Friday Photo Critique #13

With over 7 million images of the grand canyon showing with a Google search, I sometimes wonder what we hope to achieve by photographing it again. I suppose it shows what a magnet its natural beauty is to photographers, even though as a viewer I sometimes wish American photographers would look for beauty elsewhere.
I think that this image is a good deal busier than those I am used to seeing, so would recommend cropping out most of the bottom half, leaving the impressive rock and sky. If you really wanted to put the time in, you could strengthen the dynamics further on the rocks with dodge and burn, again using curve layers.
The contrast in the image needs a boost and I would also boost vibrance and use separate curve layers to deepen the sky and rock colour and to bring out the clouds.
Photoshop enhancements like this will only go so far when there are photographers who are prepared to camp out in these areas waiting for the perfect light for days on end, but they will help to get the best out of your capture.

This image has a great DoF and composition. I just think it’s overexposed due to the bright sky which washes out the colors. In camera, exposing for the brightest part (right middle) would’ve taken care of it. A graduated neutral density filter would’ve been nice to darken the sky, and a polarizing filter would’ve added a some definition to this image. Fortunately, curves adjustments can fix the colors and the GND filter and polarizer can be simulated. :D
I did it here – http://cmd-p.com/temp/phototuts.jpg

for some reason I can’t see my comment and honestly I can’t write so much stuff again. to sum up if you can’t go to the same place try cropping the bottom so that no grass will be shown just the upper bodies of the trees and the mountain. Add a bit contrast and there it is a more dramatized photo.

If you can go back to the same place, try to take the same shot from a further distance or get a wider lens such as 14mm. Right now I see some branches placed almost as high as the mountain. Therefore it looks like that the mountain is not as huge. You need to make the mountain look like a giant.

I try not to shoot at angles that are at eye level height. I generally like subject material to be off center. So as an idea I would have gone to the left of the subject matter and perhaps shot from a lower angle.

I enjoy shooting at dusk or at night for more play with ambient light, giving the piece more depth. If you shot this at dusk or just after and at a lower angle, you probably could have some stars mixed in with the clouds.

I’m not sure about the HDR effect but I do agree with increased contrast and saturation. If original file is RAW I would try to bring back some detail in the blue sky.

Composition is nice, definitely not a bad picture by any means. Nice work.

I agree with Bryan. I think the photographer could’ve under exposed by a bit to increase the saturation. I also might have cropped it differently…there is a lot of distraction in the foreground. Although, quite a bit could be done in Photoshop to make it be the picture he might be after. I played with it a little and came up with this: http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2665/4235078502_9951d2a367_b.jpg

I would have taken it has an hdr to dramatize the colors. I would apply the “s-curve” in Photoshop.

Agreed, it looks like HDR but the levels aren’t right. There are no blacks/shadows in the picture so it looks all washed out.

I can only assume that the photographer has fallen into the same trap that quite a few people (including myself) can get trapped in – you have the source photos which won’t look overly great for HDR and then you combine them and suddenly you see how well it suddenly works, with detail in the shadows, no blown-out highlights, etc. So the new picture is suddenly the best in your head (comparatively) and as such you don’t realise that there are some bad points you haven’t thought about.

In this case the final picture maybe just needs to be reviewed on its own a few days after the original HDR mixing to work out its particular faults, which in this case is a general washed-out feeling.

Otherwise, the composition looks nice, and looks like it’s trying to follow the rule of thirds, particularly in the vertical plane, but in the horizontal plane, while the two peaks look like they probably do follow the rule, it actually makes the whole feature look centred, which isn’t necessarily the best. I’m not sure really, maybe I’m reading too much into it and this kind of thing wouldn’t be picked up by someone not trying to critique a picture.

I might recommend cropping out the trees as they make the image too busy, while the greass is not properly exposed.

The histogram is a shocker! :P Always check your histogram on the camera after you shoot. It shows you everything you need to know and if you took the time to make adjustments based around it the exposure and saturation would be fine and white-outs or flat colours wouldn’t exist (the sky).

This is what I did with a bit of exaggeration to the effects so it’s more obvious as I point them out. Granted this is digital too and obviously the sky can’t be helped being an overexposed 8-bit JPG pulled from thenet. But keep in mind that most of this could have been done on the click with some minor Lightroom adjustments.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v237/saltesc/temp-1.jpg

On click:
1. Polarising filter – Cuts down the glare off the sky and clouds evening out the overall exposure of the image. It also shows up richer blues in the sky.
2. Infa-Red filter – Reduces the saturation of the green plants and boosts the saturation of the cliff itself, getting rid of that ‘distraction’ in the foreground everyone’s talking about. It also obviously darkens that blown out blue sky even more.

In Lightroom:
1. Slight adjustments to colour levels; luminance, saturation, vibrance etc. This is, again, done in accordance with keeping the overall image even in exposure over each other while emphasising the canyon, but not without completely nulling that foreground foliage or creating distraction with the now far more detailed sky.
2. Curve adjustments to enhance contrast, shadows, etc to your liking.
3. Could go into details of emphasising the light cast on the rockface, I did a little with one pass of a large fuzzy brush on a brightness mask, but it depends on your style. Everything depends on your style :)

I would reframe so the trees aren’t in there at the bottom, probably bring the frame down a bit so there is less sky unless your going to make a feature of the sky. Pump up the contrast, saturation, and lower the exposure only on the rocks, and maybe grass… Maybe make the grass more golden. Maybe change the sky to a more dramatic one… Like a dark cloudy one if your going to show so much sky in the image.