Place de la Concorde, Paris
Grateful for your honest views on this. I'm thinking of selling prints to this picture so I want it to be absolutely perfect. The first version is without distortion correction - the second with. My girlfriend feels that the second looks unnatural and that the first looks better but I'm not sure. Although I do keep wondering whether I've over-corrected the distortion.
I also know that the obelisk is distractingly bright, but I'm not sure what I can do about that. I've already darkened the brightest spots slightly as they were bright white with no detail visible. I'm concerned that if I darken it further the lighting won't look natural any more.
No other PP has been done on either shot.
No distortion correction:
http://www.lotechdesigns.com/angelus/IMG_8946-10.jpg
With correction:
http://www.lotechdesigns.com/angelus/IMG_8946-fisheye%20corrected.jpg
Thanks in advance :)
Re: Place de la Concorde, Paris
Hi mate,
I'm with you on the corrected version. The obelisk is a bit distracting to me in the uncorrected version. Unless you want to give it the Italian/Roman influence and call it "The Leaning Obelisk of Paris" [:P]
Good luck selling.
Re: Place de la Concorde, Paris
Thanks:-)
Do you think I might have over-corrected the lean very slightly?
What do you think about the brightness of the obelisk?
Re: Place de la Concorde, Paris
Pfff difficult shot, nicely done [Y]
Personally I like the first one more, but mainly because yeah I guess you've overdone the correction. Now the obelisk is leaning the other way [:P]
The brightness of the obelisk is a bit on the heavy side. If you can change it, I think it would be better for your photo. But I don't know how noisie it will get in full-size.
Jan
Re: Place de la Concorde, Paris
Thanks again :D
OK I'll go back and try the correction again tonight. It's difficult - with the grid in place in Photoshop the obelisk looks vertical, in fact it still looks like it's leaning inwards very slightly. But looking at it without the grid it sometimes looks like it's leaning outwards a bit. I'm not very experienced with PS though.Is a bit of inwards lean OK?
I'll have another go at the brightness of the obelisk. I'm not too concerned about noise as it was shot at ISO 100 on my 5DII but I am concerned about the light looking natural.
Re: Place de la Concorde, Paris
First one - no correction.
Re: Place de la Concorde, Paris
Just do what you did before, but a little less. Say, 85-90% of the correction applied in the first version. It's apparent on the corrected version that both the obelisk and the Eiffel Tower are leaning slightly outward.
Re: Place de la Concorde, Paris
Quote:
Originally Posted by Feanor
Is a bit of inwards lean OK?
I think so yes, because it's more common and so less distracting. Just follow the advice of neuroanatomist.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Feanor
I'll have another go at the brightness of the obelisk. I'm not too concerned about noise as it was shot at ISO 100 on my 5DII but I am concerned about the light looking natural.
Yeah I don't know how it would look either. At this moment I'm still the only one complaining about it, so it might not even be such a big problem. I'm not a pro, so don't take my advice as expert advice [:P]What about this: I don't know if it would be nice, but personally I probably would try to blur out the background just a little bit so the main-subject gets more attention. This way the bright obelisk might not even need brightness-adjustments. Just a thought..
Jan
Re: Place de la Concorde, Paris
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sheiky
Quote:
Originally Posted by Feanor
Is a bit of inwards lean OK?
I think so yes, because it's more common and so less distracting. Just follow the advice of neuroanatomist.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Feanor
I'll have another go at the brightness of the obelisk. I'm not too concerned about noise as it was shot at ISO 100 on my 5DII but I am concerned about the light looking natural.
Yeah I don't know how it would look either. At this moment I'm still the only one complaining about it, so it might not even be such a big problem. I'm not a pro, so don't take my advice as expert advice [img]/emoticons/emotion-4.gif[/img]What about this: I don't know if it would be nice, but personally I probably would try to blur out the background just a little bit so the main-subject gets more attention. This way the bright obelisk might not even need brightness-adjustments. Just a thought..
Jan
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I won't be blurring the background - to be honest I hate backgrounds that have been blurred in PS. If I wanted to then I'd go back and take the shot again with a wider aperture (I live in Paris). But I purposely used a narrow aperture in order to keep everything sharp. The photo isn't just about the fountain - it's about the background too. I wanted to bring as many famous elements of Paris as possible into the shot. It's also meant as a large wall hanging, so a blurred background would, IMO, be too much of a distraction.
Anyway, I've had another go at editing the image. I've darkened the fountain as much as I dare without it looking unnatural, and I've re-done the distortion correction. Apologies for the large files - I've uploaded higher res, higher quality versions this time so I can get a better verdict. Please pay special attention to the obelisk and let me know if there's anything unnatural about it (note though that it's also lit from the side and from behind which anyway results in some odd glows and shadows around it).
http://www.lotechdesigns.com/angelus/IMG_8946-3.jpg
Here's the original for comparison, with no PP whatsoever (the obelisk on the pre-distortion version in my OP had already been darkened slightly).
http://www.lotechdesigns.com/angelus/IMG_8946-Original.jpg
Re: Place de la Concorde, Paris
Quote:
Originally Posted by Feanor
I won't be blurring the background - to be honest I hate backgrounds that have been blurred in PS. If I wanted to then I'd go back and take the shot again with a wider aperture (I live in Paris)
Sure sure, it was just a suggestion to make the obelisk less distracting [;)]
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sheiky
I'm not a pro, so don't take my advice as expert advice[:P]
AnywayI like the newer version.[Y]
The obelisk is a lot better and yes it might look a bit unreal, but so does the water due to the shutterspeed. I think it's still in proportion with the rest. I think it's much better than the original photo, but it's just my opinion. You are the one who needs to like it a lot [8-|]
Good luck selling! It's a joy to know when somebody bought your photo and put it in their livingroom [:D]
Jan
