First nature shots

fatsheep · Jan 5, 2008

I took a short hike down to my local park today and took some long exposures of the creek during the rain. I thought this one turned out pretty good.

Here it is unedited.

Here it is edited in GIMP (greater contrast, lest brightness).

Tell me what you think.

skiboarder72 · Jan 5, 2008

very nice, yea it could use some more contrast though

timd346 · Jan 5, 2008

I like the colors in the unedited one

Sideburns · Jan 5, 2008

I think you overdid it a tad. Good shot, though...

LaFoto · Jan 6, 2008

Well, I'm with sideburns on your GIMP-edition of the photo. The original made me think immediately: "Hey now, we are not alone in having only just grey, rainy, drab weather and nothing like the snowy winters some have". The edit changes that impression, though I KNOW (I only have to look out of the window to know) that the colours are so muted these days, they are almost gone.

So I would think that a slight shift of the histogramme lever for the shadows (maybe from 0 to 10, no more) would help, but not much more.

The scene as such is nice as it is, and if it weren't for the rocks in the creek, it might have been taken just round the corner from here, and the exposure was slow enough to soften the water nicely.

Alex_B · Jan 6, 2008

the increase in contrast made you lose the bright parts of the water.

i would start with the unedited and try again, it is a nice picture.

AncientSnapper · Jan 6, 2008

Nah - You've done a great job. Dont start again, just a touch of dodge&burn
Well done

fatsheep · Jan 6, 2008

LaFoto said:
Well, I'm with sideburns on your GIMP-edition of the photo. The original made me think immediately: "Hey now, we are not alone in having only just grey, rainy, drab weather and nothing like the snowy winters some have". The edit changes that impression, though I KNOW (I only have to look out of the window to know) that the colours are so muted these days, they are almost gone.

So I would think that a slight shift of the histogramme lever for the shadows (maybe from 0 to 10, no more) would help, but not much more.

The scene as such is nice as it is, and if it weren't for the rocks in the creek, it might have been taken just round the corner from here, and the exposure was slow enough to soften the water nicely.

You're talking about Levels right? The general verdict seems to be that I overdid it, which I can see. Here's a more mild edit (with Levels):

therustytracks · Jan 7, 2008

that water looks cold.

LaFoto · Jan 7, 2008

Since you give the ok to have your phtoos edited, I looked at the histogramme of this one and saw quite what I had expected: a lot of room on the shadow side for some more shadows, look (this is your unedited photo, i.e. the first of this thread):

And if this had been mine, I would have felt tempted to do this before showing (and not much more):

Do you see the (little) difference? I feel that after that there is no more need to neither do anything about the contrasts nor about the colour saturation. The colours ARE quite subdued at this time of the year.

RKW3 · Jan 7, 2008

Nice edit Lafoto. It makes the shot a bit clearer.

N'Kolor · Jan 7, 2008

OMG Lafoto...WINDOWS....YIKES!!!!!!!!!

(obvious Mac user) hehehe

N'Kolor · Jan 7, 2008

Oh yeah and for the OP...I tried GIMP in Ubuntu...didn't like it...guess I am spoiled with CS3. Anyway, I personally think your edited version is the best of all of them. For me, the colors really pop and draw my attention than the others.