Twins

[BlueRob]

An attempt of an "a la Adams" pic :blush2:
The background is busier than I would like but dealing with branches in PP is not a joy LOL.
You know the drill... shot C&C`s
Bare with the softness....I guess its due to the compression.

[hminx]

This works for me Rob except the little bit of beach in the foreground

[Canyon Hiker]

This works for me Rob except the little bit of beach in the foreground

Ditto on that..Awesome shot..ditch the beach

darin

[draymorton]

Excellent.

Cropping out the beach would result in too little foreground, in my opinion. And the reflections would be too close to the bottom or, worse, cut off.

I might try other methods to get rid of the beach.

[jetrim]

Agree w/ Dray can't just crop the beach. So I played a bit and got the attached by making a copy, flipping it upside down, skewing it to match the angle of the shoreline, motion blurring it to match the water, then adding it as a new layer and blending it in with the eraser (hardness '0'). It's much easier to line up the two if you switch layer blend mode to overlay or hard light so you can see through the top layer, then reverting back to normal blend mode once you're sure you have the top layer positioned properly

[apass]

Well, that was just awesome, jetrim…right on for me

[armando_m]

I was going to suggest reshooting from a different angle to include more water in the photo, acomplishing something similar to what jetrim did , increasing the amount of reflection of the trees :thumbsup:

[BlueRob]

This works for me Rob except the little bit of beach in the foreground

Thanks mate :thumbsup: , I dont mind the pebble beach in front its a good "end" for the reflection IMO.

[BlueRob]

Ditto on that..Awesome shot..ditch the beach

darin

Thanks Darin... appreciate it

[BlueRob]

Excellent.

Cropping out the beach would result in too little foreground, in my opinion. And the reflections would be too close to the bottom or, worse, cut off.

I might try other methods to get rid of the beach.

Thanks Señor Dray :thumbsup:
Yeap... for me cutting the beach out will leave the reflections out of sight. Jets´s method does the trick pretty well :thumbsup:

[BlueRob]

Agree w/ Dray can't just crop the beach. So I played a bit and got the attached by making a copy, flipping it upside down, skewing it to match the angle of the shoreline, motion blurring it to match the water, then adding it as a new layer and blending it in with the eraser (hardness '0'). It's much easier to line up the two if you switch layer blend mode to overlay or hard light so you can see through the top layer, then reverting back to normal blend mode once you're sure you have the top layer positioned properly

Jet your PP skills never fail to amaze me...have I said that before
That approach is awesome and does the trick very well.

Thanks a lot for taking the time to do it, explain it and post the examples. :thumbsup:

[BlueRob]

I was going to suggest reshooting from a different angle to include more water in the photo, acomplishing something similar to what jetrim did , increasing the amount of reflection of the trees :thumbsup:

I would like to make a re-shoot but its a hell of a long trip

[BlueRob]

Thanks all you guy for the comments....now that I see the image I get the filling it should have more contrast...looks a bit flat?

[LeeIs]

I agree about not cropping the bottom. I also like what jetrim did in that area.

But Rob, no I don't think it's flat. The thing about black and white that always gets me as well is I keep adding more contrast because I always think it's too grey. Well duh!! it's supposed to be grey, haha. So I learned to try to stop my self from thinking that too much. So when it comes to your original shot, I think it was perfect, I don't think it needs any contrast.

[BlueRob]

I agree about not cropping the bottom. I also like what jetrim did in that area.

But Rob, no I don't think it's flat. The thing about black and white that always gets me as well is I keep adding more contrast because I always think it's too grey. Well duh!! it's supposed to be grey, haha. So I learned to try to stop my self from thinking that too much. So when it comes to your original shot, I think it was perfect, I don't think it needs any contrast.

Thanks Leels, yeah I tend to do the same thing, suddenly I realise that I ended up with an ugly range of pure black and whites, then I roll back.
The thing with ansel Adamas is that his work is very dramtic...with just a short range of color he managed to accomplish masterpieces....the man was a genius.

[chrisnesss]

I like the image the way you posted it. The bit of beach kind of completes the scene, well at least for me. And the softness is nice for a shot like this.

[BlueRob]

FAO JETRIM....

Your PS abilities surpasses me...which is no news LOL....I tried your approach and could not align it properly, despite you perfectly clear explanation... you mentioned a SKEW of -9...that is the angle? or H value or V value

[BlueRob]

I like the image the way you posted it. The bit of beach kind of completes the scene, well at least for me. And the softness is nice for a shot like this.

Thanks Chris:thumbsup: , I do like the beach too, I`m trying what Jet suggested to see what outcome I can get own before make up my mind....I almost sure I`ll end up liking both LOL:mad2:

[jetrim]

-9 is the V (vertical) it lifts the left side 9 degrees in PSP or photoshop
Motion blur is Filter>blur>motion blur in photoshop or Adjust>blur>motion blur in PSP. 180 is the direction of the blur and 17 is the number of pixels (you may need to bump this up til it looks right on the full size version)

[BlueRob]

-9 is the V (vertical) it lifts the left side 9 degrees in PSP or photoshop
Motion blur is Filter>blur>motion blur in photoshop or Adjust>blur>motion blur in PSP. 180 is the direction of the blur and 17 is the number of pixels (you may need to bump this up til it looks right on the full size version)

Thanks a lot Jet...I`ll give it a try tonight :thumbsup:

[BlueRob]

Ha! why wait for the night.....

Hope to meet your expectations Sensei (Jet)
Also added a tad more contrast and sharpness, did try another compression method in order to keep as much as possible the quality.
As predicted I like both with beach and with PP water reflection.

[daq7]

I am not sure I can justify why, but your second take is quite nice. In the first one I liked the gray wave of branches of the background trees, but wanted more contrast and texture in the twins. It seems as if the second take fixed that and now it is quite stunning.

[jetrim]

SWEET! Nice job :thumbsup:
I like the near beach showing through the water, adds some depth to it. also looks much better sharpened up, adds "pop" to the scene.

[chrisnesss]

This one is good too! But I still like the first one.

[BlueRob]

Daq7, Jet and Cris thanks for your comments, no doubt the scene improves with the add up contrast and extra sharpness, now I dont see it as flat, which was my main concern at the beginning.
Also I was doing the resize and compression wrong I guess, which contributed to the softness an lack of detail.

Jet thanks again for you PP tutorial...really appreciate it :thumbsup: