Help restore this american classic...

[imported_ganna]

Sorry Greg, due to time difference, this is the end of my working day and you have already finish it off. All the best for Easter and enjoy the class :)

[imported_artmar]

Hi Tanja,

Your new car photo is looking good, particularly because you always obtain a very naturalistic modelling of objects -- dimensionality and solidity-- in your photos which is extremely appealing but which eludes me.  I'm eager to learn.

Like you, in addition to Detail, I purchased Topaz Adjust and Clean (for some reason that I can't remember) and also don't use either very much. They must be good for something -- maybe we'll discover at some point. We can find a way to explore Infocus, which I think you'll like.

I've been looking intently at your online gallery, and am finding your photos to be very beautiful!! You are a real artiste, and it's really inspiring to view your images. Gorgeous colours and textures.  You have a rare talent with HDR --  it appears to arise from deep within your images rather than having been applied from without as many other people use it. Very impressive.  And among other things, I sense that birds and other animals feel an implicit trust in you.  In their non-verbal way, that says a lot.

My photo gallery will look very humble indeed compared to yours.  I'll have to at least appear to be brave and so will post more photos over the weekend so that by Monday it should be ready for viewing (as ready as it every will be.)

Hope you can retrieve and post more of your photos from those external hard drives. Would love to see them.

Cheers,
Art

[ggroess]

Here is my third try. Road is a little bit more grey, car a little bit whiter.
Maybe I try one more color correction ;-)
Instead of false profile I use gamma correction from an exposure-layer.
Must be the same. Or not?



Thanks, Greg!
I have to try this on the canyon-picture.
I know that problem with the laptop-screens. Only work on that and surly need a better monitor ;-)


Hi Art,

I annoyingly only buy Topaz Details, Adjust and Clean. Never use the last ones.
InFocus looks great. I have to checkout the trial version and compare to LR and PS methods.
Or maybe we can compare it here in the class!?

Hm, I don't know, if I can wait one or two weeks for seeing your pictures.
Two pictures now and the rest later? ;-)

Here are some of mine:
www.tf-oto.de

To small, I kow. Had to change this, but lost some of the originals by harddrive-crash.
Also I have to upload more pictures, but first find them. Somewhere here on the external harddrives ;-)


Greetings, Tanja

Overall it looks wonderful...
What happened to the curb in the lower left??  I'm curious as to where the magenta came from??

Greg

[mikemeister_admin]

Hi,

Here is my try.  I startedoutwithanexposurecorrectiontogetitintheballpark.  Other than that, I used the CM wizard to set a white pt, black pt, and midtones.  I used LAB to do slight color corrections.  I do not like the color of the sky, but I could not seem to find a setting I liked.

Thanks,
Jerry

[ggroess]

I startedoutwithanexposurecorrectiontogetitintheballpark. 

I think I have a new favorite word....Wow... ;D

[ggroess]

Here are some of mine:
www.tf-oto.de

To small, I kow. Had to change this, but lost some of the originals by harddrive-crash.
Also I have to upload more pictures, but first find them. Somewhere here on the external harddrives ;-)


Greetings, Tanja

Tanja,
A very nice site.  Rather than more images I would suggest that you try to find a way to post different images every time I open the site.  On the curvemeister main site out at curvemeister.com the large images on the top of the page change from visit to visit.  This keeps it fresh and interesting, always changing.

I would like to ask about the Portraiture.  Are you using some kind of overlay layer or a Alpha channel to change the tonality that much?  How does the person who you are imaging like that version?  It is striking and stylized. I like it and would like you to describe the process if possible or point me to a resource that explains what you did. 

I can see you did the same for the car image and it brought back the shape of the hood and fenders very nicely...The more I look at the image the more I like the feel of the whole thing...

Greg

[imported_Tanja]

Hi Art and Greg,

wow, thaks for the compliments. Don't know, if you have that same saying like in german, so I write it in my lanuage.
Ich werde ja ganz rot ;-)

Art,
I have to tell my friends, which comes more from analogous photography, than me, that my name is fallen related with "natural" :-)
These guys are more on the position, that what I do, isn't that much photography and they are not that wrong I think ;-)
I more come from painting but havn't any talent for that. Like Baudelaire said: Photography is for the failed painter, for the lazy and untalented ones ;-))).

You are so understatement. I love that! Really know, that I will love your pictures just before seeing.
Contrast is easy, but you have such a good look for the colors, where I always struggle with.
Don't let hurry you only for my impatience. I can wait...maybe...a little bit...;-)

Maybe the anymals know, that I don't eat them ;-)

Let us ceep that in mind, to test the InFocus. Maybe we can use the same finished picture and both of us do a sharpening to have a directly comparison.



