Peace Tower - B&W

[GerryDavid]

Just wondered what everyone thought of this one. Anything in it you find distracting/annoying?

http://gerrydavid.smugmug.com/photos/33084679-L.jpg
Aperture: f/4.8
ISO: 100
Focal Length: 6mm *I think this is 35mm in terms of 35mm perspective*
Exposure Time: 1/680

Post production:

* rotate to straighten it
* cleanup on the picture to remove some unwanted items
* umm, some adjustment layer that helps you convert things into black and white, gives you more range or something like that, I cant thinkof the tecnical name for it right now.
* channel mixer set to monochrome and various adjustments on the sliders
* curves adjustment layer to increase the contrast
* I think I copied the image over to helicon noise filter, reduced the noise and brought it back into photoshop. If there is a plugin for ps for this, that would be handy.
* background adjustments. I dont want to say what it was, but if you can see anything that doesnt look natural, please let me know.
* copied previous layer *ctrl J* and applied USM, then brought the opacity down to something like 50%

Im going by just memory here so I may have left something out, like blending modes.

I dont really like how the picture is centered but I cant crop it and keep the 8x10 ratio. I wish I had more of the bottomof the tower in the picture but I would need a wide angle lense for that. :0)

Hmm, and just looking at it now, you can almost see a face in the sky on the top right, odd.

 

[Vmann]

Its hard to make a judgement at the size you posted at, but I think if the image was larger for viewing I could give you a fair assesment.

Ill try anyways to critique... just dont set it in stone.

It looks like you may have added to much brightness/contrast to the building... some details seem lost in white the others to dark. It almost looks like a illustration at this size.

Your clouds and sky look good... Just the building seems off

 

[deb]

Maybe a little oversharpened. Does the histogram have a "comb" appearance?

I like the subject, and I too would like to see more of the building. The lower window that is cut off peaks my interest. I'd like to see more of the architecture.

Since your exposure was 1/680, you could close the aperture considerably and increase you DOF so that the top of building is sharper.

You did a good job on the BW conversion, but I'd like to see the color image.

 

[GerryDavid]

Took me a couple of days but I got around to doing a 100% crop of the picture to show details. I dont like posting full size files online so thats why Im posting a crop. It looks a bit soft, but it was enlarged from 3.2mp to an 8x10 @ 300dpi.

http://gerrydavid.smugmug.com/photos/33392944-L.jpg

And here is the original file, cropped a bit on the sides.

http://gerrydavid.smugmug.com/photos/33392941-L.jpg

 

[fightheheathens]

hmmm, its hard to tell at that size but i would also like a little more sharpness in the top of the tower, its loosing cool roof detail.

 

[errant_star]

I don't mind the extra contrast/brightness on the tower but in terms of the clouds ... they seem a little rough? to me ... not sure if that's the best way to describe it but there's some dark edges to them that just don;t really work for me.

:mrgreen:

 

[DramaDork626]

Well I think you should have gotten a better angle and captured more of the tower. I do sort of like your second attempt (where u got a closer crop). But there is something about the contrast that bothers me. Perhaps that there is too much of it and it doesn't look very natural. As for the ones where you didnt crop, the composition is a little boring.