Grave times

[stubbsy]

A few pics from the cemetary at St Stephen's Anglican Church, Newtown. This is a fascinating place photographically, but a real challenge to frame the shots so I'm curious to hear your thoughts on these. The first 3 shots were taken with the 24-120VR, the last with the 10.5 fisheye.

These images are also the first from a new workflow I'm trying. ALL images are processed through DxO optics first, exported as DNGs, then opened in Photoshop (with auto settings off) for minimal final tweaking. So far this seems to actually be faster since I leave DxO to do it's thing when I'm at work and I'm finding the image is pretty much right after the DxO step.











This is the most problematic image here. Is there too much tree?
I wanted to preserve the feeling it was looming over both the church and the graves

[admajic]

Interesting pics Peter. I really like the first one, not sure why, maybe its the colurs. With the last one, it is kinda wierd! 1stly the grave stones look like they are going to fall backwayds and seeing that much of the tree makes me wonder about where its coming from, so maybe too much tree, I love the branches. I hope u find this helpful.

Adam

[admajic]

I just cropped it square in the browser. Try that it looks better to me.

[stubbsy]

Interesting suggestion Adam, not sure if it lost too much of the drama in the process though.

[sydneywebcam]

This certainly is a fasinating graveyard with so much local history in it. I know just what you mean when you say it is a challenge to frame the shots. There just seems to be so much stuff spread out in such a way that makes getting a good compostion difficult. I spent some hours there several months ago and came away with only a few shots I liked. There is a gallery from that day here if anyone wishes to look. http://sydneywebcam.smugmug.com/gallery/862884

What I like about your images Peter is the colour of the sandstone church and weathered headstones. They somehow seems very inviting.
______________
Cheers,
Paul.

[stubbsy]

What I like about your images Peter is the colour of the sandstone church and weathered headstones. They somehow seems very inviting.

Paul

I agree - that's one of the things I noticed straight off using DxO as the start of my workflow - I'm getting images straight off that look great with no need for all but minor PP.

I've checked out your link too Paul. Aside from the interesting images I'm struck by the detailed historical information you've provided which gives great context to the shots and works extremely well.

[sydneywebcam]

I agree - that's one of the things I noticed straight off using DxO as the start of my workflow - I'm getting images straight off that look great with no need for all but minor PP.

That's interesting Peter. What do mean about minor PP work? (How much?) I use Capture One for my RAW conversions and I find I always have to do several things in Photoshop to get images looking right. They always look great in the Capture One window, but when reopened in PS invariably need a levels correction at least and sometimes a colour balance too. It all adds to the workflow time as I feel I have to double handle images.

_______________
Cheers,
Paul.

[stubbsy]

I literally mean minor. For all but one of these I opened in PSCS2 with auto everything turned off in the RAW import dialog, resized to 1500 px for uploading, a smart sharpen and then ran my frame action. That part took maybe a minute!

The one that required more was the one below where I added a gaussian blur to the propeller blades (since they were frozen still in my shot).

If I wasn't resizing for the web then I'd have used DxO to do the sharpening and the jpg output from DxO woiuld have been all I needed.

[Matt. K]

Peter
There is something not right about your work flow. The images looked forced...to sharp...almost painfully so..and the colours don't look quite natural. I think you are putting too much emphasis on processing and it's starting to make your pics look as if they have been fiddled with. Back off a little. Oversharpening is the biggest fault that most folk do to their images. Trust your camera to do the right thing and then gently tweak the tonal range, brightness and just a tad of USM. This is a personal opinion but to me the processing gets between me and your images.
The last pic is fine...excellent in fact.

[stubbsy]

Matt

Thanks for the feedback it's appreciated. I may have got a little carried away with my new workflow and overdone my DxO settings. I've dialled them back. The following image is straight out of DxO with the revised settings. I've had DxO sharpen & resize the image and save the jpg for uploading and it's been nowhere near photoshop. Is this better or is there still more you suggest needs improving?

[Matt. K]

Peter
Heaps better but the grass in the foreground still looks like it's got yellow in it. Maybe desaturate the image a tad. You're on the right track though.