Weekend Task #44 - Monuments and Memorials

[Levina de Ruijter]

The lack of connection was why I didn't vote for Levina's photo. It was muted in tone, and I wonder if it would have been better in black and white (which is something I almost never say)

Funny you should say that, Rosalie, because I actually posted this in B&W back on POTN. But that jpeg was just 1024px tall so I did a re-edit but used the wrong tiff file, one without the foreground shot, which is why the tourists' feet are cut off!

So I went looking just now and came across the correct tiff, a 3 shots blend, converted to B&W. That was the one I exported as a 1024px jpeg back then and posted on POTN. So I now took that tiff, resized it to 1280px wide and here it is. Probably looks a tad better. But still not very good. But at least the tourists' feet aren't cut off any more.

 

[greatgrandma]

Funny you should say that, Rosalie, because I actually posted this in B&W back on POTN. But that jpeg was just 1024px tall so I did a re-edit but used the wrong tiff file, one without the foreground shot, which is why the tourists' feet are cut off!

So I went looking just now and came across the correct tiff, a 3 shots blend, converted to B&W. That was the one I exported as a 1024px jpeg back then and posted on POTN. So I now took that tiff, resized it to 1280px wide and here it is. Probably looks a tad better. But still not very good. But at least the tourists' feet aren't cut off any more.

View attachment 68797

I like it better but I think I would like more contrast.

 

[Levina de Ruijter]

I like it better but I think I would like more contrast.

Three different shots and not all shots nicely focused, so increase contrast too much and it will introduce digital artifacts. I already had to clean up some as it is on the people sitting in the wall and in the tourist group. I'm always careful with contrast when (part of) an image is not in good focus. There's also the spire against the sky. Too much contrast will introduce sharpening halos. I always try to avoid those.

 

[greatgrandma]

When I was taking a photography course and printing black and white prints from color negatives, it was explained to me that the reds would turn out as black. So I would lighten the photos just a bit to account for that. It got easier to do when things went to digital - of course I didn't have the idiosyncrasies of the paper I was printing on to worry about any more, but my eye still always wants more contrast in black and white photos when I didn't have color differentation. . Just a tiny bit.

I probably do too much of that. I would rather have the sky blown out. I do understand about the halo effect. I don't like that

It's similar to what I do with photos taken underwater. The reds gradually disappear as you go deeper, so when it was film, I always told them to push red.

 

[Levina de Ruijter]

When I was taking a photography course and printing black and white prints from color negatives, it was explained to me that the reds would turn out as black. So I would lighten the photos just a bit to account for that. It got easier to do when things went to digital - of course I didn't have the idiosyncrasies of the paper I was printing on to worry about any more, but my eye still always wants more contrast in black and white photos when I didn't have color differentation. . Just a tiny bit.

I probably do too much of that. I would rather have the sky blown out. I do understand about the halo effect. I don't like that

It's similar to what I do with photos taken underwater. The reds gradually disappear as you go deeper, so when it was film, I always told them to push red.

I took this shot for POTN's Where's Nifty? thread in 2013. I converted the image to B&W by simply clicking on the B&W button in Photoshop. Later I learned that it's better to use a channel to convert a file to B&W. I didn't do that here but used the existing tiff file from 2013. It's not worth it to redo the whole process though. Raw files are bad, with too much out of focus and mushy stuff caused mostly by the differences in DOF; f/8 was not enough. I should go back and shoot it again, using a better lens.

 

[Ed Will]

I really like the critiques and explanation people are providing ("why I voted the way I did"). My apologies I haven't added anything (yet)--busy time right now.