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Anonymous
Sup /p/

Went to the west coast of Scotland for a few days to check out the landscape. Any critique would be appreciated..
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>> Anonymous
     File :-(, x)


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>> Anonymous
     File :-(, x)


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>> Anonymous
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Don't like the colour ones as much personally, but here they are anyway.

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>> Anonymous
     File :-(, x)


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>> Anonymous
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Back to delicious black and white.

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>> Anonymous
I was about to rip your head off because they looked like HDR, but on closer inspection, they're not too bad-looking. I liked the road shot the most. On the other hand, I think your sky blending might be a bit too harsh.
>> Anonymous
>>211049
my favourite

Also, tone down the post-processing, this is waaaay too much. Other than that, these are quite nice. Keep it up.
>> Anonymous
     File :-(, x)
>>211054
I'm afraid that every single one of these (except this one) are all HDR.

I know HDR is considered to be shit around here, but I love it in black and white.

Very little has been done to them at all, despite the way they look. They were all batch processed into HDR the same way (each image bracketed 5 times), then stitched together.

The only other thing that was done is a duplicate layer set to soft light.

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>> Anonymous
>>211054
What's bad about HDR?
>> Anonymous
>>211056
These would be really nice, but the HDR is WAAAAY overdone. The black and white ones are way overdone, but the color ones are even more offensive. It looks like you shat a rainbow and called it a photo.

The last one you posted is my favorite of the lot. It's a little on the excessively contrasty side, but at least it has a natural range of tone and contrast.
>> Vincent !!8LCSE0Zp1mL
>>211049
This one is the best, would have been nice to be a bit farther away from the road so the wide angle didn't make it feel so warped. However other than that its great
>> Anonymous
>>211075
I tried getting further away, but it didn't work.

You can't really tell, but this photo is take from the very edge (tripod leg was like 5cm away) from a 20 foot vertical drop down to the road. When I moved further up the slope it obscured a lot of the road, which I didn't want to do. The uncropped version does have more visible below the road, but as a result of being on a slope my pan wasn't perfectly horizontal, and I've had to crop it this way.

>>211064
HDR certainly causes strong reactions from people. A lot of people love it, and a lot hate it.

I'm inclined to agree with you about the colour shots. I don't like the colours in them much at all, and only really posted them here to see what kind of reaction they'd get.

I have to disagree about the black and white ones, but that's entirely personal preference. I've always loved lots and lots of contrast in monochrome photos, which is why I've made them look that way. I find images look very flat without a ton of contrast when there's no colour.

Blown highlights is like my most hated thing in photographs, which is the sole reason I bracketed everything on my trip. It was overcast each day, so these don't look so different from the way it looked in that respect, believe it or not.

The sky in that road photo was crazy, and it shows in the photo.

>>211063
It generally looks terrible.
>> Vincent !!8LCSE0Zp1mL
>>211084
It could really benefit from a bit of visible ground under the road, You may want to try warping the picture a bit and history brushing out the areas you don't want warped.
>> Anonymous
>>211075
Also, the road was very bendy. It's not as warped as it looks, the view is only about 100 degrees at the most.
>> Anonymous
>>211086
Okay I'll give it a try.
>> Anonymous
>>211084I've always loved lots and lots of contrast in monochrome photos, which is why I've made them look that way.

Contrasty images are one thing, messy images with screwed-up local contrast are another. The main difference is that nice contrasty images are obtained primarily though shooting under the appropriate lighting conditions, and to a much lesser extent filtration and post processing. Images with horribly messed up local contrast, i.e. overdone HDR, on the other hand, are produced through overuse of post processing and are often done to salvage photos that were shot in lighting conditions that did not produce an acceptable original.

HDR can be a great tool, but when it's overdone it makes an unnatural image that is unpleasant to look at- especially when the novelty factor wears out.

The problem with these HDR photos is not the high contrast, rather it's the lack of local contrast. Overuse of HDR kills the local contrast, even if the global contrast is increased. It removes the normal directionality of lighting and makes everything look plastic and artificial. Another issue is the major overuse of contrast masks, which produce halos and bleeds the shadows and highlights together. That just looks silly.
>> Anonymous
these are all really nice, what did you take them with?
>> Anonymous
>>211098
You know... when you put it that way I mostly agree with you.

I hate halos as a result of sloppy masks too but as I already explained, I didn't use any masks, that haloing was what I got out of Photomatix. I didn't like it either (halos being another thing I hate in digital photography, after blown highlights), but I didn't bother to sort it, entirely out of laziness.

I think I'll re-do a few of them again, and sort the sky out. Especially the one with the castle.
>> Anonymous
>>211100
D300.
>> Anonymous
     File :-(, x)
Better? Worse?

Before
-
After

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>> Anonymous
>>211116
Lower one is definitely better.
>> Anonymous
You way overworked the skys, otherwise they look pretty great.
I'm impressed, just tone down the PP on the sky.
>> Anonymous
>>211049
where is this taken? it looks very like the road between Fort William and Mallaig, somewhere near Glenfinnan maybe?

this picture is my favourite. my critique is worthless though because i only came here to browse the pretty pictures..
>> Anonymous
Brightened the sky on this one a little.

>>211143
It's almost at the top of the mountains on the south side of Loch Duich (which you can see in the distance in the photo).
>> Anonymous
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Forgot the photo....

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