Free Landscape Photography Book!
Paul Saunders
book - Working the Light, by Joe Cornish, Joe Waite and David Ward.
It's a combination of excellent photographs and a wealth of hints and tips.
Go to http://www.workingthelight.com/
Click on "To View Sample Pages of the Book"
Then download the four "sample" pdf files (These actually comprise the
entire book!)
Of course, the photo resolution is low, so you're not going to see the
photos in their full magnificent glory, you'll have to buy the book for
that, but you can still enjoy the pics anyway. That's why they're giving it
away free, they're hoping that you'll like the pics so much that you'll pay
to get the high quality versions.
But of course, you get the benefit of those hints and tips for nothing!
Anyone remotely interested in landscape photography should download this
book now!
Paul
--
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk
The Reid
<pv...@wildwales.fsnet.co.uk> wrote:
>Anyone remotely interested in landscape photography should download this
>book now!
thanks Paul!
--
Mike Reid
I will agree bendybuses are a good idea when they build bungalows on Mayfair
Walk-eat-photos UK "http://www.fellwalk.co.uk" <-- you can email us@ this site
Walk-eat-photos Spain "http://www.fell-walker.co.uk"
Jiffy
news:ej0ask$t0j$1...@news.freedom2surf.net...
> Since Chris mentioned Joe Cornish, I'd like to draw your attention to a
free
> book - Working the Light, by Joe Cornish, Joe Waite and David Ward.
>
> It's a combination of excellent photographs and a wealth of hints and
tips.
>
> Go to http://www.workingthelight.com/
> Click on "To View Sample Pages of the Book"
> Then download the four "sample" pdf files (These actually comprise the
> entire book!)
Nice one!
Cheers, Jiffy
Rudi Winter
> book - Working the Light, by Joe Cornish, Joe Waite and David Ward.
> It's a combination of excellent photographs and a wealth of hints and tips.
> Go to http://www.workingthelight.com/
Thanks for the pointer, Paul. The pictures are a bit too "arty" for my
taste but it's amazing what lighting effects they can conjure up!
--
Rudi Winter, Aberystwyth, Wales
Paul Saunders
> Paul Saunders <pv...@wildwales.fsnet.co.uk> wrote:
>> by Joe Cornish, Joe Waite and David Ward.
That should have been Charlie Waite of course!
> Thanks for the pointer, Paul. The pictures are a bit too "arty" for
> my taste but it's amazing what lighting effects they can conjure up!
Too arty? How can a landscape photo be *too* arty?
They're not conjuring up the lighting effects though, they happen naturally,
all over the place, regularly. You just have to be in the right place at the
right time. That's the main skill IMO. Timing.
Of course, it helps if you know how to use a camera when you see that once
in a lifetime opportunity...
Paul
--
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk
The Reid
<pv...@wildwales.fsnet.co.uk> wrote:
>Too arty? How can a landscape photo be *too* arty?
you know which pictures sell :-)
Rob G
Paul Saunders wrote:
> Rudi Winter wrote:
>
> > Paul Saunders <pv...@wildwales.fsnet.co.uk> wrote:
> >> by Joe Cornish, Joe Waite and David Ward.
>
> That should have been Charlie Waite of course!
>
> > Thanks for the pointer, Paul. The pictures are a bit too "arty" for
> > my taste but it's amazing what lighting effects they can conjure up!
>
> Too arty? How can a landscape photo be *too* arty?
>
Oh come on Paul - you only have to read the Post Capture details to
realise that a certain amount of adjustment and hence 'art' has been
applied. The argument that the adjustment is to make the recorded
image nearer how our eyes see it doesn't wash as the photographer is
only doing that from memory and is therefore doing the adjustments to
make the picture more appealing - and that implies 'arty' in my mind.
>From a quick run through the PDF file it certainly looks a nice coffee
table book; I haven't looked to see how much I could learn from it yet.
I would say however that there are two things that stick out to annoy
me - the use of long exposures on running water which ends up making
the flow look like ice and is totally artificial, and what seems a
modern style to include some feature near the camera such that your eye
is drawn away from the landscape to wonder quite what your looking at -
the distance or is it this rock in the foreground.
Rob
Rudi Winter
> Rudi Winter wrote:
>
>> Paul Saunders <pv...@wildwales.fsnet.co.uk> wrote:
>>> by Joe Cornish, Joe Waite and David Ward.
>
> That should have been Charlie Waite of course!
>
>> Thanks for the pointer, Paul. The pictures are a bit too "arty" for
>> my taste but it's amazing what lighting effects they can conjure up!
>
> Too arty? How can a landscape photo be *too* arty?
I think I better start rowing back then. I definitely do acknowledge
their skill with a camera and eye for the right subject and moment.
What I was trying to say is that I personally prefer pictures that look
similar to what my eye-brain combo would have registered had I been
there and then, and I doubt they would. For example, waterfalls don't
appear milky to me.
This is not a criticism at all, it's just a (possibly ignorant)
preference of mine. It's like the old thing people used to argue about
abstract paintings, and those in favour of them countering by saying if
you don't like it abstract, why don't you just take a photo.
W. D. Grey
<pv...@wildwales.fsnet.co.uk> writes
>Rudi Winter wrote:
>
>> Paul Saunders <pv...@wildwales.fsnet.co.uk> wrote:
>>> by Joe Cornish, Joe Waite and David Ward.
>
>That should have been Charlie Waite of course!
>
>> Thanks for the pointer, Paul. The pictures are a bit too "arty" for
>> my taste but it's amazing what lighting effects they can conjure up!
>
>Too arty? How can a landscape photo be *too* arty?
>
>They're not conjuring up the lighting effects
manipulation, manipulation, manipulation !!!
Conjuring ??....yes that sounds about right.
--
Bill Grey
http://www.billboy.co.uk
W. D. Grey
<ru...@physics.org> writes
>Paul Saunders <pv...@wildwales.fsnet.co.uk> wrote:
>> Rudi Winter wrote:
>>
>>> Paul Saunders <pv...@wildwales.fsnet.co.uk> wrote:
>>>> by Joe Cornish, Joe Waite and David Ward.
>>
>> That should have been Charlie Waite of course!
>>
>>> Thanks for the pointer, Paul. The pictures are a bit too "arty" for
>>> my taste but it's amazing what lighting effects they can conjure up!
>>
>> Too arty? How can a landscape photo be *too* arty?
>
>I think I better start rowing back then. I definitely do acknowledge
>their skill with a camera and eye for the right subject and moment.
>What I was trying to say is that I personally prefer pictures that look
>similar to what my eye-brain combo would have registered had I been
>there and then, and I doubt they would. For example, waterfalls don't
>appear milky to me.
>
People love or hate the various treatment of waterfalls. Some like the
water "stopped -" others like it milky. it's a matter of choice neither
is wrong.
I've no doubt there were beautiful conditions prevailing at the time the
photos were taken and it is the photographer's prerogative to enhance if
he so wishes to produce a saleable image.
It doesn't really matter how the image was produced as long as it is
what the photographer wanted it to be. If he can't sell it then he got
it commercially wrong.
Alan Bremner
wrote:
>[...] what seems a modern style to include some feature near the camera
Hardly modern. Ansel Adams used the same technique in many of his
classic b&w landscapes, and painters were doing it hundreds of years
before him.
Al
--
[This space left intentionally blank]
Paul Saunders
>> Too arty? How can a landscape photo be *too* arty?
>
> you know which pictures sell :-)
Do tell!
I visited an art/photo gallery in Brecon once and I asked what subject
matter sold well. The answer was "Pen y Fan, Pen y Fan and Pen y Fan". In
fact, if it wasn't of Pen y Fan they weren't interested. The entire gallery
was stuffed with nothing but prints and paintings of Pen y Fan.
I guess the same might be true of Snowdon, although a search of keyword
popularity on Overture indicated that Tryfan gets searched for twice as much
as Snowdon!
These were the number of searches (not sure what time period) for possibly
the most well known mountains in Wales.
323 Tryfan
162 Snowdon
103 Cader Idris (38 Cadair Idris)
92 Pen y Fan
33 Plynlimon (0 Pumlumon)
Perhaps I could attract more visitors to my site by spelling Cadair Idris
the wrong way!
Paul
--
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk
Paul Saunders
>> Too arty? How can a landscape photo be *too* arty?
>
> Oh come on Paul - you only have to read the Post Capture details to
> realise that a certain amount of adjustment and hence 'art' has been
> applied.
And when has it ever been any other way? Photographers have always used
filters and darkroom techniques to enhance images. Even your choice of film
is/was a kind of enhancement. No-one can argue that Velvia's high contrast
and saturation is a realistic representation of reality, yet it became the
standard film for landscape photographers everywhere.
Bottom line is this, most people like photographs to look better than
reality. When we look at great landscape photos we're looking at an
idealised version of a landscape that never seems to look that good when you
actually go there (unless you're lucky enough to be there at one of those
magical moments, in which case even a good photo doesn't seem to do it
justice.)
The only people who don't adjust or enhance photos are amateur snappers who
use cheap cameras, cheap film and don't know how. Then they complain that
their snaps don't look as good as professional photos. Yet those snaps don't
look like reality either, with their washed out skies and their flat grey
look, or ridiculously contrasty look (depending on their camera settings,
which are altering reality without them even realising it).
Fact is, no photo looks like reality, they're all altered and enhanced in
some way. It's quite impossible for a photo to look like reality because the
dynamic range of film and digital cameras is far less than the eye can see,
and couldn't be reproduced on paper or on a computer monitor properly even
if they could capture all that detail.
Photos are nothing more than an approximation of reality, but we've seen so
many of them in our image obsessed culture that we've come to think that
photos look like reality. They don't. Photos look like photos. Most people
don't actually compare them with reality.
> The argument that the adjustment is to make the recorded
> image nearer how our eyes see it doesn't wash
Yes it does, if you understand the differences between how film and digital
sensors record images and how our eyes see them. In fact, what we see is
actually "processed" by our brains, so we're not even seeing reality. For
example colour balance. Does white paper look orange to you at home under
tungsten lighting? It should, but our brains cleverly apply processing to
adjust the white balance so that it looks how we imagine reality *should*
look. It's quite likely that different people see reality differently
depending on their preconceptions of what it should look like in their
experience.
