Corfe

keithh (e2 Member)

9

15 Mar 2013 - 7:17 PM

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Classic Corfe view but Composition-wise you needed to come left a touch, as the castle is more important than getting the cemetery in.

On the tone mapping front I feel you should put back the non-mapped sky as it is now carrying noise and has gone flat.

Constructive Critique!

Paintman (e2 Member)

6

16 Mar 2013 - 2:30 PM

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I think tone mapping this scene was the wrong choice in this lighting as it could easily be done in one shot or without running it through Photomatix. The dynamic range is within the exposure limits of your camera's sensor so tone mapping or HDR effects are overkill and unnecessary. All they'll do is flatten the contrast of the photo and will produce something like the flat, dull sky you have in the shot above.

The position of the castle is below the horizon so its sense of power and authority over the landscape and the town has been reduced. It is also lacking in contrast and colour, seeming to blend into the hill behind. I would say this has to be the main subject of the photo and the town the secondary subject.

The light and shadows are good but not spectacular. Clouds would help the sky, but as there weren't any on the day there's not a lot you can do about it. I've had many days like that and it's a bit frustrating If you can go back there in different weather conditions then it will create different moods to the photographs.

With the main areas I've highlighted in mod 2 I made selections in PS and altered them to change the emphasis on each.

I thought area 1 in mod 2 was too dominant and had the most colour, contrast, detail and sharpening. I reduced all of these slightly so ( hopefully ) the eye could be directed to the main subject, the castle.

The shadows in areas 2 and 3 are too blue imo so I reduced the saturation of the blue and cyan colours to a level where I thought they were balanced in the photo.

In areas 3 and 4 I thought the sharpening was overdone, especially in the graveyard and around the church so I blurred these parts with Gaussian blur at around 0.5 pixels, or thereabouts. If this is too much then just reduce the opacity to suit the image.

Area 5, the sky was selected and altered using a curves layer so the horizon becomes lighter and the top of the photo becomes darker. The sky colour was changed using a selective colour layer. I reduced the noise in the sky too which helped to smooth the 'grain'.

I also used a selective colour layer to change the colour of the photo so there was more red in it.

I gave it a vignette and brightened the center portion. Area 6, the castle and hill was selected and given a boost in contrast and colour using curves. I then used dodge and burn techniques to darken the shadows and lighten the parts in sunlight. Hopefully this makes the castle the main subject of the photo.

I sharpened the photo using the High Pass filter. There were parts of the photo I didn't want sharpened so I used a layer mask and painted in black at different opacities to control the look of the sharpening.

When sharpening your photos try to sharpen selectively and not so much that halos can be seen. Generally the main subject needs to be sharpened the most and the secondary subject less so. All other areas are either not sharpened at all or only very slightly sharpened.

I'm not sure I explained the process very well so I hope you can gain something from it

This is only an opinion and not meant to offend.

Alan.

Constructive Critique!