Greg,

the magenta artefact comes up with the heavy gamma correction. And all the other artefacts, which I were to lazy to correct ;-).
Hoped it comes because of picture compression and not from my workflow. Fortunately it is in Jerrys version too, but he was wise enought not lighten the picture so much in the darks.
I'm still not happy with my colors, specially the skin tones, where I always have problems and hope, we do something about this in the class.

That's a good idea always having a new picture on the front side and maby in the gallery too.
I think there is an option for that. Really time for doing something new on the homepage, but always to lazy ;-)

Yes, you are right. I really often use a black and white layer in mode soft light or overlay.
It's a method I learn from Joel Grimes. He do a double raw conversion with one layer use a lot of fill light and less contrast and one monochrom layer with same settings, but mabe some changes in luminosity of the colors, exposure and so on.
Mostly I reduce opasity of both layer by having the original below. Or make a group and set in color mode plus opasity changing.
Some colors of course, like backgrounds or clothes and eyecolor sometimes, are changed manualy.
For more "painting look", I use noise reduction or bluring with edge masks. For lot more, a the oilpaint filter and Nik Filter, like "detail extractor".
Hard to write in english for me. Needs lot of time with the google translater ;-). Hope it is understanable.

Fortunately my models nearly all like that style till now, even the ones, that goes much older in the picture as they are ;-)
But normally the "old school" Photographer have a problem with that. I made a picture from one of them and he's not that sure, if he likes it.
On one hand, he likes himself on the picture on the other hand it's too much "photoshop devil factory" for him ;-)

I'm not really remember what I all do with the car, but it was a little bit diffrent. Always forget a lot of things I learn and do before, sometimes in a second. Terrible.
But I think the details comes back with the "multiplication-method" from Dan Margulis. I mean I do it twice.
You surly know this method, but for the others: It's a gamma correction or a false profile (which I have to create, because finding out, that exposure layer don't work in Lab, but I forget how the way is, to save a new profile) for making the picture to bright.
Then doing a multiplication, which makes it to dark. Layer mask and finding the right layer in the channels and blurring the mask, which brings the details.
My english is to bad to explain it right. Think if anybody want's to try this, you better explain this again ;-)

Growing two feet higher that you guys are so friendly and compliment my work!

Greetings, Tanja



P.S::

Hi Jerry,

love the "new word" too :-D
Why you don't like the sky? Looks great.
And I like the whole picture.

[imported_artmar]

Hi Tanja,

Thank you very much -- you're effectively encouraging me to post some of my photos, which up until now I have dealt with by procrastinating. I think by Monday I should have it done. (Have to bring to some stage of at least "nearing finished" my "works in progress" which characterizes my feelings toward almost all of my images.)

For some reason I thought you might be a vegetarian.  So am I.  As Bernard Shaw said:  Animals are my friends, and I don't eat my friends. 
I strongly share those sentiments.

Much to think about in your post.

Cheers,
Art

[mikemeister_admin]

Hi Tanja,

I also loved your images.  I would share mine, but I have been too lazy to build a web site.  Maybe sometime soon.  We are having a dinner party to night to share with friends a slide show of the best images my wife (she's the better photographer) from 2 trips to Cambodia and Myanmar.  I do not know how to share the slide show it on-line with you.

Jerry

[imported_Tanja]

Hi Art,

could be my words ;-)
The hardest thing by working on a picture is to decide, that it's finished.
I never, never, never finished one single picture. It's always an "okay for the moment, mabe later more". ;-)
Know exactly, what you mean!

I have to confess, that I sometimes eat fish.
It's really a lie. Works only by don't let me thinking about. Did I have to kill it by myself or just seeing the fish alive before, this would be no question any more.
But we both are steal animals food ;-)


Hi Jerry,

no problem, I take the next fly and come to dinner ;-)
I would love to the that pictures. What a great journey.
And women are always the better side of a man. Try to get it in the had of my one since years. He's still sceptical ;-)))

I knew "picasa" for sharing pictures, where you can invite only those people you want.
Or all not private solutions like flickr or 500px.
All not for lazy ones like us ;-)

Hey, thanks for your compliments too. Now three feet higher. Need higher rooms now ;-)




Oh, I found a video from a photographer, who's very famous here in germany with his american name.
It's a little bit like the Joel Grimes way.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vr12ZfPK2co&feature=player_embedded#!



Greg, I think about "doing the same in the car picture".
Of course you're right. It is nearly the same. Don't notice that before.
Thanks for that tip. Always astonished, how less I comprehend what I do. Still in cookbook-thinking ;-)

Greetings, Tanja