> as the photographer is
> only doing that from memory
True, that's a valid point, and one I sometimes have problems with. On a
recent trip some photos ended up with grey rocks and others with brown
rocks, yet they were the same rocks! That led me to wonder which was
correct. According to my memory the rocks were totally grey. So I went back
there not long after and took more photos, but this time I made a point of
looking at the colour of the rocks with my eyes. They were indeed grey, but
with a slight brownish tinge (which had somehow been enhanced in certain
photos).
Of course, that was only how my brain chose to process the colour balance at
the time...
More to the point, if I see a medium blue sky with detailed fluffy clouds,
yet I end up with a photo showing a pale blue sky with burnt out clouds, I
know that's not the reality I saw, so I'll darken the sky. If darkening the
sky makes the shadows go black, I know that's not what I saw either, because
I saw detail in the shadows, so I'll lighten them. The end result won't look
like a typical "unprocessed" photo (or snap), but it will look more like
what I actually saw.
Case in point, I recently photographed a white lighthouse in bright sunshine
with a large dark cave underneath. I could see the detail on the white
lighthouse, but it overexposed on the photo. I could see the detail in the
dark cave, but it came out black on the photo! Solution? I took three
photos, one exposed for the lighthouse, one for the cave and one normal one,
then blended them using HDR. The result didn't look like a "normal" photo,
but it did look much closer to what I actually saw.
> and is therefore doing the adjustments to
> make the picture more appealing
I don't deny that. Professional photographers have always tried to make
their photos look as appealing as possible. This starts by taking the photo
in the most appealing lighting conditions, then making any necessary
adjustments to enhance it, NOT taking a crappy snap then trying to turn it
into a masterpiece later.
> - and that implies 'arty' in my mind.
And what's wrong with that? Photography *is* an art form IMO. Sure,
so-called "realistic" photography has its place in photojournalism, but
plain reality often looks boring.
Most of the art though, is in capturing those special moments when the light
is unusual, not in manipulating the photo to create the impression of
unusual light (like using a cheesy sunset filter for example).
As a rule, the better the original scene, the less processing needs to be
done later, but ironically, the more amazing the natural light, the more
likely people are to think that it's been manipulated. I suspect this is
because many people have probably never seen truly amazing natural light,
since this usually happens at sunrise and sunset. Most people are either in
bed or at home watching TV at those times.
> I would say however that there are two things that stick out to annoy
> me - the use of long exposures on running water which ends up making
> the flow look like ice and is totally artificial,
Have you ever looked (I mean *really* looked) at a waterfall as it's getting
dark? I've camped next to waterfalls and I like to watch them as it gets
dark. The darker it gets the blurrier the water becomes. It's almost like
there's some kind of shutter speed effect in your eyes. I've seen waterfalls
look almost like those photos in reality. You're most likely to see
individual drops of water, like when you use a fast shutter speed, in very
sunny conditions, with sunlight striking the waterfall.
But having spent an awful lot of time *really* looking at waterfalls I can
assure you that *NO* waterfall photograph looks like reality. Waterfall
photos which many people think look more realistic (those medium shutter
speed shots with the "rice pudding* effect) don't look like reality, they
just look less obviously unrealistic. But waterfalls don't look like
stationary rice pudding, those images look awful to me. The ultra fast
frozen water shots don't look realistic either, they look more like ice. I
prefer that look, but it ain't reality.
When I've studied waterfalls I've seen blurry bits, rice puddingy bits,
sharp droplet bits, all at the same time. Your eyes just can't take it all
in. Your eyes flutter about, capturing snippets of data, and your brain
processes it all into a single image, a very complicated image, which looks
nothing like any photograph.
There is no shutter speed, fast medium or slow, which looks like a real
waterfall. For one simple reason, water moves! Photography is a static
medium, it freezes a moment in time (or blurs a longer moment). Photography
is intrinsically unnatural unless the subject is totally static. No
waterfall photograph is realistic. If you want a realistic looking
waterfall, use a video camera.
I'm a bit baffled as to why anyone expects a photograph of a moving subject
to look like reality. It's patently impossible. We should expect it to look
unrealistic, and not criticise it when it doesn't.
Back to practicalities though, there's one very good reason why many
waterfalls are taken with the blurry effect, even if the photographer
doesn't actually want to blur the water. It's because waterfalls are often
found in deep valleys, often in forests, usually in shadow. Even on a bright
sunny day, a waterfall can be a very dark thing to photograph, and that
means camera shake if you try to hand hold the camera. It's a simple fact of
photography that you need to put the camera on a tripod and use slow shutter
speed. This just happens to blur the water. It's usually an unavoidable side
effect.
Besides, it makes the photo look better, because smaller apertures give
better depth of field. I've taken a whole series of photos of a waterfall at
every different speed and aperture combination, and the blurry shots looked
the best, not because of the water, but everything else in the photo looked
better, because it was all in focus and used higher quality apertures. Take
a hand held snap with a wide aperture at a high ISO, and you'll simply end
up with a grainy/noisy shot with half the photo out of focus.
There are clever techniques for blending multiple exposures to create
something closer to reality, but I won't go into those here, and you don't
like that sort of thing anyway apparently.
> and what seems a
> modern style to include some feature near the camera such that your
> eye is drawn away from the landscape to wonder quite what your
> looking at - the distance or is it this rock in the foreground.
Actually that's called *composition*, noticeable by it's complete absense in
99.9% of amateur snaps. It's one of the first things you learn when you take
up photography seriously. You see, photography *is* an art form, and it uses
many principles (like the use of perspective to convey the impression of
distance) that were established by artists long before the camera was
invented.
(Although artists didn't paint with "ultra-wide-angle" lenses to my
knowledge.)
Paul
--
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk
Paul Saunders
>>> Thanks for the pointer, Paul. The pictures are a bit too "arty" for
>>> my taste but it's amazing what lighting effects they can conjure up!
>>
>> Too arty? How can a landscape photo be *too* arty?
>
> I think I better start rowing back then. I definitely do acknowledge
> their skill with a camera and eye for the right subject and moment.
> What I was trying to say is that I personally prefer pictures that
> look similar to what my eye-brain combo would have registered had I
> been there and then, and I doubt they would.
How do you know? I've photographed things that other people thought were
fake when I showed them the photos. Sometimes natural light does look quite
unnatural. We're just not used to seeing it very often. Of course, photos
can be enhanced beyond that.
> For example, waterfalls
> don't appear milky to me.
Camp next to one sometime. Watch it as it gets dark.
> This is not a criticism at all, it's just a (possibly ignorant)
> preference of mine.
I don't think knowledge, or lack of, has anything to do with it. We're all
entitled to our opinions, and I find the opinions of those who know nothing
about the "rules" to be quite refreshing. "Rules" can constrain
photographers who often feel obligated to do things are certain way, and the
fashions of the day also influence the photos you take, if you're aware of
them.
But the bottom line is that either it looks good to you or it doesn't.
Everyone has a different opinion and different reasons for their opinions.
Knowing all the rules I sometimes analyse a photo to death and can't decide
whether I really like it or not, then someone else with no knowledge of
these rules will glance at it and say "that's nice", or not. It's hard for
me to simply look at a picture without analysing it.
> It's like the old thing people used to argue
> about abstract paintings, and those in favour of them countering by
> saying if you don't like it abstract, why don't you just take a photo.
Which all ties in with the perpetual myth that "the camera never lies".
Surely people should realise by now that that's nonsense?
Paul
--
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk
Paul Saunders
>> [...] what seems a modern style to include some feature near the
>> camera
>
> Hardly modern. Ansel Adams used the same technique in many of his
> classic b&w landscapes, and painters were doing it hundreds of years
> before him.
Indeed. It seems to me that "art" has become a bit of a dirty word in
photography. First it was argued that photography wasn't art, yet when it's
used in an artistic way, people complain about it!
And yet people like art, don't they? Or they used to, didn't they? Maybe the
majority don't like art anymore because of what modern art has become? Is
that why "art" is a dirty word now?
Paul
--
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk
W. D. Grey
<pv...@wildwales.fsnet.co.uk> writes
>Rudi Winter wrote:
>
>>>> Thanks for the pointer, Paul. The pictures are a bit too "arty" for
>>>> my taste but it's amazing what lighting effects they can conjure up!
>>>
>>> Too arty? How can a landscape photo be *too* arty?
Gentlemen! When will folk agree to disagree on a subject that is /so./
subjective?
No amount of arguing will satisfy either side - art/photography is such
a personal choice.
Anyone with any experience of Camera Clubs will have seen various judges
make such diverse statements about the merits of a photograph that it
makes almost a nonsense of the whole thing.
Paul Saunders
>>>> Too arty? How can a landscape photo be *too* arty?
>
> Gentlemen! When will folk agree to disagree on a subject that is
> /so./ subjective?
I agree to disagree.
> Anyone with any experience of Camera Clubs will have seen various
> judges make such diverse statements about the merits of a photograph
> that it makes almost a nonsense of the whole thing.
Of course it's a nonsense. There are no rules. It's corny, but beauty is
indeed in the eye of the beholder.
Paul
--
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk
Alan Bremner
<pv...@wildwales.fsnet.co.uk> wrote:
>It seems to me that "art" has become a bit of a dirty word in photography.
>First it was argued that photography wasn't art, yet when it's used in an
>artistic way, people complain about it!
Perhaps it's the pretentious and/or contrived that people object to,
rather than "art" as a whole. As an example, I *hate* the term "fine
art photography" which has appeared in several recent photography
magazines, usually describing studio figure work. Why is this "fine
art"? Is such a photograph any "finer" than a dramatic landscape shot
in available light? To me this sort of twaddle just perpetuates the
myth that producing "art" is only open to those who understand the
language and know the correct secret handshake to gain admittance to
the club.
>And yet people like art, don't they? Or they used to, didn't they? Maybe the
>majority don't like art anymore because of what modern art has become? Is
>that why "art" is a dirty word now?
I think that many people have a very narrow definition of "art" and
would be shocked to be classed as "artists" themselves. Yet that's
what they are if they've ever passed round a folder of 6x4 snaps from
Klick and one of their photos has received admiring comments.
The Reid
<use...@ajbremner.co.uk> wrote:
>Yet that's
>what they are if they've ever passed round a folder of 6x4 snaps from
>Klick and one of their photos has received admiring comments.
