Constructive comments appreciated

[John Mitchell]

10 hours ago, Steve F said:

 

Interesting to hear John. Are we talking about film or digital here? Raw files look to be less saturated than real life often, if you get my meaning.

 

This was after things went digital. I used to send him lightly adjusted TIFS, which was what he wanted.

 

In film days, I just packed up the labelled slides and mailed them off. Things are different now, though. I think that the technical appearance of images is more important due to the much wider range of uses they can be put to. Wish I had your post-processing skills. Just thinking about layers, masks, gradients, etc. gives me hives. 🤯

 

 

Edited May 15, 2023 by John Mitchell

[John Mitchell]

8 hours ago, Ognyan Yosifov said:

...and every human on Earth has a different colour perception, and people do use not calibrated devices. Go figure!

 

Yup. Therein lies the rub. 🙄

[geogphotos]

11 hours ago, John Mitchell said:

 

This was after things went digital. I used to send him lightly adjusted TIFS, which was what he wanted.

 

In film days, I just packed up the labelled slides and mailed them off. Things are different now, though. I think that the technical appearance of images is more important due to the much wider range of uses they can be put to. Wish I had your post-processing skills. Just thinking about layers, masks, gradients, etc. gives me hives. 🤯

 

 

 

For the first few years of digital my PP consisted of Auto converting RAWS to JPEGs in Adobe Elements, then checking each image for dust spots.

 

That was it!

 

And I don't think that I was alone. That was c 2006-2009 ( maybe later?) until I finally had a QC fail and had to realise that more was available and required.

 

As I recall the prevailing view was that digital images just had a different, flatter look to film and that was what we all pretty much accepted.

 

 

 

Edited May 16, 2023 by geogphotos

[John Mitchell]

14 hours ago, geogphotos said:

 

For the first few years of digital my PP consisted of Auto converting RAWS to JPEGs in Adobe Elements, then checking each image for dust spots.

 

That was it!

 

And I don't think that I was alone. That was c 2006-2009 ( maybe later?) until I finally had a QC fail and had to realise that more was available and required.

 

As I recall the prevailing view was that digital images just had a different, flatter look to film and that was what we all pretty much accepted.

 

 

 

 

I usually stick with the following basic adjustments in RAW for most images:

 

1. White Balance

2. Exposure

3. Levels

4. Shadows/Highlights

5. Brightness

 

I clean up the dust spots and adjust verticals after converting to 16-bit TIFs. If it's an "arty" image, I might fool around with it in Affinity Photo, which is an amazing but complicated (for me anyway) program. However, this is probably a complete waste of effort because who knows what the results will look like on someone else's monitor. I calibrate mine regularly, but I'm not even sure if the monitor doesn't revert to its default settings when I turn it off. 😕

 

 

 

 

Edited May 16, 2023 by John Mitchell

[Steve F]

On 15/05/2023 at 18:20, John Mitchell said:

 

This was after things went digital. I used to send him lightly adjusted TIFS, which was what he wanted.

 

In film days, I just packed up the labelled slides and mailed them off. Things are different now, though. I think that the technical appearance of images is more important due to the much wider range of uses they can be put to. Wish I had your post-processing skills. Just thinking about layers, masks, gradients, etc. gives me hives. 🤯

 

 

 

Hey John,

Funny isn't it. I don't feel like I'm much of an expert at LR - but there's always someone better than you (and worse than you) at whatever you're doing in life!

Steve

[IKuzmin]

On 15/05/2023 at 23:53, geogphotos said:

For the first few years of digital my PP consisted of Auto converting RAWS to JPEGs in Adobe Elements, then checking each image for dust spots.

Really? I remember that when I joined Alamy in 2010 they required 50Mb files, and my images taken during the early digital years at 6, 8, 10Mp did not satisfy these requirements hence went to microstocks. Some of them were good enough per the present Alamy requirements, perhaps just too noisy (but still not as noisy as scanned slides on >ISO100 films).

 

As for the topic, I do not see any problems with your images for editorial purposes. Even though some may look little oversaturated, I do not see that as a problem, as well as white balance deviations which often occur depending on the time of the day and can add value to an image (and clearly, WB was just not changeable during the film era, as such it was taken as is and interpreted accordingly). I would pay more attention to the skies to make them darker and more balanced but only in a few instances, otherwise they are fine to me as well.

Edited May 17, 2023 by IKuzmin

[John Mitchell]

5 hours ago, Steve F said:

 

Hey John,

Funny isn't it. I don't feel like I'm much of an expert at LR - but there's always someone better than you (and worse than you) at whatever you're doing in life!

Steve

 

I'm not familiar with LR -- I currently use Capture One Express and Affinity Photo for most tasks. However, when it comes to post-processing, everyone is an expert compared to me. 😉

[geogphotos]

2 hours ago, IKuzmin said:

Really? I remember that when I joined Alamy in 2010 they required 50Mb files, and my images taken during the early digital years at 6, 8, 10Mp did not satisfy these requirements hence went to microstocks. Some of them were good enough per the present Alamy requirements, perhaps just too noisy (but still not as noisy as scanned slides on >ISO100 films).

 

As for the topic, I do not see any problems with your images for editorial purposes. Even though some may look little oversaturated, I do not see that as a problem, as well as white balance deviations which often occur depending on the time of the day and can add value to an image (and clearly, WB was just not changeable during the film era, as such it was taken as is and interpreted accordingly). I would pay more attention to the skies to make them darker and more balanced but only in a few instances, otherwise they are fine to me as well.

 

 

Thanks for looking and your helpful observation. 

[wilkopix]

Hi Ian,

Had a quick look through .. they all look well processed to me. Bright, clean nicely composed images. Don't change a thing.

