Finn's Slough, Richmond, B.C.

[Islesfan91]

it's been a while since I took a photo I liked, but I'm still not sure what, if anything, I can do with this photo to improve it from here.

any thoughts appreciated!

finn's slough-13 by Tom McKee, on Flickr

 

[agp]

1. This photo looks flat. There is not much light/darkness differentiation. Everything is approximately the same level of brightness, which is not natural. This image is also a little dark, which may be a byproduct of the flatness. If you take one image, and you bring down the bright spots and lighten up the dark spots, which looks like what you did here, your final product will be a little dark.

2. Why is there a big chunk of dark gray in the sky?

3. I say this in one variation or another about many pictures... if you want to take an interesting photo of an uninteresting subject, play with the framing. To me, the content of this photo is uninspiring.

4. Personally I think excessive branding is silly. I wouldn't bother stealing 99.9999999% of the pictures online.

 

[tirediron]

1. This photo looks flat. There is not much light/darkness differentiation. Everything is approximately the same level of brightness, which is not natural. This image is also a little dark, which may be a byproduct of the flatness. If you take one image, and you bring down the bright spots and lighten up the dark spots, which looks like what you did here, your final product will be a little dark.

2. Why is there a big chunk of dark gray in the sky?

3. I say this in one variation or another about many pictures... if you want to take an interesting photo of an uninteresting subject, play with the framing. To me, the content of this photo is uninspiring.

4. Personally I think excessive branding is silly. I wouldn't bother stealing 99.9999999% of the pictures online.

I don't see 'flat' in here at all; there's at least 5-6 stops of exposure range, and the sunset lighting (I assume that's sunset, or am I turned around?) is very attractive. I agree that it may not be the most interesting subject in the world, but I think it's a nice scene, and I like the reflections in the water. As for the sky, it looks like a perfectly normal west-coast sky to me, and I would hardly call that very subtle watermark "excessive branding".

 

[agp]

Flatness isn't the same as the lack of dynamic range. The more extensive the dynamic range, the easier it is to make an image flat. Sometimes a bit of overexposure here and there isn't necessarily a bad thing, provided the rest of the image isn't overexposed to the same degree. Sometimes a bit of darkness in the shadows help the viewer to anchor the eye. High dynamic range does not mean bright spots are equally bright as shadow spots.

Sunset skies, or any skies, aren't that lackluster. Nor do they have the same brightness/color/hue/saturation as the buildings they light up. And even if they did, the sky shouldn't have a muffled grayness to it.

And when it comes to branding, "excessive" is not used to describe the magnitude, but the frequency of occurrence.

 

[tirediron]

Flatness isn't the same as the lack of dynamic range. The more extensive the dynamic range, the easier it is to make an image flat. Sometimes a bit of overexposure here and there isn't necessarily a bad thing, provided the rest of the image isn't overexposed to the same degree. Sometimes a bit of darkness in the shadows help the viewer to anchor the eye. High dynamic range does not mean bright spots are equally bright as shadow spots.

Sunset skies, or any skies, aren't that lackluster. Nor do they have the same brightness/color/hue/saturation as the buildings they light up. And even if they did, the sky shouldn't have a muffled grayness to it.

And when it comes to branding, "excessive" is not used to describe the magnitude, but the frequency of occurrence.

Well, I guess we'll just have to disagree on those points.

 

[agp]

Nothing in my second post is an opinion. You can disagree if you'd like to disregard facts, or bring your best HDR and we'll let our pictures speak.

Here is an example of a flat picture. See how "high dynamic" the range is, and how everything - sky, water, shadow, light are all roughly the same brightness? This is my picture from six months ago. At that time I didn't know how to process a sunset; and me from six months ago would also bumptiously disagree with what I have to say today.

Realistic doesn't mean calculated and soulless processing to make sure no pixels are overexposed and no pixels are black. Reality sometimes has some burnt pixels. Here's a natural image. There's no monochrome grayness going on anywhere. The bright spots are bright, the shadowy spots are dark. You don't have to see the color of every pixel, because when you do see everything, nothing is exciting.

Maybe the tone in my first post is harsh? And I commend you, tirediron, for being the nice guy. But I was not, and had no reason to, personally offend the OP. I was simply providing feedback, as asked. Take it for its content if you don't like my adjectives. If you disagree with what I said because of the tone but not the content of my message, then you are doing the OP a disservice.

 

[tirediron]

The only thing that is fact is that the OP has posted an image showing sky, water, and a building. Everything else that both you and I have said is opinion. You assert that his image is flat, I disagree. IMO, "flat" refers to an evenness of illumination over a scene, and again, IMO, the OP's image does not have that. You refer to 'realism' - knowing the general area that the OP's image was taken, I state categorically that it is in fact a very realistic representation of the scene.

 

[agp]

Flatness, in fact, can be quantified, and it is not an opinion. Throw this in Lightroom or whatever and look at some histograms. Let me edit it and then look at some more histograms. No real scene has the sky and the houses the same brightness and no real scene has a full of gray over it.

And knowing the "general area" has nothing to do with this. Light doesn't work differently in Canada.

 

[thereyougo!3]

It's a nice image, and I wouldn't call the lighting flat. The left hand side does feel a little unnaturally bright, so maybe the shadows have been push a tad too much. I don't judge an image by its histogram, just as I don't pixel peep for sharpness (well not much anyway!) but by its feel. I don't see grey in the sky, just quite a dark but subtle blue that is influenced by white balance.

All this is my opinion, and as ever others may vary.

 

[tirediron]

Flatness, in fact, can be quantified, and it is not an opinion. Throw this in Lightroom or whatever and look at some histograms. Let me edit it and then look at some more histograms. No real scene has the sky and the houses the same brightness and no real scene has a full of gray over it.

And knowing the "general area" has nothing to do with this. Light doesn't work differently in Canada.

I'll take your word for it.