I think it depends if they *tried* to make them artisitic and in what
sense they were admired, look what youve done, I'm sounding like a
pretentious twat now.
And we all know the thing about 1000 monkeys chained to 1000
typewriters.
--
Mike Reid
Walk-eat-photos UK "http://www.fellwalk.co.uk" <-- you can email us@ this site
Walk-eat-photos Spain "http://www.fell-walker.co.uk"
Beginners UK flight sims "http://www.lawn-mower-man.co.uk"
The Reid
<pv...@wildwales.fsnet.co.uk> wrote:
>Indeed. It seems to me that "art" has become a bit of a dirty word in
>photography. First it was argued that photography wasn't art, yet when it's
>used in an artistic way, people complain about it!
The problem probably comes from photography's dual role as "record"
and "interpretation". Some people want a 50mm shot of the hill with no
foreground, others want the best effort to catch some good lighting,
find a good foreground, sky etc etc to make something which is of
value in itself. Beauty v Information.
>And yet people like art, don't they? Or they used to, didn't they? Maybe the
>majority don't like art anymore because of what modern art has become? Is
>that why "art" is a dirty word now?
I'm fairly mystified by art. The old representational brown paintings
of fat nudes, kings, idealised battles and madonnas bore me mostly.
A lot of the modern stuff is incomprehensible except where it just
looks rather nice, in which case its just overpriced. Some is absurdly
pretentious like glass of water/oak tree in Tate modern.
There was a short period from late Turner to Les Demoiselles d'Avignon
when it seeed to make sense.
So many people talk so much bollocks about it too, Robert Elms stated
that it was art that shaped our modern world, not the computer and
internal combustion engine then, you daft science-lectic metrosexual
waffler. (he also thinks "Touching the void" is a poor book)
And another thing, look what happens when you let them do something
practical, Le courboisiers cities in the sky or grim tower blocks
unfit for purpose. Definition of an architect - a man who thinks flat
roofs dont leak.
I'll stop now shall I?
The Reid
<pv...@wildwales.fsnet.co.uk> wrote:
>Of course it's a nonsense. There are no rules. It's corny, but beauty is
>indeed in the eye of the beholder.
Heres a new art form. FS screen shots:-
"floating towards the moon" (after Turner)
"http://www.lawn-mower-man.co.uk/westernisles1.htm"
The Reid
<pv...@wildwales.fsnet.co.uk> wrote:
>Fact is, no photo looks like reality, they're all altered and enhanced in
>some way.
in fact a photo isn't remotely like reality, show one to a cat and see
if it understands. Its just your brain doing clever tricks to recreate
a version of visual "reality" as perceived in certain wavelengths.
The Reid
<Bi...@graigroad.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>art/photography is such
>a personal choice.
why not both at once.
>Anyone with any experience of Camera Clubs will have seen various judges
>make such diverse statements about the merits of a photograph that it
>makes almost a nonsense of the whole thing.
it is a nonsense :-)
manat...@hotmail.com
On Nov 21, 10:10 am, The Reid <dont...@fellwalk.co.uk> wrote:
> On Mon, 20 Nov 2006 18:40:34 -0000, "Paul Saunders"
>
> <p...@wildwales.fsnet.co.uk> wrote:
> >Fact is, no photo looks like reality, they're all altered and enhanced in
> >some way.in fact a photo isn't remotely like reality, show one to a cat and see
> if it understands. Its just your brain doing clever tricks to recreate
> a version of visual "reality" as perceived in certain wavelengths.
When the monkeys at Twycross zoo saw the photo of another monkey on the
back of our visitor guide they went ape! It's not just Humans who can
ubderstand photos.
MBQ
The Reid
<manat...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>It's not just Humans who can
>ubderstand photos.
sure, cats are not monkeyss!. Bluetits "understand" mirrors too, or
rather misunderstand!
Paul Saunders
> Heres a new art form. FS screen shots:-
>
> "floating towards the moon" (after Turner)
> "http://www.lawn-mower-man.co.uk/westernisles1.htm"
Very nice.
Actually it's not a new art form. If you browse the F1 sites you'll find
there are many with screen shot galleries. A few of them do competitions
too, screenshot of the month, with prizes! (i.e. a free FS addon)
I've been wondering about adding an FS section to my website, putting up
some screenshot galleries of my own. I've got loads of good ones.
What do you think? Seriously. They could serve a dual purpose, not just for
FS fans but to show off the terrain.
Paul
--
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk
Paul Saunders
>> some way.in fact a photo isn't remotely like reality, show one to a
>> cat and see
>> if it understands. Its just your brain doing clever tricks to
>> recreate a version of visual "reality" as perceived in certain
>> wavelengths.
>
> When the monkeys at Twycross zoo saw the photo of another monkey on
> the back of our visitor guide they went ape! It's not just Humans who
> can ubderstand photos.
No, but the fact that cats and most other animals can't understand photos
proves the point that photographs look nothing like reality. Only a few
animals perceive them that way.
Paul
--
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk
W. D. Grey
<don...@fellwalk.co.uk> writes
>On 22 Nov 2006 02:18:57 -0800, "manat...@hotmail.com"
><manat...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>>It's not just Humans who can
>>ubderstand photos.
>
>sure, cats are not monkeyss!. Bluetits "understand" mirrors too, or
>rather misunderstand!
You want to see what a Siamese Fighting Fish does when it sees a
reflection of itself !
Paul Saunders
> Perhaps it's the pretentious and/or contrived that people object to,
> rather than "art" as a whole.
Could well be.
> As an example, I *hate* the term "fine
> art photography" which has appeared in several recent photography
> magazines, usually describing studio figure work. Why is this "fine
> art"? Is such a photograph any "finer" than a dramatic landscape shot
> in available light?
I'm not familiar with the term "fine art" as applied to photography, but
applied to printing instead. The term "fine art print" seems to have a
definite meaning, AIUI it refers to an archive quality print on "art" (i.e.
matte) paper. There are a number of these "art" papers available, with
different textures, and the archive quality is much greater than the glossy
types (over 100 years I think), although the surface of these prints scuffs
very easily (obviously if you're serious about art you'd frame them).
They have quite a different look to the glossy papers, which most people
probably don't find so appealing, but arty types might.
> To me this sort of twaddle just perpetuates the
> myth that producing "art" is only open to those who understand the
> language and know the correct secret handshake to gain admittance to
> the club.
Yes, I hate the pretentious nonsense that accompanies art. Do you remember a
series where someone had four weeks to learn about something then had to try
to bluff some experts that they were the genuine article? One was about
modern art and guess what? Yep, he got away with it. Didn't suprise me
really. What did surprise me is that the guy involved actually got taken in
by the hype and was convinced by the folk training him that he had a real
talent for it, so I think he decided to continue doing it for real. I think
the hardest part was learning how to talk utter bollocks in a convincing
way. Once you've got that sussed, the rest is easy...
Paul
--
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk
Paul Saunders
>> Yet that's
>> what they are if they've ever passed round a folder of 6x4 snaps from
>> Klick and one of their photos has received admiring comments.
>
> I think it depends if they *tried* to make them artisitic and in what
> sense they were admired, look what youve done, I'm sounding like a
> pretentious twat now.
I think you're right. It's not really art unless you're consciously applying
some artistic principles, like actually composing the photograph for
example, which snappers never do. Well I suppose they do in a sense, the
sense that they're pointing the camera in the right general directions, but
they don't think about viewpoint and framing and leading lines and rules of
thirds and foregrounds and so on.
Snappers never seem to move to a better position or crouch down, or move
forward or back, to alter the composition and improve the perspective. The
do sometimes marshall people into position, but that usually means "stand as
close together as you can" then they take a wide angle shot with loads of
empty space around them. Or they manage to cut off heads and feet and so on.
Some of the snaps I've seen make me wonder if they even bothered to look
through the viewfinder.
> And we all know the thing about 1000 monkeys chained to 1000
> typewriters.
I heard of a photographer once who reckoned that all photography involved
some kind of decision making so I think he used to wander around with a
camera snapping away randomly in different directions without looking
through the viewfinder or even at what he was pointing the camera at, in
order to get natural random images, but even that was subject to some kind
of decision making. Anyone know who that was?
I can't imagine his pics were much worse than some of the snaps I've seen
though...
Paul
--
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk
Paul Saunders
> The problem probably comes from photography's dual role as "record"
> and "interpretation". Some people want a 50mm shot of the hill with no
> foreground, others want the best effort to catch some good lighting,
> find a good foreground, sky etc etc to make something which is of
> value in itself. Beauty v Information.
Exactly. Many of the summit shots on my site I'd class as record shots. IMO
a good record shot usually isn't very artistic, it's functional, it shows
what a place looks like in the clearest possible way. Arty shots though
often don't show information very well, the classic example being a
silhouette with a dramatic sky. Looks great, but not much information, other
than the outline.
> I'm fairly mystified by art. The old representational brown paintings
> of fat nudes, kings, idealised battles and madonnas bore me mostly.
A lot of old art is an attempt at taking "record shots" IMO, since
photography wasn't an available option at the time. Had it been they
probably wouldn't have bothered. Of course, they had the advantage of being
able to apply all sorts of manipulation and I doubt anyone complained. It
didn't have to represent reality accurately and I don't think there was any
expectation that it should, which there is with photography.
Once photography appeared, there was no need for realistic paintings
anymore, it just wasn't worth the effort, so that may have been what sparked
modern art. Now it's just got silly.
> A lot of the modern stuff is incomprehensible except where it just
> looks rather nice, in which case its just overpriced. Some is absurdly
> pretentious like glass of water/oak tree in Tate modern.
That's just stupid. The critics should have put their foot down when artists
first started throwing paint at canvas and told them "don't be so stupid,
that's not art", but they let them get away with it and now they've
redefined art to mean anything you want. I mean, you could pick some snot
out of your nose and provided you present it the right way and talk enough
bollocks about it, it could end up on display and some fool would buy it.
That's just silly, and no amount of pretentious claptrap will ever convince
me otherwise.
> So many people talk so much bollocks about it too, Robert Elms stated
> that it was art that shaped our modern world, not the computer and
> internal combustion engine then, you daft science-lectic metrosexual
> waffler.
I'm sure that most people are completely oblivious to most modern art.
