Hustle

[Josh Bear]

Dear All,

have been working may through a number of pictures that I have overlooked for one reason or another.

I am honestly not sure about this one. I was taken by the flow of people across the road but it may be that central London is just too busy to allow the flow to be clearly seen.

It's called "Hustle" opinions please.

Best Regards

Josh[IMG][/IMG]

[Archangel]

Re: Hustle

Dear All,

have been working may through a number of pictures that I have overlooked for one reason or another.

I am honestly not sure about this one. I was taken by the flow of people across the road but it may be that central London is just too busy to allow the flow to be clearly seen.

It's called "Hustle" opinions please.

Best Regards

Josh[IMG][/IMG]

Josh,

I have 4-5 DVDs with photos except the recent ones on my hard disks. Every time I see a photo from another user I remember to unburry some of my older photos.
Now I remembered some photos like those I have from the center of Athens and like them too.
So I like this photo a lot (the scenery). I would prefer if the train station entrance was not there or it at least was further distant in the background.
Maybe you could decrease slight the brightness on the building and sharpen up the photo a little, because from what I see in my monitor, the buildings (only the buildings) look somewhat plastic (lack somehow texture detail). Maybe you can add some noise to the buildings, unless it is because of the type of downsizing for web display, which in this case, disregard my correction comments.


Regards

George

[Josh Bear]

Re: Hustle

George, Thanks for the comments, I can see what you mean about the texture of the buildings. I don't know why they look like that. I shoot in RAW and then convert using Rawshooter premium and this is how they came out. Maybe the contrast is a tad high?

Best Regards

Josh

[Archangel]

Re: Hustle

George, Thanks for the comments, I can see what you mean about the texture of the buildings. I don't know why they look like that. I shoot in RAW and then convert using Rawshooter premium and this is how they came out. Maybe the contrast is a tad high?

Best Regards

Josh

Very possibly Josh.
Try the conversion with a different software to see what happens and if no change then maybe you need to adjust brightness/contrast.


Regards

George

[Stephen]

Re: Hustle

Hi Josh, I can see what you are trying to do here, its strange how sometimes we see these things in our heads but its difficult to transfer the same feel onto the image. You have I suspect tried to enhance a somewhat flat scene, in order to bring a little life to it.

I'm wondering if you may have taken the wrong approach. As I look at it I feel there is too much saturation, this is creating a too busy feel, there is too much going on and the eye is missing what you want to convey. Those red vehicles and the sky for example distract from the people.

Its my feeling that somehow you need to concentrate the eye on the people crossing the road, this is I think, the business end of the image. Whilst at the same time try to make the rest of the scene kind of blend into insignificance.

I had a go and decided that the colour needed desaturating a bit first, then using channel mixer I converted to mono. The desat made the conversion less contrasty, and reduced the effect of the sky which somehow never seemed quite right to me. I then made a selection across the scene to create a wide band which included all the people crossing the road. This was feathered generously I think 75-100pixels would do it. The selection is inversed and Brightness reduced to darken the top and bottom of the image. Inverse again and slightly lighten. You may feel a few more tweaks are needed but I feel its definately now emphasising the people and reducing the distractions in the rest of the image. Its essentially thesame principle as the vignetting technique, which I know you use. Indeed I have tried the same technique by using a long narrow elliptical marquee which extends ouside the bounds of the frame, this is feathered and inverted as before and a similar darkening used.

Seems like the critique has developed into a tutorial eh

[Josh Bear]

Re: Hustle

Thanks stephen,

That actually helps a lot. I have this picture in my head and I look at the screen and I can sort of see it but didn't know how to get all the way there. I am going to go back to the raw and give it another go and then employ your method.

Thanks

Josh

[Stephen]

Re: Hustle

Thanks stephen,

That actually helps a lot. I have this picture in my head and I look at the screen and I can sort of see it but didn't know how to get all the way there. I am going to go back to the raw and give it another go and then employ your method.

Thanks

Josh

I'll be interested to see the result Josh

[Josh Bear]

Re: Hustle

Okay two versions.

first is B&W - i converted to B&W using the optikverve plugin and applied a red filter.

The second is colour but i played with the saturation to make a deliberatley desaturated version.

Best Regards

Josh

[Stephen]

Re: Hustle

You are definately getting there Josh, my own feeling is that marquee was too high and needs to be below the level of the sky. At the moment its a little too obvious what you have done. If you are working on the full size file you need to feather much more I think, maybe as much as 200-250 pixels, so there is a subtle gradation

[Josh Bear]

Re: Hustle

thanks,

feather was 90.

Best Regards

Josh

[Autumn]

Re: Hustle

I still like the original best.

I feel the biggest problem with the whole picture is the black railing which is central to the whole image and hits me in the eye which ever view I look at, but in the original to me, it appears not quite so pronouced.

How could you make it appear to be less of a feature? Blurring? Fading?

Audrey

[Josh Bear]

Re: Hustle

I could always select it and then play with the colour / brightness / contrast.

Thanks for the thought

Best Regards

Josh

[Stephen]

Re: Hustle

Wotabout a letterbox style crop