243 posts, read 36,884,312 times
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ysr_racer

You have made good points, but one can get the most out of the camera by shooting RAW, the then processing this RAW image to look as close as possible as what you saw through the viewfinder when taking the photo. This is much like film in that one goes through the stages of processing by using chemicals, except that it can be done on the computer instead.

I do agree with you that one can go overboard processing an image to make it look "different" or just out of the norm.
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Old 01-30-2011, 06:07 PM
 
Location: Barrow, Alaska
3,539 posts, read 7,601,931 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Sweden View Post
I'll be different and say I like the first one the best. (Of course, if I view it on another screen I might feel differently - our screens are calibrated differently and my screen is currently a lot darker than usual since it's late and my eyes are tired of too much light against a dark background.)

I like the first one better because:

[...]
Wow, what a fabulous discussion! Anyone want to go through that and comment on Sweden's thoughts???

For right now I'll just say that she is very clearly an experienced eye and understands as well as anyone what she is looking at. The significance, when matched with what she got right and what she didn't, is very telling in terms of what it all means!

In fact I was fishing for a certain point to make, and was afraid until now that nobody would hit on it. Sweden hammered on it. But I'll wait a bit for others to comment before I give it all away and tell exactly what the distictions between all of the the various versions are, and what I think the significance of those distinctions actually is for the average photographer.
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Old 01-30-2011, 06:42 PM
 
Location: Naptowne, Alaska
15,603 posts, read 39,641,516 times
Reputation: 14881
All I know is she takes some very good photo's, and works hard at learning everything she can about photography. Very hard.
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Old 01-30-2011, 10:52 PM
 
941 posts, read 1,778,428 times
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To me one of the pictures has too much blue and that makes the snow look fake. But the reason the snow looks blue is it is reflecting the blue sky but your eye compensates for that without your realizing it. I also look to the red vehicle in the distance, the red taillights of the green pick up, the red of the closest vehicle and the red bricks to see what colors have been added or subtracted. To me the truck changes color when the blue is removed but then isn't green blue and yellow from your early art classes? The brick looks like it changes color as well but isn't orange red and yellow from your same art class? I look at this sort of problem from optical physics which to me means making shadows which is contrast and focus but then I'll need someone to tell me what was done with those two elements of color. After all color is one hue when all colors are present and black when no color is present. But note the flag never changes color and is that because it is so far from the source of the blue reflection? I also noted that the shadows of the trees indicate the sun is behind the camera and reflected light is polarized away from the camera. Does this mean anything?

Last edited by richelles; 01-30-2011 at 11:00 PM..
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Old 01-30-2011, 11:21 PM
 
Location: Interior alaska
6,381 posts, read 14,472,294 times
Reputation: 3520
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rance View Post
All I know is she takes some very good photo's, and works hard at learning everything she can about photography. Very hard.
Your very Lucky!
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