> And another thing, look what happens when you let them do something
> practical, Le courboisiers cities in the sky or grim tower blocks
> unfit for purpose. Definition of an architect - a man who thinks flat
> roofs dont leak.
Hmm... funny you should mention flat roofs. Cleaned out the guttering
yesterday...
> I'll stop now shall I?
No, by all means carry on. :-)
Paul
--
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk
Rudi Winter
> I guess the same might be true of Snowdon, although a search of keyword
> popularity on Overture indicated that Tryfan gets searched for twice as much
> as Snowdon!
That could be skewed by walkers who want to have a look if they have a
chance to get up it in one piece.
> 103 Cader Idris (38 Cadair Idris)
>
> Perhaps I could attract more visitors to my site by spelling Cadair Idris
> the wrong way!
You could put "Cader" in the meta data in the page header maybe.
Rudi Winter
> Indeed. It seems to me that "art" has become a bit of a dirty word in
> photography. First it was argued that photography wasn't art, yet when it's
> used in an artistic way, people complain about it!
>
> And yet people like art, don't they? Or they used to, didn't they? Maybe the
> majority don't like art anymore because of what modern art has become? Is
> that why "art" is a dirty word now?
I don't particularly enjoy spending a lot of time in galleries either.
It's not just the modern stuff; Turners and Rembrandts aren't really for
me either I'm afraid. I have tried it, but I think my brain just isn't
wired for art.
I must admit I do admire the chap who won one of the big prizes a few
years back by turning a shed into a boat, row it down a river (I think
it was the Rhine near Basel) and then turn it back into a shed again,
but I'm not sure if I do so for the right reasons!
Rudi Winter
> The only people who don't adjust or enhance photos are amateur snappers who
> use cheap cameras, cheap film and don't know how. Then they complain that
> their snaps don't look as good as professional photos. Yet those snaps don't
> look like reality either, with their washed out skies and their flat grey
> look, or ridiculously contrasty look (depending on their camera settings,
> which are altering reality without them even realising it).
I do some enhancing: I try to get rid of any grey haze due to lack of
dynamic range, try to get the colour balance approximate to what I seem
to remember, lighten dark foregrounds by overlaying a negative if
necessary, and unsharp-mask images to enhance the local contrast a bit.
I find skies most problematic: If it's cloudy, I get blown out skies
(or black foregrounds) because 8 bit simply isn't enough, and if it's
all blue skies, I find it difficult to avoid a greenish tinge in the sky
if I apply the same colour balance to the whole picture.
But I certainly don't complain that my snaps don't look as good as
professional photos - after all I'm not a professional photographer!
> Fact is, no photo looks like reality
No, but I want mine to look like my perceived reality.
> More to the point, if I see a medium blue sky with detailed fluffy clouds,
> yet I end up with a photo showing a pale blue sky with burnt out clouds, I
> know that's not the reality I saw, so I'll darken the sky. If darkening the
> sky makes the shadows go black, I know that's not what I saw either, because
> I saw detail in the shadows, so I'll lighten them. The end result won't look
> like a typical "unprocessed" photo (or snap), but it will look more like
> what I actually saw.
So, you haven't got a cure for that either then. Damn!
> Case in point, I recently photographed a white lighthouse in bright sunshine
> with a large dark cave underneath. I could see the detail on the white
> lighthouse, but it overexposed on the photo. I could see the detail in the
> dark cave, but it came out black on the photo! Solution? I took three
> photos, one exposed for the lighthouse, one for the cave and one normal one,
> then blended them using HDR. The result didn't look like a "normal" photo,
> but it did look much closer to what I actually saw.
Do you know somewhere to read up on that maybe? How do you display the
final photograph if it's more than 8bit?
> But having spent an awful lot of time *really* looking at waterfalls I can
> assure you that *NO* waterfall photograph looks like reality. Waterfall
> photos which many people think look more realistic (those medium shutter
> speed shots with the "rice pudding* effect) don't look like reality, they
> just look less obviously unrealistic. But waterfalls don't look like
> stationary rice pudding, those images look awful to me. The ultra fast
> frozen water shots don't look realistic either, they look more like ice. I
> prefer that look, but it ain't reality.
I'd say I do see rice pudding if I blink my eyes at a waterfall. But I
agree, they can't really be captured faithfully in a single image
because the brain doesn't base its perception on a single image either.
> There are clever techniques for blending multiple exposures to create
> something closer to reality, but I won't go into those here, and you don't
> like that sort of thing anyway apparently.
Actually, do go on!
Rudi Winter
> reflection of itself !
Straighten its tie and comb the scales?
Rudi Winter
> Rudi Winter wrote:
>> What I was trying to say is that I personally prefer pictures that
>> look similar to what my eye-brain combo would have registered had I
>> been there and then, and I doubt they would.
>
> How do you know? I've photographed things that other people thought were
> fake when I showed them the photos. Sometimes natural light does look quite
> unnatural. We're just not used to seeing it very often. Of course, photos
> can be enhanced beyond that.
I live on the seafront - facing straight west, so I do tend to get my
share of dramatic sunsets. Some of which I would probably dismiss as
engineered if I saw them printed on paper, I've got to admit.
A favourite sunset shot here at Aber is the reflection of the sunset on
the sea viewed through a free standing arch in the derelict castle.
Amazing colours!
(As far waterfalls, see Mike's sub-thread.)
Rudi Winter
>
> Gentlemen! When will folk agree to disagree on a subject that is /so./
> subjective?
I think that's exactly the consensus that's coming out of this
discussion right now...
Paul Saunders
>> a search of
>> keyword popularity on Overture indicated that Tryfan gets searched
>> for twice as much as Snowdon!
>
> That could be skewed by walkers who want to have a look if they have a
> chance to get up it in one piece.
Could be, but still, most regular tourists probably wouldn't know about
Tryfan so I'm amazed the search results are so much higher than Snowdon,
which gets mentioned on countless websites that have nothing to do with
walking, like the BBC Wales News site for example.
>> 103 Cader Idris (38 Cadair Idris)
>>
>> Perhaps I could attract more visitors to my site by spelling Cadair
>> Idris the wrong way!
>
> You could put "Cader" in the meta data in the page header maybe.
Good idea, I'll do that. I may make a point of blatantly mentioning that
"it's not spelt Cader" or "Cader is the English corruption" or whatever.
Mentioning it a few times on the page will help to get it ranked higher for
that keyword, which seems pretty important if that's what most people are
searching for.
I've also determined that "Mount Snowdon" is searched for a lot too. I
really hate that one, it's not even on any map. Why do people call it that?
I daresay some people search for "Snowden" too, but I haven't checked that
one yet.
Paul
--
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk
Paul Saunders
> I don't particularly enjoy spending a lot of time in galleries either.
> It's not just the modern stuff; Turners and Rembrandts aren't really
> for me either I'm afraid.
Same here.
> I have tried it, but I think my brain just
> isn't wired for art.
But most art isn't landscapes, is it? There are some good landscapes in art
though, sometimes greatly exaggerating the actual terrain.
> I must admit I do admire the chap who won one of the big prizes a few
> years back by turning a shed into a boat, row it down a river (I think
> it was the Rhine near Basel) and then turn it back into a shed again,
> but I'm not sure if I do so for the right reasons!
Sounds very clever, but I wouldn't qualify clever as art. Shouldn't that
fall into the category of engineering?
Paul
--
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk
Paul Saunders
> I do some enhancing:
Good.
> I try to get rid of any grey haze due to lack of
> dynamic range, try to get the colour balance approximate to what I
> seem to remember,
As a general rule I tend not to alter the colour with digital. I take
everything with daylight white balance and I like to keep it consistent,
only changing it if it obviously looks wrong.
> lighten dark foregrounds by overlaying a negative if
> necessary, and unsharp-mask images to enhance the local contrast a
> bit. I find skies most problematic: If it's cloudy, I get blown out
> skies (or black foregrounds) because 8 bit simply isn't enough,
Don't use 8 bit then! Don't you know my views on RAW? ALWAYS shoot RAW!
Especially in high contrast situations like this. Expose for the sky,
lighten the seemingly black foreground later. Never overexpose! You can't
get the highlights back (well you can get some of them back if you shoot
RAW). The black shadows aren't as black as they seem, with RAW you can get
an amazing amount of detail out of them.
> and
> if it's all blue skies, I find it difficult to avoid a greenish tinge
> in the sky if I apply the same colour balance to the whole picture.
Greenish tinge? Never had that. If you shoot with daylight balance and a
blue sky you shouldn't have to adjust the colour. If you do, you should
adjust the land separately and leave the sky alone (layer masking).
> But I certainly don't complain that my snaps don't look as good as
> professional photos - after all I'm not a professional photographer!
But you're not a snapper either. There is a large grey area between the two.
You obviously know a bit about processing techniques so you sound more like
a serious amateur to me.
>> Fact is, no photo looks like reality
>
> No, but I want mine to look like my perceived reality.
Fair enough, but sometimes you have to do quite a bit of processing to
recreate reality.
>> More to the point, if I see a medium blue sky with detailed fluffy
>> clouds, yet I end up with a photo showing a pale blue sky with burnt
>> out clouds, I know that's not the reality I saw, so I'll darken the
>> sky. If darkening the sky makes the shadows go black, I know that's
>> not what I saw either, because I saw detail in the shadows, so I'll
>> lighten them. The end result won't look like a typical "unprocessed"
>> photo (or snap), but it will look more like what I actually saw.
>
> So, you haven't got a cure for that either then. Damn!
It's impossible to make a high dynamic range image look exactly like
reality, because a) no film or sensor can capture the whole range and b) no
monitor or paper can reproduce that dynamic range. So the next best thing is
to compress the dynamic range in some way. With film the use of a graduated
filter was a standard solution, now we have better ways, layer masking and
HDR.
They may not look exactly like reality, but they look pretty good when done
well, and they look a helluva lot better than over or underexposure.
>> Solution? I took three photos, one exposed for the lighthouse, one
>> for the cave and one normal one, then blended them using HDR.
>
> Do you know somewhere to read up on that maybe?
HDR is a relatively new feature and I suspect that few people are experts on
it yet. The HDR file in itself is useless, it can't be displayed fully. The
clever bit happens when you convert it back to a normal file, but there are
a number of different ways of doing that, so there's no single step by step
technique. I tend to use step 4, which then requires further processing
because the result looks so flat.
