up and early

[Ronnoco]

Pretty well, as shot including the colour. Comments?

Ronnoco

[jbaldocchi]

Any chance you can draw more detail out of the trees in the background. Nice image.

Jim B.

[Seb]

Pretty well, as shot including the colour. Comments?

Ronnoco

Nice fog but I would personally totally crop the sky as it is bright/empty and I feel that it competes with the fog to some extents. Also, I would try some selective color saturation on the guy and his canoe.

Seb

[mtbbrian]

I definitely echo what Seb says. Cropping it just the below the lowest point of the trees makes this a much better photograph. You might do the same on the bottom too.
I don't think the selective color option would do anything for it though, but bumping up the contrast or saturation would help.
Brian

[Seb]

Here is my take on it. I hope that you don't mind me editing your work.

Seb

[mtbbrian]

Here is my take on it. I hope that you don't mind me editing your work.

Seb

You need the bouy to add some visual balance, plus it needs to be longer width wise.
Brian

[GB1]

Ronocco -

I like the shot's compositional placement of the bouy and canoer. The trees behind are OK, would be better if it were mid-late October (in Canada) and they were changing color. The sky was pretty plain that day, maybe you can play with it in PSP. I would prefer not to see the water there. If the leaves were colorful, it might make an interesting reflection, but w/o the colors I think it is better cropped out.

Here's my compositional take on the shot. It sure is unusual with the canoer going one way and the fog (and bouy) aiming up.

GB

[Anbesol]

ron - cool shot, i would crop a bit off the top and bottom - also, it seems a smidgen hazey - and the trees could show a bit more detail. oh and yes keep the buoy! very cool element!

[mjs1973]

I really like this shot, but like many others have said, the sky doesn't add anything to the photo. I too would crop it out. The shore line is also very close to dead center and cuts the image in half which kinda bugs me. Cropping the sky out would move the shoreline out of the center of the image and make for a more pleasing comp IMO. I would also like to see some more space on the left of the image to give the canoer a place to paddle into. That being said, we really don't know what was in the scene to the left and that may not have been an option. I also like the bouy and think that it adds some balance to the image. For me, it is the mood that you captured that really makes this an interesting image to look at. It makes me want to get the canoe out.

[Ronnoco]

Thanks for the suggestions. Well I cropped, tried to bring up more detail in the trees, sharpened the canoe a little, added a little contrast, and dealt with the sky problem which was due to heavy mist. What do you think?

Ronnoco

[Seb]

Thanks for the suggestions. Well I cropped, tried to bring up more detail in the trees, sharpened the canoe a little, added a little contrast, and dealt with the sky problem which was due to heavy mist. What do you think?

Ronnoco

I must say that the canoe now seem oversharpened on my monitor and I would still totally crop the sky despite the way you managed to retrieve it but overall, I feel that this a good enhancement over the original.

Seb

[julsoph]

Thanks for the suggestions. Well I cropped, tried to bring up more detail in the trees, sharpened the canoe a little, added a little contrast, and dealt with the sky problem which was due to heavy mist. What do you think?

Ronnoco

I like your edit a lot. The crop works for me...I wasn't that crazy about all of the sky being cropped out, and you brought more color into it.
Even though the fog gave and gives this pic some haziness, I think the brightness of the buoy helps to balance it out. Overall, a lot to like, in my opinion.

Emily

[GB1]

The final crop and edit is the best, imo, but I also see what Seb did, where it is showing the effects of over-sharpening.

To me the blue sky makes it a lot more "outdoors-ish." And that's a good thing!

GB

[Loupey]

I think the edited version is overly sharpened also - the canoe looks like it's been pasted in.

Couple things that haven't been voiced:

1) It may be me (and my monitor) but is there an unusual color cast to the fog? I'm sure that the morning light had a color cast to it but here it looks unnatural. Too much magenta in it?

2) I wish that the bank didn't cut right across the canoeist's head. Nothing can be done now, but at the time, I may have scrambled up the bank to put the head below the far bank. Or shot from lower to put most of the canoe up against the dark trees. That would probably be my choice as you could have better isolated the canoe and shot through more fog.

[Ronnoco]

I think the edited version is overly sharpened also - the canoe looks like it's been pasted in.

Couple things that haven't been voiced:

1) It may be me (and my monitor) but is there an unusual color cast to the fog? I'm sure that the morning light had a color cast to it but here it looks unnatural. Too much magenta in it?

2) I wish that the bank didn't cut right across the canoeist's head. Nothing can be done now, but at the time, I may have scrambled up the bank to put the head below the far bank. Or shot from lower to put most of the canoe up against the dark trees. That would probably be my choice as you could have better isolated the canoe and shot through more fog.

I went back and compared the edited version before I uploaded it, to the supposed same shot from the site and was somewhat surprised. Yes there is a magenta cast to the mist of the one on the site that I can see on my monitor, but no, there is no magenta cast on my edited version viewing it in either PhotoShop or PaintShop Pro. By the way, I was not using any filters when I took the shot. I then looked at the canoe on the site photo and agree that it looks oversharpened, but when I looked at the same edited photo that I uploaded side by side, the canoe looked softer and not over-sharpened at all. I have no idea, why unless there are some slight differences in the site software.

2) I noticed that too, but unfortunately he was moving quite fast and I was on the end of a long floating dock using a telephoto, while trying to keep the dock as still as possible. Boats interfered with the low angle.

Anyway, you certainly have a good eye, although I am not sure what to do about issues that I can see in the site photo and not in my photo before I uploaded it.

Thanks for your comments. I will look more carefully at my pix, after I upload them.

