weekly crtm's 52 in 2014 Week 38 Dark added

Hi Carol

Architectural...interesting pov , mono works well & plenty of detail to keep you moving round the shot when viewed large :)
 
Mine You're All Mine Ha Ha.......Having a bit of fun with this one don't often do things like this but I thought it worked well for the theme sharp week 33. This is way out of my comfort zone so please be gentle with me.;)

Mine You're All Mine Ha Ha......... by MrsR66, on Flickr
 
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You know, Carol, it can get a bit serious in here sometimes and its this kind of submission that we need sometimes. After all, it is supposed to be fun. Just what the doctor ordered for a Friday night

Seems a shame to crit, but a slight crop would IMO, give the smiling cactus more emphasis. Anyways...brilliant :clap:

Cheers.
 
Hi Paul and Andy, thanks for you feedback, thought I was going to get slaughtered with this one as it really is not my scene, but you have made my Friday by taking it for what its meant to be, a bit of fun!
I was going to get all serious about this challenge but I hit upon the idea a good few days ago and it would not leave me, anything I photographed with the "sharp" theme in mind just did not look right, so I followed my instincts and I personally was pleased with the result.

Hope to get caught up this weekend with the rest of the themes.
 
Hi, can only agree with the above comments its nice to see something amusing in here, perfect for the theme :clap:
 
OMG this daft photo just made "Explore" on Flickr now that's nuts! :wacky:
 
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Promise to Love, Honour and Obey

Well this is my second catch up photograph Week 32 Promise.
I have seen others do this photograph and thought it fitted the theme well, not looked at anyone elses threads so I hope I haven't copied someone elses idea. Again this is way out of my comfort zone, would rather be outdoors! :)

Thanks for looking Carol
View attachment 20265
 
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Nice one. I like the processing and good overall light. I think it works better with an inch off the bottom to draw the eye in more on the ring.

Cheers/
 
Carol... I've never seen that clever shadow play before - very smart.

I really like it as a concept but wonder what more you could make of it? Here are a few suggestions which are just me thinking aloud really... bearing in mind I've never even attempted (or seen this) before, feel free to treat it all with a pinch of salt!

I think the shadow would look even better softer. For me, the ring is the subject and the heart shadow is the implication from the ring, so doesn't need to be as dark. More on this later.

The ring would, for me, benefit from softer lighting. The highlight on the top is nice - perhaps pull the light further back to get more lighting inside the ring (the bit we can see next to the paper)? Also, I think very subtle fill lights or more likely reflectors left and right of scene - or even just a white walled room, to be honest - would work to help just add additional detail and interest to the ring. For me, it's a bit of a black band and it's supposed to be happy and shiny. A really nice touch would be some engraving on the inside of the ring which could be brought out by the lighting perhaps?

I think with different light on the ring the shadow would be a lot softer and also probable blend away towards the point. Which would work even better.

Don't get me wrong, I think it's an absolutely SUPER image and (especially because I haven't seen it before) it's a very clever composition. I just think you're millimetres away from making it even better still with just a few tweaks to the lighting setup. Hope you don't mind me suggesting!
 
Hi Paul criticise away, I have seen the photograph before but I never looked up how to do it, I just got a little LED torch out and experimented. Lol

I don't do studio type photographs as I don't have the lighting, I just use lamps and torches for lighting my subjects. I did think of purchasing some but I always found something else to spend my money on, normally my daughter, and was never quite sure which ones to go for!

Thanks for your pointers although I could not have done what you have just suggested re the the lighting I will however keep them in mind for future reference.

Yes I agree that the ring is a tad dark especially the bottom part next to the page perhaps I should have used another torch with tissue over it to defuse the light which would have softened the shadow too.
 
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Hi Carol... do you have a tripod? And do you have a photo editing package of some sort? If so, you can do the lighting! It's a bit late to go into it now, but basically you take multiple exposures of the same image from the tripod using light sources from different angles. Flashes are great, but any other light can work too. You then use your photo editing package to merge the layers (but using the "lighten" blending option rather than simple "normal").