[geogphotos]

1 hour ago, wilkopix said:

Hi Ian,

Had a quick look through .. they all look well processed to me. Bright, clean nicely composed images. Don't change a thing.

 

Thanks Rob, appreciate it. 👍

[geogphotos]

If interested there are more to look at and a biggish batch going live tomorrow. 

 

Any constructive comments or discussion points would be very welcome.

[spacecadet]

On 14/05/2023 at 13:26, Steve F said:

The skin tones look a bit too orange.

They may actually be that colour. The reason I suggest it is that we live quite close to Essex. You see a lot of orange people hereabouts, and they sure ain't getting it out of English sunshine.

[Steve F]

2 minutes ago, spacecadet said:

You see a lot of orange people hereabouts, and they sure ain't getting it out of English sunshine.

 

🤣🙈

[Alexander Hogg]

11 minutes ago, spacecadet said:

You see a lot of orange people hereabouts, and they sure ain't getting it out of English sunshine.

Maybe drinking too much Scottish Irn Bru

[Steve F]

9 minutes ago, Alexander Hogg said:

Maybe drinking too much Scottish Irn Bru

 

Then came the comic twist in the drama. In December 1999, a paediatrician, Dr Duncan Cameron, reported a new and alarming condition in the medical journals: Sunny Delight syndrome. A girl of five had turned bright yellow and orange after drinking 1.5 litres of the stuff a day. She was overdosing on betacarotene, the additive that gives the sugar-and-water drink its orange colour, and the pigment was being deposited in her hands and face. While the condition was not dangerous, the doctor warned that booming sales could lead to many other children turning "a faint yellowy colour".

 

By a marketing man's nightmare of coincidence, the TV ads for the brand at the time showed two white snowmen raiding the fridge for Sunny Delight and turning bright orange. To add to the embarrassment, a leading consultant dermatologist, Professor John Hawk, said too much betacarotene could cause tummy upsets and farting. As if to confirm its status as spawn of the devil, P&G was forced to join that happy band of cigarette manufacturers who put voluntary warnings on their products. Its bottles now carry the unprecedented message: "Like all soft drinks, Sunny Delight should be consumed in moderation."

 

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2001/apr/11/marketingandpr.comment

[geogphotos]

2 hours ago, spacecadet said:

They may actually be that colour. The reason I suggest it is that we live quite close to Essex. You see a lot of orange people hereabouts, and they sure ain't getting it out of English sunshine.

 

 

I don't know how or why those people seem 'orange' but to be frank I'm not too concerned. The worst that can happen is that the photo doesn't get used. 😀

[Phil]

On 14/05/2023 at 06:39, M.Chapman said:

If you're using LR or PS to process your RAWs and are after speed have you tried hitting the Auto button in the Tone panel first and then tweaking from there if needed? If you like what Auto does you can even set it up in a preset so Auto is automatically applied to all images on opening/import. I tried Auto on the downloaded preview of 2PYKDXE and prefer the result.

 

In addition to the Auto button in the Basic Tone panel - there are quite a large number of included Presets in LrC 's Library Module Quick Develop Panel that could be used to speed workflow after selecting which preset(s) to apply.

Edited May 28, 2023 by Phil

[Ed Rooney]

 

Your Mexico images look very good, Ian. I think it's normal to have apprehensions about our pics from time to time. 

 

I tend to go for a bit more saturation and contrast, but I understand you going for a more natural tone. Poco a poco.

 

Edo

Edited May 28, 2023 by Ed Rooney

[Jeffrey Isaac Greenberg]

On 14/05/2023 at 14:08, geogphotos said:

...estimate 2800 excluding ones taken just to record information...

Regardless, its inspired me to shoot even more daily on current itinerary... 
👍

👍

[geogphotos]

Thanks Phil, Edo, Jeff. 

[Ed Rooney]

 

I enjoyed the two months I spent in San Miguel de Allende (I did not enjoy what sent me there). Lovely town, with lovely food, and lovely people. A lot of people in Mexico and Latin America speak some English. In Seville, people in banks, hospitals, and the government do not. I have enough Spanish for bistros. You, Ian, are still my hero from that time. 😉

 

[geogphotos]

7 minutes ago, Ed Rooney said:

 

I enjoyed the two months I spent in San Miguel de Allende (I did not enjoy what sent me there). Lovely town, with lovely food, and lovely people. A lot of people in Mexico and Latin America speak some English. In Seville, people in banks, hospitals, and the government do not. I have enough Spanish for bistros. You, Ian, are still my hero from that time. 😉

 

 

 

de nada  👍

[gvallee]

12 minutes ago, Ed Rooney said:

 

I enjoyed the two months I spent in San Miguel de Allende (I did not enjoy what sent me there). Lovely town, with lovely food, and lovely people. A lot of people in Mexico and Latin America speak some English. In Seville, people in banks, hospitals, and the government do not. I have enough Spanish for bistros. You, Ian, are still my hero from that time. 😉

 

 

And you're my resilience hero. Very humbling and inspiring.

 

 

[spacecadet]

23 minutes ago, gvallee said:

 

And you're my resilience hero. Very humbling and inspiring.

 

 

Well, Liverpool is considered a tough town by many, but Ed's been there and bought the T-shirt. In fact I suspect be invented the T-shirt.

[geogphotos]

Now to open up more about my original niggling concern.

 

Verticals. Specifically the use of Geometry tool to straighten buildings etc.

 

Not soo worried about one or two that I have got wrong but an overall impression would be appreciated.

 

Also, general commentary about this. What I mean is that what the eye actually sees, what the camera records, and what the final image best looks like on page or screen are not the same. 

 

And discussion on your own thinking/decisions over Verticals.

Edited June 2, 2023 by geogphotos