Is this an unfair stereotype ?

Fishchris said:

JimKasson said:

Fishchris said:

First off, I want to say, this has to be about the friendliest forum section I have seen here on DPreview !

So I'd just like to ask, if you can find a few minutes to spare, could you take a look through a maybe the first page of my website (I think my website offers the best IQ) and tell me which photos are (in your personal opinion) not too overdone, and which ones are ? Obviously my photos, like most photographers I think, vary to some degree. I do try to stay somewhat consistent, but even aside from processing, obviously the scene might have very subdued color and contrast, or look kind of crazy even in real life.

I'd think these show my range pretty well.....

Click to expand...

I'll just comment on them. But before I do, I should note that there are only two people who need to be satisfied by a photograph: the photographer and the intended viewer. If you like these images, and your audience does, too. There is no reason to seek affirmation from third parties.

Click to expand...

Well hey Jim, even as much as I am happy with these, I'm always open to suggestions. As I don't think I have ever produced an image which could not be improved at least a little touch in one way or the other.

Chris Wolfgram said:

I'm assuming you read the "power tools" post. I'm going to go a step further and ask you if you like black-light paintings on velvet. If you do, read no further. What follows are my personal reactions.

Click to expand...

Black Light photos on velvet.... well, I'd probably have to be pretty high for that lol

Chris Wolfgram said:

Chris Wolfgram said:

Click to expand...

When you attempt an iconic shot like this, you should know that, to a sophisticated audience, you are raising the bar considerably. I don't even try to do these kinds of shots anymore, since so many great photographer have done such a great job with them.

If you read the section on "trophy hunters" here , you'll see where I'm coming from.

That said, I'm going to pretend that I never saw this scene before.

There are two things that bother me most about the shot. The first is the clouds are so high in contrast that they look unnatural. The second is the purple shadows on the cliffs. I know where that comes from, and a certain amount of that shade is reasonable, but that is just too much purple for me. The other place you see that is in the shadow of Spider Rock. It's not as blue/purple, but it's still too much, since you don't have the amount of air between the camera and the shadow to make the cast seem reasonable. It came because you amped up the saturation, which doesn't seem to have hurt the stuff in the sunlight very much, but it did a job on those shadows. I'd paint out the saturation/vibrance move in those places.

Click to expand...

Cool. Thank you. I'm going to read this again, while looking at it on my PC monitor, vs. My Android tablet here. And might even see if tweaking it to correct things you mentioned, improves it in my own eyes.

Chris Wolfgram said:

The image also has more clarity than I'd like to see. The fine details seem to stand out more than is natural, and makes the image have some of the feeling of a drawing to me.

Chris Wolfgram said:

Click to expand...

I'm actually more OK with the saturation moves in this one than in the other one. It's not trying to be realistic at all, so whether it succeeds or not is moot. It's a postcard; it's eye candy, and as such it's not bad at all.

Click to expand...

Okay. Yea, this is definitely for color freaks like myself ☺

Chris Wolfgram said:

I would straighten out the verticals, though.

Click to expand...

I did try that, but I felt like the tilted verticles add to the, "Wow, that must have been some good stuff" feeling

Chris Wolfgram said:

Is that what you wanted?

Click to expand...

Exactly what I wanted.

Chris Wolfgram said:

Jim

Click to expand...

Oh and btw, let me show you one more thing..... here's another version of that first one, before I had done much too it (other than stitching four vertical shots, made from four bracketed sets of 5, then ran through Photomatix....

No secrets here ☺

Click to expand...

the last word the last word - Photography meets digital computer technology. Photography wins -- most of the time.

Photography meets digital computer technology. Photography wins -- most of the time.

blog.kasson.com

Fishchris said:

JimKasson said:

Fishchris said:

First off, I want to say, this has to be about the friendliest forum section I have seen here on DPreview !

So I'd just like to ask, if you can find a few minutes to spare, could you take a look through a maybe the first page of my website (I think my website offers the best IQ) and tell me which photos are (in your personal opinion) not too overdone, and which ones are ? Obviously my photos, like most photographers I think, vary to some degree. I do try to stay somewhat consistent, but even aside from processing, obviously the scene might have very subdued color and contrast, or look kind of crazy even in real life.

I'd think these show my range pretty well.....

Click to expand...

I'll just comment on them. But before I do, I should note that there are only two people who need to be satisfied by a photograph: the photographer and the intended viewer. If you like these images, and your audience does, too. There is no reason to seek affirmation from third parties.

Click to expand...

Well hey Jim, even as much as I am happy with these, I'm always open to suggestions. As I don't think I have ever produced an image which could not be improved at least a little touch in one way or the other.

Chris Wolfgram said:

I'm assuming you read the "power tools" post. I'm going to go a step further and ask you if you like black-light paintings on velvet. If you do, read no further. What follows are my personal reactions.

Click to expand...

Black Light photos on velvet.... well, I'd probably have to be pretty high for that lol

Chris Wolfgram said:

Chris Wolfgram said:

Click to expand...

When you attempt an iconic shot like this, you should know that, to a sophisticated audience, you are raising the bar considerably. I don't even try to do these kinds of shots anymore, since so many great photographer have done such a great job with them.