I'm sure there are some articles on the internet about this, try Googling.
Currently HDR seems to be a rather contentious subject, because some people
are using it to create some very unusual, spectacular, dramatic, arty and
unrealistic images with it. But it can also be used to create quite normal
looking images, with care. I'll try to find some good examples that I've
seen. Remind me if I forget.
> How do you display
> the final photograph if it's more than 8bit?
Monitors themselves are only 8 bits per channel, yet you can look at 16 bit
images on them. The software simply converts the image to 8 bit for display.
HDR images are 32 bit and can't be displayed properly, you can only see a
small part of the dynamic range at one time. HDR only becomes useful when
you convert it back to 16 bit for further processing, finally converting the
result to 8 bit.
> I'd say I do see rice pudding if I blink my eyes at a waterfall.
That's probably the closest to reality, but personally I hate it, the less
realistic blur or frozen effects look much better IMO.
> But
> I agree, they can't really be captured faithfully in a single image
> because the brain doesn't base its perception on a single image
> either.
Quite.
>> There are clever techniques for blending multiple exposures to create
>> something closer to reality, but I won't go into those here, and you
>> don't like that sort of thing anyway apparently.
>
> Actually, do go on!
Well that would take a bit of explaining actually. I've done some waterfall
photos which are a blend of the long exposure blur effect (for overall image
quality) and underexposed high ISO fast shutter speed shots which have
frozen the water. I've selected the water, brightened it and used layer
masking to overlay it on top of the blurred water.
I plan to add some articles to my website in due course. I intend to explain
this procedure in a lot more detail.
Paul
--
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk
Paul Saunders
>> I've photographed things that other people thought
>> were fake when I showed them the photos. Sometimes natural light
>> does look quite unnatural.
>
> I live on the seafront - facing straight west, so I do tend to get my
> share of dramatic sunsets. Some of which I would probably dismiss as
> engineered if I saw them printed on paper, I've got to admit.
Thanks. I'm glad someone else has seen such things.
> A favourite sunset shot here at Aber is the reflection of the sunset
> on the sea viewed through a free standing arch in the derelict castle.
> Amazing colours!
Nice. I'll remember that next time I'm in Aber at sunset time.
Paul
--
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk
W. D. Grey
<ru...@physics.org> writes
>W. D. Grey <Bi...@graigroad.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>> You want to see what a Siamese Fighting Fish does when it sees a
>> reflection of itself !
>
>Straighten its tie and comb the scales?
Yeah and shape up for a fight :-)
Rudi Winter
> I've also determined that "Mount Snowdon" is searched for a lot too. I
> really hate that one, it's not even on any map. Why do people call it that?
Don't know, maybe they think it's named after someone who "discovered"
it, as in Mount Everest or Mount McKinley?
Rudi Winter
> But most art isn't landscapes, is it? There are some good landscapes in art
> though, sometimes greatly exaggerating the actual terrain.
Mmmm, not sure. I'll make it my homework to have a stroll round the
arts centre next time they've got landscape paintings in the gallery.
Maybe.
>> I must admit I do admire the chap who won one of the big prizes a few
>> years back by turning a shed into a boat, row it down a river (I think
>> it was the Rhine near Basel) and then turn it back into a shed again,
>> but I'm not sure if I do so for the right reasons!
>
> Sounds very clever, but I wouldn't qualify clever as art. Shouldn't that
> fall into the category of engineering?
I'd call it clever p*ss-taking, but I think engineering probably comes
into it too ;-)
Rudi Winter
>>W. D. Grey <Bi...@graigroad.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>>> You want to see what a Siamese Fighting Fish does when it sees a
>>> reflection of itself !
>
Chaffinches are quite good at that too. I once had one of them going bonkers
at my window while I was trying to learn for an exam...
Rudi Winter
> As a general rule I tend not to alter the colour with digital. I take
> everything with daylight white balance and I like to keep it consistent,
> only changing it if it obviously looks wrong.
On very blue-sky days I tend to get blue rocks, presumably due to
reflection. But I don't see it like that, probably because my brain's
white balance is slightly off that of my camera, so I'd try to
re-balance based on a grey point on a stone in a shaded area. That in
turn tends to produce a slight green tinge in the sky...
> Don't use 8 bit then! Don't you know my views on RAW? ALWAYS shoot RAW!
I do almost always. But I haven't got 16bit (or 12bit for that matter)
processing software. Still waiting for Cinepaint Glasgow (now supposed
to be released on 1 Dec)...
From http://www.cinepaint.org/ :
| CinePaint is fundamentally different from other painting tools because
| it handles high fidelity image formats such as Kodak Cineon, SMPTE DPX,
| and ILM-NVIDIA OpenEXR. To do that properly requires a 32-bit per
| channel color engine core so that data isn't crushed into 8-bit color
| channels. The CinePaint core is 8-bit, 16-bit, and 32-bit as needed.
But even with 16bit software, I mean, your monitor doesn't do more than
8bit, so how can you actually work with those high-dynamic range images?
Is it a matter of looking at histograms and the like only, without
actually seeing the picture?
> Greenish tinge? Never had that. If you shoot with daylight balance and a
> blue sky you shouldn't have to adjust the colour. If you do, you should
> adjust the land separately and leave the sky alone (layer masking).
That's fine in a shot with well-defined horizon, but rather a pain if
there are trees crossing the horizon, though...
> HDR is a relatively new feature and I suspect that few people are experts on
I did look that up but failed to grasp how you can work on more than
8bit if you're working on an 8bit display... I can feel another web
trawl coming up!
> technique. I tend to use step 4, which then requires further processing
Step 4 ?
> Monitors themselves are only 8 bits per channel, yet you can look at 16 bit
> images on them. The software simply converts the image to 8 bit for display.
So, normally it has eight shades of each primary colour. Now you've got
16 bits, but still have to map them onto the 8bit display. So the
display value for both 0 and 1 is 0, 2 and 3 is 1, ..., 14 and 15 is 7, right?
But then it would be exactly like the 8bit image in the first place?
Or does it bin the 16 bits differently, skewing towards the darker
tones? For example, 0 -> 0, 1 -> 1, 2 -> 2, 3-4 -> 3, 5-6 -> 4, 7-9 ->
5, 10-12 -> 6, 13-15 -> 7 or something more logarithmic?
> frozen the water. I've selected the water, brightened it and used layer
> masking to overlay it on top of the blurred water.
Does selecting the water involve manually cutting out the droplets, or
am I failing to spot a straightforward way of doing that?
Thinking of it, maybe one could subtract a fixed number from one of the
channels in the layer that contains the drops, then select by colour,
then add that fixed number again. Hmmm, must try.
> I plan to add some articles to my website in due course. I intend to explain
> this procedure in a lot more detail.
Great, I'm looking forward to that!
The Reid
<pv...@wildwales.fsnet.co.uk> wrote:
>Some of the snaps I've seen make me wonder if they even bothered to look
>through the viewfinder.
looking but not seeing.
Another classic is putting people in full sun for portraits!
--
Mike Reid
Walk-eat-photos UK "http://www.fellwalk.co.uk" <-- you can email us@ this site
Walk-eat-photos Spain "http://www.fell-walker.co.uk"
Beginners UK flight sim addons "http://www.lawn-mower-man.co.uk"
The Reid
<pv...@wildwales.fsnet.co.uk> wrote:
>Actually it's not a new art form. If you browse the F1 sites you'll find
>there are many with screen shot galleries. A few of them do competitions
>too, screenshot of the month, with prizes! (i.e. a free FS addon)
I'm now seeing this.
>I've been wondering about adding an FS section to my website, putting up
>some screenshot galleries of my own. I've got loads of good ones.
>
>What do you think? Seriously. They could serve a dual purpose, not just for
>FS fans but to show off the terrain.
got the teashirt :-)
"http://www.lawn-mower-man.co.uk/activesky.htm"
Do it!
The Reid
<pv...@wildwales.fsnet.co.uk> wrote:
>That's just stupid. The critics should have put their foot down when artists
>first started throwing paint at canvas and told them "don't be so stupid,
>that's not art", but they let them get away with it and now they've
>redefined art to mean anything you want. I mean, you could pick some snot
>out of your nose and provided you present it the right way and talk enough
>bollocks about it,
a lot of art is just shock tactics currently, condoms, blood, shit,
sex, whatever.
>it could end up on display and some fool would buy it.
>That's just silly, and no amount of pretentious claptrap will ever convince
>me otherwise.
the only thing that msakes me wonder is that people like the Saccchis,
who can make effective advertising, like the stuff.
>I'm sure that most people are completely oblivious to most modern art.
good for them.
>> And another thing, look what happens when you let them do something
>> practical, Le courboisiers cities in the sky or grim tower blocks
>> unfit for purpose. Definition of an architect - a man who thinks flat
>> roofs dont leak.
>
>Hmm... funny you should mention flat roofs. Cleaned out the guttering
>yesterday...
theres some 30s modernist houses nearby, the owners are fitting
pitched roofs.
>> I'll stop now shall I?
>
>No, by all means carry on. :-)
as always :-)
Paul Saunders
> On very blue-sky days I tend to get blue rocks, presumably due to
> reflection. But I don't see it like that, probably because my brain's
> white balance is slightly off that of my camera, so I'd try to
> re-balance based on a grey point on a stone in a shaded area. That in
> turn tends to produce a slight green tinge in the sky...
You adjust the WB of the whole picture? I wouldn't do it that way. For a
start, the rocks may not be perfectly grey, and even if they are, it screws
up the sky colour. It's usually the shadows where you see the most blue. The
land is usually darker than the sky so the simplest way to do it is to use
Curves. Select the blue channel, then subtract blue from the shadows (bottom
left), using a couple of points higher up (top right) to ensure the sky
isn't affected.
>> Don't use 8 bit then! Don't you know my views on RAW? ALWAYS shoot
>> RAW!
>
> I do almost always. But I haven't got 16bit (or 12bit for that
> matter) processing software. Still waiting for Cinepaint Glasgow
> (now supposed
> to be released on 1 Dec)...
What platform are you using?
> From http://www.cinepaint.org/ :
>> CinePaint is fundamentally different from other painting tools
>> because
>> it handles high fidelity image formats such as Kodak Cineon, SMPTE
>> DPX, and ILM-NVIDIA OpenEXR. To do that properly requires a 32-bit
>> per
>> channel color engine core so that data isn't crushed into 8-bit color
>> channels. The CinePaint core is 8-bit, 16-bit, and 32-bit as needed.
