Critique B&W MTB & first attempt with Lightroom

I

ivandobski

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522
Edit My Images
Yes
Right, after a couple of years with little to no photography this was one of my first photos taken with my new g3, taken in RAW (a first) and edited in LR - which I've never used before. Given the basic RAW image how much better could a decent edit by someone who knows what they're doing make it look?

Straight out of camera:


http://[url=https://flic.kr/p/Nw3Rj...s/136042423@N03/]Ivan Dobski[/url], on Flickr
Badly edited:
http://[url=https://flic.kr/p/Nw3Rj...s/136042423@N03/]Ivan Dobski[/url], on Flickr

http://[url=https://flic.kr/p/Nw3Rj...s/136042423@N03/]Ivan Dobski[/url], on Flickr
Any crit etc welcomed, feel free to pull it apart - and if anyone wants a go at showing me how much better it could look then that would be great!
 
The thing to watch is that the brightest part of the image is the sky which leads your eye completely out of the image. I don't think this is the easiest image to work with, but I had a go in Nik software. The problem is the subject is so small in the frame and the out of focus puddle is, for me, a bit of a distraction. It it were my image, I think I'd try another crop, see second pic.bw cycle-sml.jpg bw cycle2-sml.jpg
 
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That does look a lot better to be fair. Now you've both pointed out and fixed the issues they seem really obvious but nevermind, I'll know next time! Cheers all.
 
ivandobski said:
That does look a lot better to be fair. Now you've both pointed out and fixed the issues they seem really obvious but nevermind, I'll know next time! Cheers all.
Click to expand...
Now I'm not the best at editing, but all I've done is used the adjustment brush to lift the shaded areas, lightened the blacks, used a graduated filter on the clouds to bring out some definition (also used the adjustment brush to darken some other areas in the clouds), cropped to remove the puddle.
The trouble is using too much lightening and lifting shadows will start to degrade the quality of the image. This is a situation where getting it right in camera is really important, the less you had to do in pp the better.
The conditions in this photo look a bit tricky, with shade in the foreground, shooting towards a bright sky.
I did also flip the photo, it works better for me this way round (but that's just personal choice).
 
is flikr dead????
 
Considering Flickr exists purely to host and enable the sharing of photos it's surprisingly bad at hosting and sharing photos in my experience!

Another variation which also works well, interesting to see other people's ideas of what works best.
 
ivandobski said:
Considering Flickr exists purely to host and enable the sharing of photos it's surprisingly bad at hosting and sharing photos in my experience!

Another variation which also works well, interesting to see other people's ideas of what works best.
Click to expand...

would you suggest a better one please...i tend to agree with you
i lost many Gb's of shots on pix.ie
 
ivandobski said:
Can't really, I've tried a few over the years and they all appear to be equally bobbins.
Click to expand...

thanks...i guess all our shots could look better in the 'flesh'
cheers
geof
 
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