Ronnoco

[Greg McCary]

Great shot Ronnoco, I like the second better but the canoe is slightly oversharpen and I do think the bouy should stay for balance. Is PS good enough to move the bouy to fit Sebs version or would it compress the picture to much? I was in the mountians this weekend myself and took a similar picture. Check my post out and see if you can improve mine.

[readingr]

I went back and compared the edited version before I uploaded it, to the supposed same shot from the site and was somewhat surprised. Yes there is a magenta cast to the mist of the one on the site that I can see on my monitor, but no, there is no magenta cast on my edited version viewing it in either PhotoShop or PaintShop Pro. By the way, I was not using any filters when I took the shot. I then looked at the canoe on the site photo and agree that it looks oversharpened, but when I looked at the same edited photo that I uploaded side by side, the canoe looked softer and not over-sharpened at all. I have no idea, why unless there are some slight differences in the site software.

2) I noticed that too, but unfortunately he was moving quite fast and I was on the end of a long floating dock using a telephoto, while trying to keep the dock as still as possible. Boats interfered with the low angle.

Anyway, you certainly have a good eye, although I am not sure what to do about issues that I can see in the site photo and not in my photo before I uploaded it.

Thanks for your comments. I will look more carefully at my pix, after I upload them.

Ronnoco

Ronnoco

One way of avoiding some of these issues is to do a gradual reduction to 640x480 or whatever it is with a little unsharp mask applied at each step.

I use a script which I found and modified to do this in Paintshop Pro if you want it.

Roger

[Ronnoco]

Ronnoco

One way of avoiding some of these issues is to do a gradual reduction to 640x480 or whatever it is with a little unsharp mask applied at each step.

I use a script which I found and modified to do this in Paintshop Pro if you want it.

Roger

OK, explain please. Are you saying that to avoid an oversharpened look, I should gradually reduce the pixel size of my shot, while using unsharp mask to soften it a little at each step? How much softening is necessary?

If that is the case, then I certainly would appreciate a script to simplify the process.

Ronnoco

[Photo-John]

This is a great scene. I agree with Seb, that there's a bit too much sky. I think I might bring the crop down to just above the top of the trees. I also think it would benefit from just a bit more contrast and maybe some selective editing to pring some more detail out of the trees.

The only thing I really don't like is the distance between the rower and the buoy. I wish they were closer together. But unless you shot more than one photo, there's nothing that can be done about that. On the other hand, without seeing another shot with them closer, I can't be sure that my evaluation is correct. There is a tension because of the distance between the two objects that might be integral to the photo.

Bottom line - I like it. I think cropping the sky is the only thing that needs to be done.

[readingr]

OK, explain please. Are you saying that to avoid an oversharpened look, I should gradually reduce the pixel size of my shot, while using unsharp mask to soften it a little at each step? How much softening is necessary?

If that is the case, then I certainly would appreciate a script to simplify the process.

Ronnoco

To size for the web - I used to have similar problems on some photos but not all so looked around and found a script that did most of what I wanted and then customised it to do exactly what I wanted.

So it resizes from original down to 640 x 480 or whatever the proportions should be. So it could be 640 x 50 for a long panorama, and it copes with portrait and landscape without intervention.

It reduces it by 25% at a time and I experimented with the amount of unsharp mask at each stage. I left the original authors copyright in the script so you could find the original if you want.

The originally asked some questions - commented out by me as I just wanted an automatic version so if a dialogue box does open you need to click to toggle the execution mode (third button from script name, looks like box with two buttons at the bottom).

Hope this helps - no promises but it works for me.

I'll send the script in a message.

Regards
Roger

PS.Not been around for a while. I never added crique as everyone had said what I wanted.

[KyRain]

Unlike most everyone else, I find the bouey distracting...my eye jumps back and forth from the bouey to the canoer (in a distracting way because both images are strong)
I prefer without the bouey. I like the movement of the canoer, the naturalness of all elements involved want me to go with him instead of the man-made bouey.

[Ronnoco]

Unlike most everyone else, I find the bouey distracting...my eye jumps back and forth from the bouey to the canoer (in a distracting way because both images are strong)
I prefer without the bouey. I like the movement of the canoer, the naturalness of all elements involved want me to go with him instead of the man-made bouey.

The usual view is that a person attracts the eye more than a thing like a buoy and the buoy provides, by means of its size, some depth and perspective to the scene, so that it is not as flat. Not everyone of course, sees it that way, and your view is just as valid.

Thanks for your comments.

Ronnoco

[Photo-John]

Unlike most everyone else, I find the bouey distracting...my eye jumps back and forth from the bouey to the canoer (in a distracting way because both images are strong)
I prefer without the bouey. I like the movement of the canoer, the naturalness of all elements involved want me to go with him instead of the man-made bouey.

Interesting. I see what you mean. And now that you mention it, I think I would like it better without the buoy, too. It would simplify the composition and make it more relaxing to look at.

On the other hand, the buoy is there and it may be that Ronocco wanted to faithfully record the reality of the place. To leave out the buoy would be to photographically editorialize. Of course, we do that every time we frame up a photo and press the shutter release...

[Ronnoco]

[QUOTE=Photo-John]Interesting. I see what you mean. And now that you mention it, I think I would like it better without the buoy, too. It would simplify the composition and make it more relaxing to look at. QUOTE]

I considered that when I shot it, but felt that the buoy gave the photo depth and without it, the photo would appear too flat.

Ronnoco

[KyRain]

mmmmm, I really hacked the spelling of buoy...so thanks for overlooking that. Of course
this is about photography and not grammar but as a lover of English Lit I just can't let
that alone. Ronnoco, to buoy or not to buoy ...it's all up to you...