Sounds good.
> But even with 16bit software, I mean, your monitor doesn't do more
> than 8bit, so how can you actually work with those high-dynamic range
> images?
The software (Photoshop in my case) displays it in 8 bit, but internally
it's working with 16 bits.
> Is it a matter of looking at histograms and the like only, without
> actually seeing the picture?
No, you can see the picture. It looks exactly the same. If you switch back
and fore between 8 and 16 bit it looks identical, but internally it's not.
This is not the case with 32 bit though, you can only see one section of the
dynamic range at a time (there's an exposure slider to alter which bit you
can see).
>> Greenish tinge? Never had that. If you shoot with daylight balance
>> and a blue sky you shouldn't have to adjust the colour. If you do,
>> you should adjust the land separately and leave the sky alone (layer
>> masking).
>
> That's fine in a shot with well-defined horizon, but rather a pain if
> there are trees crossing the horizon, though...
Yes, that's why the Curves method works well. The Selective Color tool is
excellent too, for example you could select green and subtract blue (add
yellow) to it and only the grass will change. Selecting neutral changes the
sky as well unfortunately, but if you've already altered the colour balance
you could select blue and/or cyan and add or subtract colour as needed to
get the sky looking correct. If it's too green then you'd add some magenta.
>> HDR is a relatively new feature and I suspect that few people are
>> experts on
>
> I did look that up but failed to grasp how you can work on more than
> 8bit if you're working on an 8bit display... I can feel another web
> trawl coming up!
Like I say, 16 bits are displayed as 16 bits, 32 bit imaged can't be viewed
in their entirety. It's only when you convert 32 back to 16 that you get to
choose what the conversion looks like.
>> technique. I tend to use step 4, which then requires further
>> processing
>
> Step 4 ?
Sorry, I should have said method rather than step. There are four different
methods to convert an HDR image back to 16 bits.
1. Exposure and Gamma. This is a simple method which is not unlike choosing
your exposure after you've taken the photo rather than before. Not terribly
useful IMO.
2. Highlight Compression. No options with this. It shows the entire dynamic
range, compressing the highlights to fit. Looks quite flat and unnatural,
needs more processing afterwards.
3. Equalise Histogram. No options with this either. Similar to the previous
method but squashes everything equally, so you get darker shadows and it
doesn't look so flat.
4. Local Adaptation. This is the most powerful method. You can adjust Radius
and Threshold (a bit like contrast masking) and also Curves. With care you
can produce quite a natural looking image, or an extremely unnatural one! Up
to you! Still requires further processing though because the result is quite
flat.
I had to check what the four methods were, which required actually creating
an HDR image, so I used method 4 to show you what's possible. I didn't spend
long over it, just fiddled about quickly to get a half decent result, I
could do better if I spent longer over it. I then used USM to boost local
contrast and sharpened it with Focus Magic.
I've tried to go for a fairly natural look. It was shot straight into the
sun at sunrise, so the sun was overexposed in the main image. The sun
exposure made the foreground completely black and the foreground exposure
had a totally burnt out sky. I think I'd prefer the sky a bit darker and the
foreground a tad lighter, but as I say, this was just a quickie to
demonstrate.
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk/misc/mumbles-sunrise-hdr.jpg
While I was at it I thought I'd try to process just the main image for
comparison. I used the shadow/highlight tool to lighten the foreground and
darken the sky. Then I boosted local contrast with USM and sharpened with
FM. Again, I didn't spend long over this and I only worked on a small jpeg
rather than a full size 16 bit image, so there's noticeable banding in the
sky (this is why you shouldn't shoot in jpeg mode) and dark fringing over
Mumbles Head, but these artefacts wouldn't be there if I'd worked on the RAW
image.
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk/misc/mumbles-sunrise-sh.jpg
To be honest the single image turned out better than I expected, so using
HDR may not be strictly necessary, except for the most important shots or
those with extreme dynamic range. The sun is a tad burnt out though and I
can see posterisation in the lightened shadows even at this size. I'm
guessing the posterisation would be much more obvious in a full size image
and as a print.
I didn't go to the trouble of trying to make them look identical, but I'm
sure I could have made them look a lot more similar if I'd bothered. I think
the HDR version is superior though, and has a more natural look. What do you
think?
>> Monitors themselves are only 8 bits per channel, yet you can look at
>> 16 bit images on them. The software simply converts the image to 8
>> bit for display.
>
> So, normally it has eight shades of each primary colour.
No, 8 bits, that's 256 shades each.
> Now you've
> got 16 bits, but still have to map them onto the 8bit display. So the
> display value for both 0 and 1 is 0, 2 and 3 is 1, ..., 14 and 15 is
> 7, right?
Well you've got the number of shades wrong, but in principle that's correct.
Actually 0-255 is 0, 256-511 is 1 and so on. 16 bit is massively more
detailed than 8 bit, it's not 2x the dynamic resolution, it's 256x. But
having said that, most digital cameras are actually only 12-bit, not 16. But
that's still 16x as detailed.
> But then it would be exactly like the 8bit image in the
> first place?
Yes, it *looks* exactly like the 8 bit image, but internally it's not. When
you stretch the dynamic range (such as brightening the shadows or darkening
the sky) those extra steps of detail become visible and prevent banding
(which looks like a series of spikes on the histogram).
> Or does it bin the 16 bits differently, skewing towards the darker
> tones? For example, 0 -> 0, 1 -> 1, 2 -> 2, 3-4 -> 3, 5-6 -> 4, 7-9
> -> 5, 10-12 -> 6, 13-15 -> 7 or something more logarithmic?
No.
>> frozen the water. I've selected the water, brightened it and used
>> layer masking to overlay it on top of the blurred water.
>
> Does selecting the water involve manually cutting out the droplets, or
> am I failing to spot a straightforward way of doing that?
There are a few ways of doing it. You could manually cut it out but it's
much simpler to create a channel mask. Do I have to explain that now? :-)
Actually, if you use curves to make the water brighter and the land darker,
when you overlay the image you can use lighten mode (I think) so that only
the brighter details are visible, so a rough manual cut can work fine. You
can adjust the curves afterwards so you can see the result as you do it.
> Thinking of it, maybe one could subtract a fixed number from one of
> the channels in the layer that contains the drops, then select by
> colour, then add that fixed number again. Hmmm, must try.
Um, don't quite follow, but it might work. There are lots of different ways
of making the selection, but the key in this instance is to use the lighten
mode (or a different one, can't remember offhand) so that only the bright
water shows through.
>> I plan to add some articles to my website in due course. I intend to
>> explain this procedure in a lot more detail.
>
> Great, I'm looking forward to that!
Well don't hold your breath. I've got a lot of work to do on the existing
site first. But thanks for the interest.
Paul
--
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk
Chris Gilbert
> a lot of art is just shock tactics currently, condoms, blood, shit,
> sex, whatever.
If it aint science then it's art. If it touches you then it's worked.
Even if you loathe it, like it or not, it did it's job. The only crap
art is art that touches *nobody* and there isn't such a thing
cos we're all wired up differently.
What I *really* hate is copy-cat and derivation. Somebody
somewhere has to push back the boundaries but it's not always
worth either exploitation or repetition yet that is often what
we get.
Chris
The Reid
<christopher....@virgin.net> wrote:
>If it aint science then it's art.
but not good art.
>If it touches you then it's worked.
someone masturbating on the train might offend, its not science, IMHO
its not art either.
>Even if you loathe it, like it or not, it did it's job. The only crap
>art is art that touches *nobody* and there isn't such a thing
>cos we're all wired up differently.
so all art is good? You seem to suspend discernment?
--
Mike Reid
UK Walking - photos "http://www.fellwalk.co.uk" <-- you can email us@ this site
Spain Walking -food "http://www.fell-walker.co.uk"
The Reid
Winter) wrote:
>On very blue-sky days I tend to get blue rocks, presumably due to
>reflection. But I don't see it like that, probably because my brain's
>white balance is slightly off that of my camera,
the camera is right, our brains adjust out the blue as they adjust out
any colour cast, try wearing yellow googles for a couple og hours.
Chris Gilbert
> so all art is good? You seem to suspend discernment?
It's all in the eye of the beholder, as the saying goes.
Chris
The Reid
wrote:
>>the camera is right, our brains adjust out the blue as they adjust out
>>any colour cast, try wearing yellow googles for a couple og hours.
>
>It never lies!
cameras don't know how to but photographers do. Cameras make mistakes,
but on blue casts they are more reliable than humans.
John Yale
@leri.aber.ac.uk:
> I must admit I do admire the chap who won one of the big prizes a few
> years back by turning a shed into a boat, row it down a river (I think
> it was the Rhine near Basel) and then turn it back into a shed again,
> but I'm not sure if I do so for the right reasons!
Here's a bit of walking art :0) You've missed him going through Wales, he
is down to Exeter now.
Beijing based artist He Yun Chang is amongst the most important artists
presently working in China, creating unique solo performances in which he
has placed exceptional physical demands upon himself both in terms of his
strength and endurance. These works, mostly performed in public though
occasionally only observed by a camera operator, have astounded audiences
with their simple ambition combined with the difficulty of their
implementation and, ultimately, their apparent futility.
Touring Round Great Britain With A Rock is He Yun Chang's most challenging
and ambitious performance to date and it is set to become a landmark
project in the history of durational performance art. Starting from Rock,
in Northumberland, he will walk to the nearby coast at Boulmer where he
will select a rock and set off to carry it around the island of Great
Britain in a counter clockwise direction, eventually to return the rock to
the precise location from where it was taken. The route is a rough
circumnavigation of Great Britain, rather than following the precise
coastline, a distance of over 2000 miles and will take around 110 days.
The Reid
<john...@europlacer.co.uk> wrote:
>Touring Round Great Britain With A Rock is He Yun Chang's most challenging
>and ambitious performance to date and it is set to become a landmark
>project in the history of durational performance art. Starting from Rock,
I'm speechless.
Rudi Winter
> will select a rock and set off to carry it around the island of Great
> Britain in a counter clockwise direction, eventually to return the rock to
Good grief!
