My next conundrum 1 lost photo, 2 bridges, 3 effects

[jetrim]

This shot was taken several years ago with my Canon A510 P&S. I'm pretty happy with the composition, but after trying several types of post processing can't decide which I like best. Anyone care to vote?
1. hard light overlay
2. Exclusion overlay
3. Difference overlay
all were 2 layers, 1 color & 1 black and white with various other misc. adjustments made

[draymorton]

#1, easily.

Did you try soft light or overlay?

[Frog]

Numero uno for me too thought the second one has some appeal.
As for the post processing, I have no idea what you're talking about.

[A.M.D.A.]

#1 for me as well, easily. It just looks more "natural", and I like the white clouds and blue sky peeking through. Only if there were more detail under the bridge, like the others. If Curves or Levels doesn't keep much detail, try some manual "dodging" to selectively lighten up areas.

The others are pretty neat, though I am not particularly fond of mud-filled clouds (LOL).

Composition-wise, I think they are OK. Maybe a little less cropping on the right, so that the structure ends up more off-centered? Just a thought.

[jetrim]

OK frog,
the PP info is the method of blending the two layers together to get an artistic effect.
The reason I do this with some photos (like this one) is that when printing it allows you to enlarge it a lot more. This shot is uncropped straight out of an old 3.1mp point and shoot, if I were to blow the original up to even 8x10 it would be a sloppy pixelated mess that looked like crap. Once you start adding some effect to it, you can go back with an edge preserving smooth function and it looks pretty darn good, even though it doesn't look exactly like a photo anymore.

Why this was a difficult choice for me...
1. Love the high contrast and strong color - hate the big black triangle on the left that's a product of high contrast and strong color

2. Love the "watercolor painting" effect, not so sure there's enough tonal difference to hold the viewer's attention

3. LOVE the purple stippled effect on the bridge, also not crazy about clouds the look like exhaust fumes from a fertilizer factory.

AMDA to get the shot any wider to the right will require another trip down to South Miami, and hopefully the parking lot this was shot from, is still a parking lot and not a high rise condo building, but I could certainly give it a shot (incidentally, this was from the same area that's shown in the opening scenes of "Scarface")

[jetrim]

#1, easily.

Did you try soft light or overlay?

Overlay was virtually identical to "hard Light" and soft light washed out all the detail in the clouds, making the upper right a big white blob.

[draymorton]

Overlay was virtually identical to "hard Light" and soft light washed out all the detail in the clouds, making the upper right a big white blob.

Yeah, that makes sense. Overlay is very similar to hard light. And soft light works incredibly well on some things and horribly on others.

I really like what you've got going on in #1.

[Shebang]

My two cents...

#1 gets my vote. I think it captures the contrast of the soft fluffy of nature's clouds to the hard straight of the man-made structures best. I like the composition.
#2 not enough contrast between sky & bridge for me color-wise and texture-wise
#3 colors don't work for me for two reasons -- I don't like these colors together, and though I can figure out that it's a bridge and sky, the colors make it too "abstract" for me.

[LeeIs]

Definitely 1 for me.

1. Great starkness, detail in the clouds, good amount of noise, nice darks and very graphicy. I also enjoy the green highway sign, i think it adds to it.

2. Flat, no contrast, Very duo/mono tone,

3.. Not realistic, non monochromaic noise (all kinda colors in the noise). I like noise being of the same colour as the area that it's in.

So 1 hands down for me.

[tayl0124]

I like #1 as a photo, but would think #3 would look awesome as an album cover for some band.

[jetrim]

That's a unanimous consensus, can't get much better than that I do think I'll try to knock back the over contrasty underside of the bridge to the left though, and get it a little closer to the level of detail that # 2 shows. Thanks for the input everyone!

[jetrim]

Stick a fork in it, I think it's done

[A.M.D.A.]

Much better! :thumbsup:

[shootme]

No question, #1. S