[RevDoc]

Please ease me into this forum gently. This is my first post and first time I have asked for a a critique of my photography. This first image is straight out of the camera. The second image is modified in PS. How can they be better?

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Last edited by RevDoc; 09-16-2011 at 08:05 AM.

[jasonch]

Hi RevDoc,

I like this shot~ where is this ?

I'm new here too (for a few days only) and I'm not quite as good as everyone else here =P
But I'll take a shot at this~

I just played a little bit with it in paint for different compositions.

I tried to crop and center/emphasize the arch


also if I rotate it, it almost looks like a pathway to heaven!
(I wish I could rotate it by arbitrary degrees in paint)


Also I'd probably brighten it a little and turn up the contrast for black and white myself, but I just like doing that in general =)

Anyway, thanks for posting!
Let me know what you think =)

[baro-nite]

To be clear, I'm just an amateur hacker, not a pro.

I think this is a very good composition of the arch itself and also in capturing some dramatic light. You should certainly cross-post this in the Kit Lens Club as a fine example of what this lens can do. At f/9.5 you are near the sweet spot for resolution for this lens, however it might be worth stopping down more to get the near part of the arch in better focus. I love B&W and this is a good choice for it, however there is just enough color interest in the original for either to be a good choice. There is still room for increasing contrast to give the image more punch, and it would be easy to do separate curve/level adjustments on the sky and arch.

I think the composition could be stronger with a clearer emphasis on either the arch or the sky -- right now it is somewhat in the middle. The sky has interest but is a bit flat. More dramatic clouds, or even a pure blue sky with the sun in the shot and the arch in silhouette (or showing glare from the sun) could be interesting.

Thanks for sharing -- keep it up, and welcome to the forums.

[tkj365]

I liked the original, but like baro-nite, I also feel the sky is just a bit flat. I have posted a couple quick hacks (sorry if that offends you -- sometimes you know, a picture is worth....lol).

1 - I cropped and straightened the image just a bit. Everything else is the same.
2 - Same as #1, just punched the exposure up a notch.
3 - Same as #1, Punched up the contrast and applied a Sepia to it. Tried with B&W, but it just did not fit in my mind.

This was actually a bit fun, learned a bit about PP while I was at it.

Attached Images

     

[Gregory_51]

Hello RevDoc. Nice image. Hard to come up with something new with such an instantly recognizable landmark. I like the framing here. I would like to see the nearest part a little sharper. I don't know what your point of focus was. Stopping down one more stop might get it all nice and sharp or a closer point of focus with the same aperture. The latter would be preferable because stopping down past what you used will quickly reduce sharpness due to diffraction. I don't know what method of conversion you used but it I find it somewhat dark and flat. I think such a strong graphic shape lends itself to b&w and there are hundreds of ways to process it. NIK sivler effects pro is good but expensive, TOPAZ b&w effects just came out and is quite flexible and much more affordable.

[RevDoc]

TKJ365, not offended by your efforts. It's nice to see what others can do with your image.

Gregory_51, I don’t know anything about Photoshop except the very, very basics. I may be one step above what any monkey can do, literally. I just used the automatic setting in PS to convert to BW. When I tried to lighten the picture I felt like the clouds in center got blown out. I can play with the contrast to see if it solves that problem as well. I know I can fix with layers, too, but I haven’t acquired this skill yet. As for the sharpness, I can try to do something with that in PS as well.

Thanks for the feedback everyone.

[Don From The Radio]

I'm probably less qualified than most here to offer advice for improving the picture, but I will say that I love the idea you had here. I think it's a great photo.

[SpecialK]

So far, the first is the best :-)