The Belgium Club

[Don Schaeffer]

[PlantedTao]

Looks like a really bright day, so some of the tones in front are a little harsh. If you could soften that area up, not have it so harsh...maybe burning in the midtones a little more, you would have a nice shot. I would also like to see just a bit more detail in the soldier, but that is pretty minor. I do like the composition. Most monument photos don't work for me because they concentrate on the monument and this has a nice mix.
Overall I like it, I think better lighting conditions would have help, bu we can't always have that

Did you clone something out of the background by the pole?
Cheers.

[Don Schaeffer]

OOH you caught me on the clone--some wires and a street sign. I did up the contrast on this a bit, maybe too much. Thanks Tao

[Sebastian]

I love the inclusion of the monument's context. Too often a photo of an interesting statue just ends up being a snapshot of ultimately someone else's work.

Techically, the shot looks highly enlarged (digital zoom?) and oversharpened. The cloed area stands out quite a bit, I suggest cloning from a part of the image with a similar pattern to minimize the distraction.

Overall, well done.

[Don Schaeffer]

Thanks Sebastian. I do have to be careful with the cloning. I think the noise (grain) appeared when I sharpened the image. It doesn't look bad in B&W.

[Sebastian]

Yeah, the grain appears to be due to sharpening. I suggest you save the sharpening step for the very last step before adding borders and saving for the web.

[Don Schaeffer]

The problem is I sharpened after cloning. The cloned part got sharpened without "grain."

[GB1]

Hi Don - Decent composition. Like Tao mentioned, it seems hard to get great shots of statues because there's not much happening dynamically. However, it still seems a tad bit cut-off to me in the bottom rock area near the statue's head.

Also, I'll vote here against the sharpening. The effect is pretty close to terrible here Yikes. I sharpen quite a bit and don't see this effect -- you must be oversharpening your shots. If you are scanning prints, one often has to sharpen.

If you are shooting digitally, then it should be pretty sharp already, cept the slight change you'd get when you re-size your photograph. If you are shooting digitally and it's not sharp, then you know your process of taking the shot (or equipment) is off. I suggest a tripod, faster shutter speed, smarter aperature and hyper-focal distance calc, etc. Hope this helps.

GB

[swmdrayfan]

What everyone else said, I'm just letting you know I saw it. This looks like a place to get some interesting captures.
John

[Anbesol]

yes id keep the sign and electrical lines there anyway.

[Don Schaeffer]

Thanks Anbesol. You may be right. But the sighn really did disturb the view.

[readingr]

Don,

I think you oversharpen your photos a lot. Other than that I love the way you captured the monument and its context.

I will dig out a USM technique I learnt ages ago where you duplicate the image, USM the bottom layer to about 100 - 150 with Threshold set to 1 and Pixels set to 1 and then you blend the two from the top layer by using the luminosity blend.

This gives you a load of sharpening without the harshness. I havent used in a while so will dig it out tonight and post.

Roger

[Don Schaeffer]

Thanks Roger

[readingr]

Don,

I think you oversharpen your photos a lot. Other than that I love the way you captured the monument and its context.

I will dig out a USM technique I learnt ages ago where you duplicate the image, USM the bottom layer to about 100 - 150 with Threshold set to 1 and Pixels set to 1 and then you blend the two from the top layer by using the luminosity blend.

This gives you a load of sharpening without the harshness. I havent used in a while so will dig it out tonight and post.

Roger

Don,

I remembered it pretty much but the thing is that you can take the sharpen from 100 - 200 and still get reasonable results. The rest of it is just as stated

Threshold 1-2
Pixels 1
Then set the layer to Luminosity for blending

Roger

[Tuna]

The overriding strength of this image is it's composition. The foreground and background are independent, and discovered as such - but work well together to tell the story.

Tuna

[Don Schaeffer]

Thank you Roger

Thanks Tuna