Happy to explain more another time, but it's actually a dead easy way with still life subjects to replicate dozens of flashes without having more than one or even zero :)
 
Yes I do own a tripod I used it for this photo I also have Lr4 as my editing suite. Never thought about taking three different photographs then merging them. I have done that for enhancing the exposure of a photograph but never thought about doing it for lighting. Will give it a go later on tonight if I have time. Still need to get my other three themes done Sparkle, Pure and Fall.
 
Great... the only issue is I don't think you can do the merging in LR (at least I can't find a way in LR5). I use Photoshop but I'm certain you could do the same in GIMP for free if you know how to use that. I'll describe the method in PS for now:

You need each exposure as a different layer and choose your base exposure (preferably one where you can still see the subject, but obviously not lit as you'd like) as the background. I also like to name the layers based on where the flash / light source is coming from (for convenience). Then, turn all of the other layers off apart from the background. Switch their blending mode to "Lighten" rather than "Normal" and then turn on your first layer. The additional exposure will probably jump out at you a bit, and what you want to do is turn the opacity of that layer down until the additional exposure and lighting it adds is about what you probably want - then add a bit extra for good luck as we'll be painting this on and can always just paint slightly less to end up at the desired effect.

Do this for each layer in turn. I tend to make sure I turn off the preceding "flash layer" so that I'm only ever dealing with one light source at a time, but you might prefer to see the cumulative effect. However, we only selectively paint on the additional exposure to some areas (i.e. where we want it and the strength we want it), so I find looking at the cumulative effect at this stage is a bit misleading.

Once we've set our maximum effect of each layer through the opacity setting, we then take the first flash layer again making sure all others except the background are turned off. Create a black mask (i.e. none of the flash layer is showing through) and using a white brush paint the mask so that the additional flash exposure starts to come through where you want it at the strength you want it. All of your brush settings are up to you. If you want to erase, then switch to a black brush. In PS I use Shift-Click on the mask to quickly turn the whole mask off (i.e. just show the 100% flash exposure added on) so that I can see where that flash had an effect and then do the same to turn the mask back on and carry on painting.

Repeat this for each flash layer, but this time always keep the preceding layers that you've already masked switched on - so you start to build up the total exposure. Once you're done and you're happy (you may find yourself going back and reducing the painted on exposure of previous layers a bit), you can then do some final tweaks on the opacity of each layer and you're done.

It sounds like a faff - and it is if you've taken 12 "flash" exposures... but if you're just replicating 2, 3 or 4 lights then it's quite quick. The only important bit is that the tripod does need to be locked in place so the subject is in precisely the same place - otherwise you'll have alignment problems when you come to combine them.

Don't forget that if you have bought Photoshop CS2 in the past and lost the key and/or, you can now download a full copy of it from the Adobe website and they provide standard product keys on the website to use in such circumstances (you're breaking their Ts & Cs though if you don't legitimately own a copy from years ago). What I ended up doing was switching from LR standalone to the Photographer's Bundle of Creative Cloud which includes LR5 and the latest version of PS for £7.50 per month (it's now gone up a bit). Ok, not the cheapest piece of software if you think you might use it for 2-3 years, but I found it to be "affordable".
 
pjm1 said:
Great... the only issue is I don't think you can do the merging in LR (at least I can't find a way in LR5). I use Photoshop but I'm certain you could do the same in GIMP for free if you know how to use that. I'll describe the method in PS for now:

You need each exposure as a different layer and choose your base exposure (preferably one where you can still see the subject, but obviously not lit as you'd like) as the background. I also like to name the layers based on where the flash / light source is coming from (for convenience). Then, turn all of the other layers off apart from the background. Switch their blending mode to "Lighten" rather than "Normal" and then turn on your first layer. The additional exposure will probably jump out at you a bit, and what you want to do is turn the opacity of that layer down until the additional exposure and lighting it adds is about what you probably want - then add a bit extra for good luck as we'll be painting this on and can always just paint slightly less to end up at the desired effect.

Do this for each layer in turn. I tend to make sure I turn off the preceding "flash layer" so that I'm only ever dealing with one light source at a time, but you might prefer to see the cumulative effect. However, we only selectively paint on the additional exposure to some areas (i.e. where we want it and the strength we want it), so I find looking at the cumulative effect at this stage is a bit misleading.

