Cemetary Shots

[Reebo]

Hi there everyone, my first post here, new to the forums. -waves-

During our recent vaction to Savannah, Georgia, I had the chance to take some pics at the cemetary (I've been rather drawn to them recently). These were from Infra Red originals, using multiple exposures combined for High Dynamic Range.

Any suggestions, improvements or comments would be appreciated. I'm looking to improve my efforts so I'm open to anything.

Thanks in advance!

 

[LaFoto]

Sorry. We only get red x's here.

 

[Reebo]

How odd, they appear fine to me, even on different computers. And the direct links seem to work fine as well. Hmmm...

Let me move them to a different hosting location and see if that helps...

There, hopefully that will resolve it.

The first try was from a trial account on PBase.com, so I moved them Google, hopefully the links will work for you now. Aplogies for all the hassles

 

[LaFoto]

Seems like you have that site in your cache and all the access data. But we don't .

 

[Reebo]

Well the cache would not have worked from a different computer, my home router is not a caching proxy

But anyways, I moved them to photobucket. Let me know if these finally come through and apologies again for the problems.

 

[Sidewinder]

They definitely show up here.
Interesting images, they look almost painted,how did you process them?
I guess, they were digital images, which kind of development process did you use?
I am usually a fan of less processed photography, but yours came out really good.
The only thing that bothers me is that kind of halo you created around the statue in the first image. While I can understand your intentions, I'd have processed it without that halo, or was it some contrast effect coming from the light in the original photograph?
It looks like you used the dodge tool to create it.
All in all a beautiful effort, though!

Sebastian

 

[Smilemon]

I really like the second one. It looks like a screenshot out of Elder Scrolls Oblivion. And thats a compliment because the graphics and scenery in the game were top notch. I love angel pictures.

 

[Reebo]

Thanks for the comments!

They were both multiple exposure Infra red shots, merged in Photomatix for High Dynamic Range.

For the first image, I used 5 IR exposures. The post processing I applied was: HDR merge, a minor contrast/brightness adjustment, and added a sepia tone to it. The nearly untoned statue in the resulting image (since the side I was capturing was in shadow) was very flat against the false color orange/sepia sky. I figured a sepia filter applied would help even it out some. The halo effect actually caught me completely off guard and came out of the HDR merge process. I'm assuming it's because I used so many layers in the HDR merge with some having the statue nearly black and some nearly white. My intent was to capture a good range for being sure I had a good sky tone to go with a good statue tone. Somewhere in the merge process I guess the averages on them just happened to work out to this. I play with photoshop on occassion, but I doubt I have the skills to add a halo that turned out that well LOL.

The second image was from only 3 exposures. On this one after the HDR, I did the conventional Blue/Red channel switch. The multiple exposures did a great job of making the fronds appear as they do, as they were in slightly different spots in each exposure due to the wind. I increased the contrast of the final image a smidge.

Both shots were taken on our vacation and I had not expected the cemetary to be so heavily overcast. The thickness of the tree canopy cast nearly everything in shadow despite it being a sunny day. This is why I needed to make small tweaks to the contrast on both and the brightness on the first shot.