Paul Saunders
> Here's a bit of walking art :0) You've missed him going through
> Wales,
Good.
> Beijing based artist He Yun Chang is amongst the most "important
> artists" presently working in China,
They spelt *attention seeking moron* wrong.
> creating unique solo performances
> in which he has placed exceptional physical demands upon himself both
> in terms of his strength and endurance. These works, mostly performed
> in public though occasionally only observed by a camera operator,
> have astounded audiences...
...with his stupidity.
> with their simple ambition combined with the
> difficulty of their implementation and, ultimately,
Are people's lives really so boring that they need to pay attention to
idiots like this? What is the world coming to? Have IQ's drastically lowered
in the last 30 years?
> their apparent futility.
Probably got fed up with usenet trolling.
> Touring Round Great Britain With A Rock is He Yun Chang's most
> challenging and ambitious performance to date and it is set to become
> a landmark project in the history of durational performance art.
A landmark project? FFS! The guy's just going for a walk! It's been done
before, and with a lot more weight in a rucksack than that little pebble he
picked up.
> http://www.amino.org.uk/current.html
"The exhibition includes Casting, for which the artist embedded himself in a
concrete block for 24 hours; and Eyesight Test where he stared directly at
10,000 Watts of electric light for 60 minutes."
Wow! That requires real talent, doesn't it? What next? Artists sticking
needles in their eyes? Chopping their fingers off? "Hey, look at me, I'm a
loony!"
The human race is going to die of stupidity soon at this rate.
I think it's about time for another world war or a global catastrophe of
some sort to knock some sense back into people and force them to get their
priorities straight. ;-)
Paul
--
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk
Paul Saunders
> If it aint science then it's art.
No it isn't.
> If it touches you then it's worked.
> Even if you loathe it, like it or not, it did it's job.
What job? Since when has art been defined by causing an emotional reacton?
It isn't. Even if some pretentious artist decided it should be. Loads of
things do cause emotional reactions, but they're not art. Disliking someing
doesn't make it art.
I don't know who makes the rules, apparently there aren't any rules any
more. Clearly it's stupid for people to make up their own rules and call it
art. By that definition everything is art, in which case, there's no such
thing as art, might as well just call it life.
It's plainly obvious to most people what art is. It's what it originally
was, drawing and painting and sculpting and so on. Not just any old bollocks
that the self-proclaimed artist decides is art. I think the audience are
more to blame than the so called artists, for pandering to this crap in the
first place.
Hey, I've got an idea. Why don't I go out with a film camera, but fail to
load it with film, then take lots of really good photos with it (you know I
can do that, don't you?). Then I can fail to print the photos I didn't take
and mount them in empty frames. Then I can have a display in a gallery,
showing all the excellent photos I didn't take. I can even name them and
tell you all about what I didn't photograph. I can even tell you the shutter
speeds and what filters I used to get the effects I didn't photograph. I
wonder what the bidding for my non existent photos will start at?
Maybe I could turn this idea into performance art. I could charge people to
follow me around and watch me failing to photograph an excellent sunrise, or
whatever, explaining the expert techniques that I'm using to capture these
brilliant images onto nothing.
> The only crap
> art is art that touches *nobody* and there isn't such a thing
> cos we're all wired up differently.
If it's a painting then it's art. Even if it doesn't touch anyone, it's
still art, it's just crap art.
> What I *really* hate is copy-cat and derivation. Somebody
> somewhere has to push back the boundaries but it's not always
> worth either exploitation or repetition yet that is often what
> we get.
Of course, because the world is full of morons keen to jump onto the
bandwagon if they think there's the chance of making a quick buck out of it.
But without copycats, where would we be? Take music for example, someone
invents a new musical style, thousands of others copy it. Those who turn out
the be the best at that style are rarely the ones who invented it. The
Beatles didn't invent pop music, should they have not bothered copying it?
Paul
--
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk
Paul Saunders
>>> the camera is right, our brains adjust out the blue as they adjust
>>> out any colour cast, try wearing yellow googles for a couple og
>>> hours.
>>
>> It never lies!
Yet people now assume that it does. A photo taken in unusual light with blue
shadows may be assumed to be manipulated, even though it's not. It may
require manipulation to make it look "real", which of course it then isn't.
Photography is hugely subjective, and that makes a mockery of much so-called
manipulation.
> cameras don't know how to but photographers do. Cameras make mistakes,
> but on blue casts they are more reliable than humans.
Yep. I rather like the indoor/outdoor night lighting effect used in film's
such as Sam Raimi's Crimewave and Jackson's Lord of the Rings, where you see
the interior lit with orange light and the exterior in the background lit
with blue light. These colours may be enhanced for film purposes, but it's
basically accurate, more accurate than adjusting the white balance and
making it all look like white light.
Paul
--
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk
Chris Gilbert
> I don't know who makes the rules
It's up to everyone to find thier own peace with it. Any fool
can put themselves up as an artist. It doesn't even matter if
nobody likes what they do. I absolutely detest what Tracey
Emin does but it's art in its own way.
> It's plainly obvious to most people what art is. It's what it originally
> was, drawing and painting and sculpting and so on.
> Not just any old bollocks.
Impressionism? Cubists? Rothko? Warhol? Klimt? Kandinsky?
Where do these fit in your order ? They were all derided as
bollocks at one time yet are now indisputable milestones in the
history of art.
> But without copycats, where would we be? Take music for example, someone
> invents a new musical style, thousands of others copy it. Those who turn
> out the be the best at that style are rarely the ones who invented it. The
> Beatles didn't invent pop music, should they have not bothered copying it?
I totally agree. In fact it's one of my bugbears that by the time a
genre has been 'perfected' it's out of fashion and those who are the
best at it rarely get the recognition their work deserves.
Chris
Paul Saunders
>> I don't know who makes the rules
>
> It's up to everyone to find thier own peace with it.
I think someone should make some rules.
> Any fool
> can put themselves up as an artist.
I have no problem with that, provided what they're doing is actually art to
begin with. Anyone can buy a camera and take crap photos. Doesn't make them
a good photographer but it does make them a photographer. No-one pays any
attention though. As for artists, if what they're doing is art, fine, even
if it's crap, but don't do something that isn't art and then say it is, just
because "my pretentious bullshit is good enough to convince you".
If I take photos with no film in the camera and then frame empty prints, no
sane person would believe that those are actually photographs, I'd get
laughed out of town. The same should be done to the pretentious prats who
create crap and call it art. And if it's no good, which pretentious crap
isn't, then it should be ignored, just like crap photos are ignored.
> It doesn't even matter if
> nobody likes what they do.
It matters if you put them on a pedastal and announce to the world "THIS IS
ART!". No gallery would put on a display of a crap photographer's work, no
record company would publish an album of crap music. If something is crap it
should be ignored, not publicised.
> I absolutely detest what Tracey
> Emin does but it's art in its own way.
Never heard of her, but it sounds as though I don't want to. If it's crap
I'm not interested. In the art world (and I'm including photography and
music in that) talent should be promoted, not pretentious bullshit, and it's
not that hard to distinquish the two.
>> It's plainly obvious to most people what art is. It's what it
>> originally was, drawing and painting and sculpting and so on.
>> Not just any old bollocks.
>
> Impressionism? Cubists? Rothko? Warhol? Klimt? Kandinsky?
> Where do these fit in your order ?
Haven't heard of two of them. Weren't they all painters of some kind?
> They were all derided as
> bollocks at one time yet are now indisputable milestones in the
> history of art.
If they were all painters, then they were all artists, irrespective of
whether they were bad or not. I'm not trying to distinguish good art and bad
art, I'm just trying to separate art from bullshit.
It's not hard to distinguish photography and non-photography, what's so
difficult differentiating painting and non painting, or sculpture or non
sculpture?
Performance art? Gimme a break!
>> But without copycats, where would we be? Take music for example,
>> someone invents a new musical style, thousands of others copy it.
>> Those who turn out the be the best at that style are rarely the ones
>> who invented it. The Beatles didn't invent pop music, should they
>> have not bothered copying it?
>
> I totally agree. In fact it's one of my bugbears that by the time a
> genre has been 'perfected' it's out of fashion and those who are the
> best at it rarely get the recognition their work deserves.
I was most annoyed when punk rock came along and suddenly prog rock was
declared as a "dinosaur" art form. I think Yes did some of their best work
after that time.
Paul
--
http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk
Chris Gilbert
> I think someone should make some rules.
History is illustrated with states that have attempted to dictate
what consititutes art. History hasn't treated them well and
thankfully they failed in thier attempts to standardise.
> what they're doing is actually art to begin with.
But definign what constitutes art is really nobody's business
but the artists. As third parties we either take it or leave it.
> It matters if you put them on a pedastal and announce to the world "THIS
> IS ART!".
Now you're mixing art with publicity. All media use controversial
subjects as vehicles for promoting themselves. If the Turner Prize
was ignored by the media nobody would give two hoots about it.
The media sieze upon it simply because it's controversial and is
the ideal vehicle for self-promotion. The public fall for it every
time. Public art, however is a different matter entirely. If you're
spending public cash then it has to be on something the public
would enjoy. A good recent example is the B in the Bang in
Manchester, which I happen to think is a fabulous piece of public
art and which wasn't universally well-received. I think you'd
have a problem removing it now. People have come to realise
its significance. Too challenging, however, and people turn against
you.
> Never heard of her
A suprise but not a great loss :-D
> If they were all painters, then they were all artists, irrespective of
> whether they were bad or not.
No, you misunderstand. They were regarded as bollocks because
at the time people didn't recognise what they did as art. They do
now because from this distance it can be seen how they opnened
people's minds to how the boundaries of art can be successfully
challenged and lead to greater things. Which wouldn't happen in
your totalitarian world.
> I'm not trying to distinguish good art and bad art, I'm just trying to
> separate art from bullshit.
Fine, just don't try and tell people what is and isn't art. take from it
the things you like and leave the rest to others. The stuff still sitting
on the floor when everyone has picked over its bones will
disappear from memory until its regurgitated again in a few years
time.
> I was most annoyed when punk rock came along and suddenly prog rock was
> declared as a "dinosaur" art form. I think Yes did some of their best work
> after that time.