Once we've set our maximum effect of each layer through the opacity setting, we then take the first flash layer again making sure all others except the background are turned off. Create a black mask (i.e. none of the flash layer is showing through) and using a white brush paint the mask so that the additional flash exposure starts to come through where you want it at the strength you want it. All of your brush settings are up to you. If you want to erase, then switch to a black brush. In PS I use Shift-Click on the mask to quickly turn the whole mask off (i.e. just show the 100% flash exposure added on) so that I can see where that flash had an effect and then do the same to turn the mask back on and carry on painting.

Repeat this for each flash layer, but this time always keep the preceding layers that you've already masked switched on - so you start to build up the total exposure. Once you're done and you're happy (you may find yourself going back and reducing the painted on exposure of previous layers a bit), you can then do some final tweaks on the opacity of each layer and you're done.

It sounds like a faff - and it is if you've taken 12 "flash" exposures... but if you're just replicating 2, 3 or 4 lights then it's quite quick. The only important bit is that the tripod does need to be locked in place so the subject is in precisely the same place - otherwise you'll have alignment problems when you come to combine them.

Don't forget that if you have bought Photoshop CS2 in the past and lost the key and/or, you can now download a full copy of it from the Adobe website and they provide standard product keys on the website to use in such circumstances (you're breaking their Ts & Cs though if you don't legitimately own a copy from years ago). What I ended up doing was switching from LR standalone to the Photographer's Bundle of Creative Cloud which includes LR5 and the latest version of PS for £7.50 per month (it's now gone up a bit). Ok, not the cheapest piece of software if you think you might use it for 2-3 years, but I found it to be "affordable".
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Hi Paul, first I must say sorry I called you Andy and now that I am on the laptop I have only just realised my mistake, unfortunately I was on my mobile and it does not tell you the name of the person you are replying to and I took a guess! :exit:

I failed to mention that I also have photoshop elements 11 which has the layers facility so between that and Lr4 it does pretty much everything I want. I never got the chance to redo the photograph last night but I will endeavour to try it again through the week. Thanks for your input and walk through of what I need to do, it will be a learning curve but one of value. I will post the results here once I am happy with it.

Thanks once again Paul for all your help.

Carol
 
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Maybe not an original idea, but at least you've now had your own try at it.... I do think there's a bit of magic in the way the heart shape can be made to appear from the circular shape of the ring. :)

I prefer the original with the uncropped V shape at the close end of the book, Wonder if moving the ring closer to the camera might work too, DOF is nicely highlighted withthe text on the pages too.
 
overbez said:
Maybe not an original idea, but at least you've now had your own try at it.... I do think there's a bit of magic in the way the heart shape can be made to appear from the circular shape of the ring. :)

I prefer the original with the uncropped V shape at the close end of the book, Wonder if moving the ring closer to the camera might work too, DOF is nicely highlighted with the text on the pages too.
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Thanks Graham, I found I had to position the ring almost in the middle, if I took it too close to this end of the bible I started to lose the heart shadow and at the top end it elongated it too much. I know that will be to do with where I positioned the light source but I was limited for space and was a bit pushed for time. The next time I try it I will experiment a bit more with the positioning of the light and as Paul suggested layering the lighting with Photoshop.

I was a bit undecided regard the crop but now that I have seen both versions for a few days I think I prefer the cropped one because the thick black band at the bottom of the page is a bit distracting.

Thanks for your cc it's much appreciated.
 
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Hi Carol

Promise...cropped version is better , love the placement of the ring & the lighting as is ( though can see the benefit of the suggestions made by Paul )....really like this shot :clap:

Sharp.....love it ! Makes me smile....great take on the theme :clap:
 
Hi Carol....I prefer the first version...I like the way the shape follows through the whole image top to bottom. I can never resist trying to read some of the text on images like this and it would have been nice to see the word promise mentioned...but that's a minor detail...personally I think it looks great :)
 
Crtm said:
Hi Paul, first I must say sorry I called you Andy and now that I am on the laptop I have only just realised my mistake, unfortunately I was on my mobile and it does not tell you the name of the person you are replying to.

I also have photoshop elements 11 which has the facility so between that and Lr4 it does pretty much everything I want. I never go the chance to redo the photograph last night but I will endevour to try




Hi Paul, first I must say sorry I called you Andy and now that I am on the laptop I have only just realised my mistake, unfortunately I was on my mobile and it does not tell you the name of the person you are replying to and I took a guess! :exit:

I failed to mention that I also have photoshop elements 11 which has the layers facility so between that and Lr4 it does pretty much everything I want. I never got the chance to redo the photograph last night but I will endeavour to try it again through the week. Thanks for your input and walk through of what I need to do, it will be a learning curve but one of value. I will post the results here once I am happy with it.

Thanks once again Paul for all your help.

Carol
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That's ok Pamela. ;)

If it's any consolation, I use my phone as well as it's a real failing of the app that it doesn't show the person's name... grrr!

Fingers crossed PE11 will be able to do it - I don't think anything I've said about blending layers should be beyond its capabilities, although I've never used Elements myself. Funnily enough, I reckon I'm going to be do some flash blending myself for Fall, so it'll be a case of practicing what I preach :)
 
Hi, sen this done a few times but you have done well with it, I like it as it was in the first shot not sure the crop benefits it in any way.
good idea and well executed (y)
 
Sunflower
Sparkle week 35 - I thought the sparkling droplets of water on the Sunflower fitted the theme but for some it might be tenuous sorry.

Sunflower by MrsR66, on Flickr

Fly Agaric - The Colour of Autumn (Fall week 36)
It's that time of year when these beauties appear in the birch woods. In America it's The Fall here it's just good old autumn!

Probably the link is again a bit tenuous for some but it's as good as it gets for this theme.

Fly Agaric by MrsR66, on Flickr
 
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These two are fantastic, Carol. For me the DOF, the focus, the colours and the processing are absolutely spot on. I don't mind the central composition for #2 at all, but I love the first composition and positioning of the first in particular.

Absolutely stunning. I really couldn't care whether they're on theme or not (I think they are) because they too good not to post! :) :clap:
 
pjm1 said:
These two are fantastic, Carol. For me the DOF, the focus, the colours and the processing are absolutely spot on. I don't mind the central composition for #2 at all, but I love the first composition and positioning of the first in particular.

Absolutely stunning. I really couldn't care whether they're on theme or not (I think they are) because they are too good not to post! :) :clap:
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Hi Paul thanks, though a little surprised you think they are so good but I thank you for your fantastic comments I am really quite humbled! I am at my happiest outside with my camera and my Jack Russell, I think it must show! :banana:

Carol
 
Hi Carol
Sharp - as said, very funny and well produced
Promise - another clever take on the theme. Edit #1 for me.
Sparkle - beautiful colours and well lit to give the sparkle. Like the comp and crop
Fall - on theme for me. Nice soft light and feel of autumn - presumably on floor and quite dark so you have handled exposure well.
 
I love the way you've caught that sunflower Carol :clap:

And the mushroom too, but .... I would like to see a little more of it in focus, ie. most of it.
 
Highland Spring
Week 34 Pure - What can be purer than water from a Highland Spring

Highland Spring by MrsR66, on Flickr
 
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superpippo said:
Hi Carol
Sharp - as said, very funny and well produced
Promise - another clever take on the theme. Edit #1 for me.
Sparkle - beautiful colours and well lit to give the sparkle. Like the comp and crop
Fall - on theme for me. Nice soft light and feel of autumn - presumably on floor and quite dark so you have handled exposure well.
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d00d said:
I love the way you've caught that sunflower Carol :clap:

And the mushroom too, but .... I would like to see a little more of it in focus, ie. most of it.
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Hi Alan thanks for your feedback there seems to be a 50/50 split on the composition for "Promise" and yes the Fly Agaric - "Fall" was taken in a birchwood coppice so little to no light but what there was had a beautiful richness about it which you can see in the toadstool. It was late afternoon and the sun was sitting low, every so often it would highlight the toadstool so I had to play a waiting game for the light to catch it.

David thanks for your comments as you can see from the comment above I took several of shroom waiting for the light to hit and each time I changed the dof. Out of about half a dozen, this was the one that had the best color and I loved the feeling the shallow dof had given, this was sort of lost when the shroom was in full focus it became hard and just a photograph of an orange/red fungi.

Carol
 
Nothing to see here....... :)
 
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grrr - just lost all my comments by clicking away! (Eh?? obviously not as they're all there in the post above... :thinking:, oh well!)_

Sunflower - great, bright, crop superb. a bit of purpley tinge round the droplets on the yellow, tried to remove with CA tool in LR5 without too much sucess, wonder if this works better from the RAW?

Mushroom, again lovely, great colours and I love the not cleaned up look to it, would have been tempting to remove the blades of grass and leafs / seeds, but I like the nautural look you have here.

and a fantastic little waterfall (Week 34 for pure though) :), love the orange to green colour fade, and the movement / smoothing in the water is wonderful, has the look of being a much bigger waterfall than it is. Only things counting against is I'd like teh stone bottom right to be whole, and the grass top right could be burned / darkened a bit. That's all though. :)
 
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Hi Carol - nice capture for Pure (or is it Fall?)... just the right amount of blurring for me as I'm actually not a big fan of milky waterfalls, so you've got it just bang on to my eyes. Some great colours and I love the glistening from that rock in the right FG.

The only thing I'm undecided on is the processing. The blacks are very black, constrast and clarity seem to be really high and obviously the style leads to it being, as a scene, underexposed. But that's not a criticism, it's an observation regarding the choice you've made for genuine artistic reasons.

What I definitely do like (on further reflection) is the very dark darks at the top of the frame - your eye is drawn from the bottom all the way up and then you're left with this big black "hole" and I like scenes where my imagination can run away... what's in there? I think I might be tempted to lift the shadow detail a fair bit (using a grad in LR) for the rest of the scene below that black space, so it helps normalise the exposure a bit, but definitely leave the shadows well alone at the very top?

I like it (y)
 
Hi again Carol...great shot for sparkle...I also love the little toadstool, but I would definitely have been tempted to move some of that grass away.

Super choice for Pure and a lovely setting...I can't make my mind up on milky waterfalls...not sure if I prefer a more natural effect ....but a smashing composition and I really like the colour tones.
 
Hi, Carol, Pure works for me. The water is just how I like it sometimes, with some texture. Nice low angle, the rock is good FG interest. It has a slightly desaturated feel to it, but is a little under exposed on my Mac.

No real crit...pointing out the clipped rock would be being picky :)

Cheers.
 
So sorry I haven't popped in and Commented for a while had a few broadband issues, so my apologies for not commenting on every image but I will pick a couple to comment on.

Promise - I like the idea for the theme, but the composition does not grab me I am not sure what I'd do differently :thinking:.

Sparkle - two well exposed images, but I love the sunflower image. The composition is spot on for me and there's plenty of detail, the water droplets add the sparkle to the image so fits into the theme nicely for me.

Pure - a beautiful image, nicely exposed and the movement in the water has been captured well great work.
 
Hi Carol


That Sunflower....WOW.....no crit at all.....just perfect , needs printing & framing for sure :clap:

Fall......beautiful color in the Fly Agaric but a shame it's hidden bty the grass & debris on it......little bit of gardening would have given a clearer view ( I car a soft bristled paint brush with me when out shooting Funghi just to clear the rubbish off the tops of them )

Pure...again , no crit from me , well exposed , just the right amount of blur to the water & some great autumnal colors ...lovely :clap:
 
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Dark - Driving Home
Week - 38

Had some fun with this one.
Did not know what I was going to do re this theme but returning home on Saturday evening I decided to stick the camera on a long exposure and place it up against the windscreen. I liked the effect it gave with the rain drops on the screen and the lights of the town as we were passing through, I had originally planned to leave it colour but I decided I prefered it B&W once it was converted.

Driving Home by MrsR66, on Flickr
 
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Still to do Week 37 Communicate.
 
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