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    St Pauls


    OK - so I've finally plucked up the courage to post a picture on the forum of St Pauls Cathedral taken a few days ago.
    I realise it is not a good image and probably could do with a lot of improving but I'm not sure what to do to make it better.
    I do have a copy of Elements 12 but not sure how to approach any improvements to this image.

    Absolutely ANY criticism or advice would be extremely useful even if it is "You're wasting your time!"

    ALL help very welcome and probably much needed.

    Gavin
    Last edited by Rankin; 03-08-2018, 18:21. Reason: Learning how to do it?

    #2
    Re: St Pauls

    Over all this is a record shot of the dome, there is not much IMO you can do to improve the image. You kept the whites from being blown out, while capturing nice exposure in the shadows. You kept the dome in the rule of thirds keeping a somewhat balance to the image.

    Tom

    Comment


      #3
      Re: St Pauls

      You could go for a more dramatic approach which will be less realistic but more impacting. I’d raise the shaddows and increase saturation and clarity and see what that’s like...
      Brian Vickers LRPS

      brianvickersphotography.com

      Comment


        #4
        Re: St Pauls

        Hi Gavin, My thoughts (for what they’re worth, others may have better ideas!)

        Your picture looks quite soft and it is degrading the quality in my opinion; I do not know photobucket so do not know if this is contributing or not. Most here use Flickr.

        I would check that the colour balance is correct, it looks too red to me. Also look at the contrast and tone curve, it looks quite flat for what was clearly a fine day; you might be able to bring out a bit more detail from the tree shadow as well. An “S” shaped curve may be a good place to start.

        I always edit in RAW and save a maximum quality JPEG version when I’m happy.

        Another option for editing might be DDP if you’ve got a version supplied with your camera.

        Hope this helps.

        Ian
        Ian

        Flickr page https://www.flickr.com/photos/154026104@N07

        Comment


          #5
          Re: St Pauls

          Originally posted by tesarver View Post
          Over all this is a record shot of the dome, there is not much IMO you can do to improve the image. You kept the whites from being blown out, while capturing nice exposure in the shadows. You kept the dome in the rule of thirds keeping a somewhat balance to the image.

          Tom
          Thank you so much Tom; I fully expected some scathing criticism but your comments give me some encouragement.
          Thank you.
          Gavin

          Comment


            #6
            Re: St Pauls

            Originally posted by brianvickers View Post
            You could go for a more dramatic approach which will be less realistic but more impacting. I’d raise the shaddows and increase saturation and clarity and see what that’s like...
            Thank you Brian; If I can figure out how, I'll give your suggestion a try.
            Thanks
            gavin

            Comment


              #7
              Re: St Pauls

              Originally posted by Farider View Post
              Hi Gavin, My thoughts (for what they’re worth, others may have better ideas!)

              Your picture looks quite soft and it is degrading the quality in my opinion; I do not know photobucket so do not know if this is contributing or not. Most here use Flickr.

              I would check that the colour balance is correct, it looks too red to me. Also look at the contrast and tone curve, it looks quite flat for what was clearly a fine day; you might be able to bring out a bit more detail from the tree shadow as well. An “S” shaped curve may be a good place to start.

              I always edit in RAW and save a maximum quality JPEG version when I’m happy.

              Another option for editing might be DDP if you’ve got a version supplied with your camera.

              Hope this helps.

              Ian
              Thank you Ian
              I do have the Canon Software that came with my camera so I'll have a look and see if I can follow your suggestions.
              Gavin

              Comment


                #8
                Re: St Pauls

                Hi Gavin. I like it, it is nicely composed, but since you are asking for suggestions I'd agree with Ian in that it does have a slight red cast to it. I don't necessarily dislike this, in fact if it is a result of warm sunset lighting then I think it is nice. But if it wasn't what you saw and you want a more realistic impression then it is easy to remove. I have PSE 11 so I hope you don't mind (I'll delete this post if you do) I took your jpg and opened it in PSE Camera Raw (if you have captured RAW this will work a lot better for you) and dropped the temperature and tint sliders a bit to reduce the red, dropped highlights right down to improve the sky, and fiddled with the clarity then went into editor and added a vignette to help focus attention on the dome. Only took moments to do, you would be able to do a much better job. Obviously the image quality is now much worse than you would have, particularly as I've uploaded directly, but hopefully you get to see a slight alternative.
                Your image now deleted from my machine.
                Attached Files
                Canon EOS 7D
                EF-S 10-22mm 1:3.5-4.5 USM, EF 24-105mm 1:4 L IS USM, EF 50mm 1:1.8, EF 70-300mm 1:4-5.6 IS USM
                Luminar 4, Aurora HDR Pro, Silver Efex
                flickr: http://flic.kr/ps/LXWuy