This is where we disagree. Punk did for music what all other boundry
artist did for art. If punk meant the demise of prog rock (a music form
that I still enjoy) then it was a small price to pay to see the back of the
bloody Bay City Rollers. And again you're equating popularity to
intrinsic value. the two are not the same. Public opinion is manipulated
mercilessly. The fact that prog rock is no longer on the public agenda
doesn't diminish it's intrinsic worth.
Chris
> Paul
> --
> http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk
>
Rudi Winter
> You adjust the WB of the whole picture? I wouldn't do it that way. For a
> start, the rocks may not be perfectly grey, and even if they are, it screws
> up the sky colour. It's usually the shadows where you see the most blue. The
> land is usually darker than the sky so the simplest way to do it is to use
> Curves. Select the blue channel, then subtract blue from the shadows (bottom
> left), using a couple of points higher up (top right) to ensure the sky
> isn't affected.
I've used curves a few times but find it difficult to get consistent
results. This may be lack of practice, though. I'll give it another
try!
> What platform are you using?
Gentoo Linux 2.6.15
> 1. Exposure and Gamma.
> 2. Highlight Compression.
> 3. Equalise Histogram.
> 4. Local Adaptation.
Those are the HDR options in Photoshop?
> I've tried to go for a fairly natural look. It was shot straight into the
> sun at sunrise, so the sun was overexposed in the main image. The sun
> exposure made the foreground completely black and the foreground exposure
> had a totally burnt out sky. I think I'd prefer the sky a bit darker and the
> foreground a tad lighter, but as I say, this was just a quickie to
> demonstrate.
> http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk/misc/mumbles-sunrise-hdr.jpg
>
> While I was at it I thought I'd try to process just the main image for
> comparison. I used the shadow/highlight tool to lighten the foreground and
> darken the sky. Then I boosted local contrast with USM and sharpened with
> FM. Again, I didn't spend long over this and I only worked on a small jpeg
> rather than a full size 16 bit image, so there's noticeable banding in the
> sky (this is why you shouldn't shoot in jpeg mode) and dark fringing over
> Mumbles Head, but these artefacts wouldn't be there if I'd worked on the RAW
> image.
> http://www.wilderness-wales.co.uk/misc/mumbles-sunrise-sh.jpg
Thanks for those; examples are always enlightening...
The detail of the rocks in the foreground actually comes out better in the
second one, probably because it's a bit darker. That bright sky in the
first one is probably the big advantage of HDR; I presume that would
otherwise tend to be blown out?
> I didn't go to the trouble of trying to make them look identical, but I'm
> sure I could have made them look a lot more similar if I'd bothered. I think
> the HDR version is superior though, and has a more natural look. What do you
> think?
I've never seen a sunrise over sea, but I presume it's like a sunset in
reverse... In which case, yes, I think the HDR one is more natural,
because the whole sky is brightening up, not just the immediate
surroundings of the Sun.
>> So, normally it has eight shades of each primary colour.
>
> No, 8 bits, that's 256 shades each.
Ouch, yes of course - eight "octaves" of each primary colour.
> Yes, it *looks* exactly like the 8 bit image, but internally it's not. When
> you stretch the dynamic range (such as brightening the shadows or darkening
> the sky) those extra steps of detail become visible and prevent banding
> (which looks like a series of spikes on the histogram).
Ok, got it. At the moment, my software can only handle 8bit, but I can
tweak the brightness and colour balance when loading the image (i.e.
when converting it from the 12bit raw format to the internal format used
by the Gimp). If I do the tweaking during that conversion process
rather than after loading the picture I get a smooth histogram for
each primary colour rather than the spikes and gaps that I get once I'm
in 8bit mode.
Actually, my green-tinged skies seem to have nothing to do with my
manual attempts at colour balancing after all. I had a fresh look at a few
pictures where the effect was particularly bad, and I found out that for
some reason my raw conversion program gets confused when one channel is
much brighter than the other ones. I've put some observations on the
conversion process here - it does take some tweaking!:
http://users.aber.ac.uk/ruw/album/fiddle/dcraw.html
That explains why I couldn't get the sky right with curves - I had the
important bit thrown away in the raw conversion!
>>> frozen the water. I've selected the water, brightened it and used
>>> layer masking to overlay it on top of the blurred water.
>>
>> Does selecting the water involve manually cutting out the droplets, or
>> am I failing to spot a straightforward way of doing that?
>
> There are a few ways of doing it. You could manually cut it out but it's
> much simpler to create a channel mask. Do I have to explain that now? :-)
>
> Actually, if you use curves to make the water brighter and the land darker,
> when you overlay the image you can use lighten mode (I think) so that only
> the brighter details are visible, so a rough manual cut can work fine. You
> can adjust the curves afterwards so you can see the result as you do it.
I don't quite get this: Are you using curves on the whole image or just
on a selected subset of pixels (in a separate layer)? If whole image, I
don't understand what you mean by lighten mode; if separate layer I
don't see how you select which pixels to put in that layer?
For example, I'd love to get the branches in this one:
http://users.aber.ac.uk/ruw/album/06091033bFramedChurch.jpg
a bit lighter to show more detail (ignore camera shake for sake of
argument), but if I select them by colour, I will get a lot of the
background selected too, or miss some of the branches, so I can't get
the branches in a separate layer. On the other hand, if I use curves
on the whole picture, the background will become brighter, too.
Admittedly, the contrast is less than in a waterfall, but qualitatively
the problem is the same, isn't it?
The Reid
<christopher....@virgin.net> wrote:
>They were all derided as
>bollocks at one time yet are now indisputable milestones in the
>history of art.
which is why people are now terrified to say anything is bollocks.
--
Mike Reid
UK Walking - photos "http://www.fellwalk.co.uk" <-- you can email us@ this site
Spain Walking -food "http://www.fell-walker.co.uk"
The Reid
wrote:
>>someone masturbating on the train might offend, its not science, IMHO
>>its not art either.
>
>Unless it is done by an artist. Then it is art. Good example Tracey
>Emmets bed!
indeed. I looked at the slides in tate modern yesterday, they are just
slides.
The Reid
<pv...@wildwales.fsnet.co.uk> wrote:
>No gallery would put on a display of a crap photographer's work, no
>record company would publish an album of crap music.
you do have a radio?
--
Mike Reid
UK Walking - photos "http://www.fellwalk.co.uk" <-- you can email us@ this site
Spain Walking -food "http://www.fell-walker.co.uk"
The Reid
<christopher....@virgin.net> wrote:
>Now you're mixing art with publicity. All media use controversial
>subjects as vehicles for promoting themselves
it seems to be becoming a way of life for many alleged artists.
--
Mike Reid
UK Walking - photos "http://www.fellwalk.co.uk" <-- you can email us@ this site
Spain Walking -food "http://www.fell-walker.co.uk"
The Reid
<pv...@wildwales.fsnet.co.uk> wrote:
>Yep. I rather like the indoor/outdoor night lighting effect used in film's
>such as Sam Raimi's Crimewave and Jackson's Lord of the Rings, where you see
>the interior lit with orange light and the exterior in the background lit
>with blue light. These colours may be enhanced for film purposes, but it's
>basically accurate, more accurate than adjusting the white balance and
>making it all look like white light.
I watched some of the filimng of "Reds", they had (IIRC) like blue
film over the windows and big artificial lamps shining into the room
from the street to achieve the effect of bright natural light!
Chris Gilbert
> it seems to be becoming a way of life for many alleged artists.
Agreed. It's how they chase the money.
Chris
Chris Gilbert
> which is why people are now terrified to say anything is bollocks.
It's not scaring you and Paul :-D
Chris
Geoff Berrow
contained the following:
>>Yep. I rather like the indoor/outdoor night lighting effect used in film's
>>such as Sam Raimi's Crimewave and Jackson's Lord of the Rings, where you see
>>the interior lit with orange light and the exterior in the background lit
>>with blue light. These colours may be enhanced for film purposes, but it's
>>basically accurate, more accurate than adjusting the white balance and
>>making it all look like white light.
>
>I watched some of the filimng of "Reds", they had (IIRC) like blue
>film over the windows and big artificial lamps shining into the room
>from the street to achieve the effect of bright natural light!
Movie film used to be( well they were in 1980 when I did my degree)
balanced for artificial light by default. Filters are used in the
camera to correct this for daylight, the idea being that there is
usually more daylight and you can afford to lose some film speed
outdoors. Filtering the light is only usually done where there is a
mixture of artificial and daylight.
--
Geoff Berrow (put thecat out to email)
It's only Usenet, no one dies.
My opinions, not the committee's, mine.
Simple RFDs http://www.ckdog.co.uk/rfdmaker/
The Reid
<christopher....@virgin.net> wrote:
>> it seems to be becoming a way of life for many alleged artists.
>
>Agreed. It's how they chase the money.
what's wrong with starving in a garat?
The Reid
<christopher....@virgin.net> wrote:
>> which is why people are now terrified to say anything is bollocks.
>
>It's not scaring you and Paul :-D
I think the man on the Swansea omnibus is generally contemptuous of
modern art, its the litererati who like it.
W. D. Grey
<don...@fellwalk.co.uk> writes
>On Mon, 27 Nov 2006 11:17:18 GMT, "Chris Gilbert"
><christopher....@virgin.net> wrote:
>
>>> it seems to be becoming a way of life for many alleged artists.
>>
>>Agreed. It's how they chase the money.
>
>what's wrong with starving in a garat?
Nothing at all - you could get to star in a Grand Opera :-)
--
Bill Grey
http://www.billboy.co.uk
Chris Malcolm
> On Fri, 24 Nov 2006 18:18:11 GMT, "Chris Gilbert"
> <christopher....@virgin.net> wrote:
>>They were all derided as
>>bollocks at one time yet are now indisputable milestones in the
>>history of art.
> which is why people are now terrified to say anything is bollocks.
Bollocks.
--
Chris Malcolm c...@infirmatics.ed.ac.uk DoD #205
IPAB, Informatics, JCMB, King's Buildings, Edinburgh, EH9 3JZ, UK
[http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/homes/cam/]
Chris Malcolm
> On Fri, 24 Nov 2006 12:57:50 GMT, John Yale
> <john...@europlacer.co.uk> wrote:
>>Touring Round Great Britain With A Rock is He Yun Chang's most challenging
>>and ambitious performance to date and it is set to become a landmark
>>project in the history of durational performance art. Starting from Rock,
> I'm speechless.
Great art often has that effect :-)