Abstract B&W

[Ultra Magnus]

What do you guys think? I was just experimenting after the sun went down with some slow shutter shots and ended up with this, well almost. Some PS went into it afterwards..

[OldSchool]

Hey bmadau,
Another interesting shot. Thanks.

The main distraction for me is (I think) the artifacts introduced in PS looking at the white background. Look at your original. I think the color would be a lot smoother. One thing I have learned is that it is very important to review areas of consistent color/texture after each PP step.

BR,
tim

[Ultra Magnus]

Do you think you could show me what artifacts you are referring to? Maybe take my image, circle or hi-light the offending areas, if you have the time. I am eager to learn! I suspect what you refer to may be caused by the relatively noisy image from my camera and the large amounts of unsharp mask I applied.

Thanks for taking to time to look.

[jar_e]

A great idea, yet I think I'd crop some stuff out. There's alot of movement going on, yet the black and white does help that. Interesting shot, great concept though,

Jared

[gahspidy]

I think your on to a good idea here with your slow shutter in creating abstracts. Do not use too much unsharp mask as it really does not sharpen, only increases contrast around the edges and actually breaks an image down if used too much. In this image, I would think you would not need much if any sharpening at all as it is abstract and blurry . Experiment with some more shots like these as i think you can get some strong images out of this idea. Keep it up.

[Ultra Magnus]

Thanks for the suggestions. I will keep playing with this idea. I've had it in my head for a while and this is the first presentable image I've captured so far.

[OldSchool]

Hi bmadau,

Check out the sandy texture within the circle. I think this is a result of over sharpening. I'll bet a donut that your original has a more creamy texture here. This typically occurs as a result of (strong) sharpening.

One way to avoid this is increase the "threshold" value in your USM dialogue box. The threshold is the difference between adjacent areas (pixels) before sharpening is applied. Thus, a large threshold will leave things of similar color unaffected by the sharpening (like a sky for example).

Another way to avoid this is to work with a selection (just sharpen the selection). Because you have such a large difference in value between your subject and background, it would be pretty easy to use some "magic" wand type selection here.

That's all. I may be totally out to lunch on this one though (I do that often). If so, I owe you a donut. :^).
Cheers,
Tim

[Ultra Magnus]

Thanks a lot. I'll play around some more and see what I can do with it. I just recently learned some about the curves command and using the channel mixer for B&W conversion so I could probably do better. Thanks for all the suggestions.

[GB1]

Great idea --- the wind adds a new touch to the photograph. I like the black and white but feel that it would've worked in color too. Nice job

GB