                Comment


                  #9
                  Re: St Pauls

                  Originally posted by AlexR! View Post
                  Hi Gavin. I like it, it is nicely composed, but since you are asking for suggestions I'd agree with Ian in that it does have a slight red cast to it. I don't necessarily dislike this, in fact if it is a result of warm sunset lighting then I think it is nice. But if it wasn't what you saw and you want a more realistic impression then it is easy to remove. I have PSE 11 so I hope you don't mind (I'll delete this post if you do) I took your jpg and opened it in PSE Camera Raw (if you have captured RAW this will work a lot better for you) and dropped the temperature and tint sliders a bit to reduce the red, dropped highlights right down to improve the sky, and fiddled with the clarity then went into editor and added a vignette to help focus attention on the dome. Only took moments to do, you would be able to do a much better job. Obviously the image quality is now much worse than you would have, particularly as I've uploaded directly, but hopefully you get to see a slight alternative.
                  Your image now deleted from my machine.
                  Thank you Alex
                  I like what you did and it gives me some heart in your comments and in what can be done to improve an image.
                  I will have to spend more time on tweeking images I take.

                  Very grateful to you and everyone

                  Gavin

                  Comment


                    #10
                    Re: St Pauls

                    No worries, Gavin. I have rarely been perfectly happy with an image straight out of camera. But I don't think that makes me a bad photographer (others may disagree).
                    One last thing I meant to say/do was that I like the effect of converging verticals so I wouldn't mess with those but I would have trued cropping a bit off the right hand side where there's a little something intruding, although this then takes away quite a lot of the nice doorway, and I always think you always need a lot of something in frame or nothing, so I'd probably end up not cropping but cloning the thing out. Sorry for being long winded but hopefully some of my thought process helps.
                    Canon EOS 7D
                    EF-S 10-22mm 1:3.5-4.5 USM, EF 24-105mm 1:4 L IS USM, EF 50mm 1:1.8, EF 70-300mm 1:4-5.6 IS USM
                    Luminar 4, Aurora HDR Pro, Silver Efex
                    flickr: http://flic.kr/ps/LXWuy

                    Comment


                      #11
                      Re: St Pauls

                      Not long winded at all but very helpful thank you.
                      gavin

                      Comment


                        #12
                        Re: St Pauls

                        Hi Gavin,

                        Here's my take on it (all done quickly in Lightroom but similar effects can be achieved in DPP, etc. plus, working from a grabbed jpeg won't be anywhere as clean as from the RAW file):

                        IMG_3873-2.jpg

                        I liked the warmth of the shot so reduced the purple and magenta but increased the yellow to give the impression of evening light.
                        I thought there was too much magenta in the sky so, using the selection brush, reduced the magenta and increased the blue.
                        Overall I:
                        Increased the exposure, contrast, clarity, shadows, vibrance and saturation.
                        Reduced the highlights, whites and blacks.
                        Not all may have been necessary but I edit by 'feel' and keep adjusting the sliders until I like the result.
                        Finally I adjusted the verticals.

                        BTW I like the composition. City photography is always made difficult by the proximity of neighbouring properties so 'looking up' is usually necessary. What makes this image work is the trees have hidden all the modern street paraphernalia giving it a timeless look.

                        Cheers,
                        John

                        Comment


                          #13
                          Re: St Pauls

                          Thank you John
                          Very useful and I like what you've done.
                          Oh and thanks for the composition comment - very encouraging.
                          Gavin

                          Comment


                            #14
                            Re: St Pauls

                            Nice shot, I will be there next week, but sadly won't be allowed a camera
                            Trev

                            Equipment - According to the wife more than a Camera Shop got

                            Flickr:
                            https://www.flickr.com/photos/trevb2639/

                            Comment


                              #15
                              Re: St Pauls

                              Thank you Trev
                              Gavin

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