Short Wave Sportfishing wrote:
On Wed, 23 Jul 2008 09:04:08 -0400, RPS wrote:

Here is a photo I took of a horse who loved boating.

I would love to hear your comments.

http://tinyurl.com/B-W-Study

I really like all three of them, but the first one is a little darker
than I would like to see. It seems very contrasty, but the effect is
ethereal in a sense. I think if you grayed up the black a touch it
might be better.

Over all, I like the third image as the best of the three - nice
balance and a fairly neutral gray scale - the detail is perfect and
you capture a sense of strength and grace of the animal. It also
shows off the fine detail of the neck hair which is impressive - a
little more than the other two in particular with that figured
background.

I'd say one and three - the middle image is just so-so - seems like a
compromise.

Just for yucks, revist the original image and tinker with the
histogram a little - maybe reduce the background a touch with the
first two images.

You know what would be really cool would be to do a graduated montage
from one to the third - I think a panoramic view with a little
tinkering would be impressive.


I agree with you. The 3rd image is the one i sent in to get developed.
I sent it to a professional developer and I had them do a test run on a
8x10 to see how it would look. The photo had so many layers in
Photoshop The histogram was played with multiple times, to darken and
highlight different parts of the photo. (I think it was about 12-15
different layers, playing with the histogram, curves, exposure and
contrast, all with masking effects). The developers tell me it can
cause havoc with their ROS system. They recommended using a test print
anytime you use layers and masks.

The real pros will pay $25 to go in and help set up the image before
they print it. I think my $5 test run is a better option for me.

As far as your suggestion, it is a good one, and I might just tackle that.