If you read the section on "trophy hunters" here , you'll see where I'm coming from.

That said, I'm going to pretend that I never saw this scene before.

There are two things that bother me most about the shot. The first is the clouds are so high in contrast that they look unnatural. The second is the purple shadows on the cliffs. I know where that comes from, and a certain amount of that shade is reasonable, but that is just too much purple for me. The other place you see that is in the shadow of Spider Rock. It's not as blue/purple, but it's still too much, since you don't have the amount of air between the camera and the shadow to make the cast seem reasonable. It came because you amped up the saturation, which doesn't seem to have hurt the stuff in the sunlight very much, but it did a job on those shadows. I'd paint out the saturation/vibrance move in those places.

Click to expand...

Cool. Thank you. I'm going to read this again, while looking at it on my PC monitor, vs. My Android tablet here. And might even see if tweaking it to correct things you mentioned, improves it in my own eyes.

Chris Wolfgram said:

The image also has more clarity than I'd like to see. The fine details seem to stand out more than is natural, and makes the image have some of the feeling of a drawing to me.

Chris Wolfgram said:

Click to expand...

I'm actually more OK with the saturation moves in this one than in the other one. It's not trying to be realistic at all, so whether it succeeds or not is moot. It's a postcard; it's eye candy, and as such it's not bad at all.

Click to expand...

Okay. Yea, this is definitely for color freaks like myself ☺

Chris Wolfgram said:

I would straighten out the verticals, though.

Click to expand...

I did try that, but I felt like the tilted verticles add to the, "Wow, that must have been some good stuff" feeling

Chris Wolfgram said:

Is that what you wanted?

Click to expand...

Exactly what I wanted.

Chris Wolfgram said:

Jim

Click to expand...

Oh and btw, let me show you one more thing..... here's another version of that first one, before I had done much too it (other than stitching four vertical shots, made from four bracketed sets of 5, then ran through Photomatix....

No secrets here ☺

Click to expand...

Rick Knepper said:

Hopefully, there is room for more than just one opinion here.

I disagree with Jim on several points not because I am saying he's wrong in his opinion because he is entitled to it but because I have a different objective with my photography than he does. And, I agree with a couple of his points.

Clarity and sharpness of detail across the frame, front to back may not be natural looking (with my naked eye, I can't focus on Spider Rock, the back of the canyon and the floor of the canyon all at the same time) but I can use a camera to create a single image that has all of the aforementioned aspects in focus. Speaking of clarity of detail, I think Jim's statement on this topic probably needs some clarification.

Click to expand...

JimKasson said:

Rick Knepper said:

Hopefully, there is room for more than just one opinion here.

I disagree with Jim on several points not because I am saying he's wrong in his opinion because he is entitled to it but because I have a different objective with my photography than he does. And, I agree with a couple of his points.

Clarity and sharpness of detail across the frame, front to back may not be natural looking (with my naked eye, I can't focus on Spider Rock, the back of the canyon and the floor of the canyon all at the same time) but I can use a camera to create a single image that has all of the aforementioned aspects in focus. Speaking of clarity of detail, I think Jim's statement on this topic probably needs some clarification.

Click to expand...

Maybe I should have capitalized "clarity". I was talking about the effect of the Lr control with that name.

Jim

Click to expand...

JimKasson said:

Fishchris said:

JimKasson said:

Fishchris said:

First off, I want to say, this has to be about the friendliest forum section I have seen here on DPreview !

So I'd just like to ask, if you can find a few minutes to spare, could you take a look through a maybe the first page of my website (I think my website offers the best IQ) and tell me which photos are (in your personal opinion) not too overdone, and which ones are ? Obviously my photos, like most photographers I think, vary to some degree. I do try to stay somewhat consistent, but even aside from processing, obviously the scene might have very subdued color and contrast, or look kind of crazy even in real life.

I'd think these show my range pretty well.....

Click to expand...

I'll just comment on them. But before I do, I should note that there are only two people who need to be satisfied by a photograph: the photographer and the intended viewer. If you like these images, and your audience does, too. There is no reason to seek affirmation from third parties.

Click to expand...

Well hey Jim, even as much as I am happy with these, I'm always open to suggestions. As I don't think I have ever produced an image which could not be improved at least a little touch in one way or the other.

JimKasson said:

I'm assuming you read the "power tools" post. I'm going to go a step further and ask you if you like black-light paintings on velvet. If you do, read no further. What follows are my personal reactions.

Click to expand...

Black Light photos on velvet.... well, I'd probably have to be pretty high for that lol

JimKasson said:

JimKasson said:

Click to expand...

When you attempt an iconic shot like this, you should know that, to a sophisticated audience, you are raising the bar considerably. I don't even try to do these kinds of shots anymore, since so many great photographer have done such a great job with them.

If you read the section on "trophy hunters" here , you'll see where I'm coming from.

That said, I'm going to pretend that I never saw this scene before.

There are two things that bother me most about the shot. The first is the clouds are so high in contrast that they look unnatural. The second is the purple shadows on the cliffs. I know where that comes from, and a certain amount of that shade is reasonable, but that is just too much purple for me. The other place you see that is in the shadow of Spider Rock. It's not as blue/purple, but it's still too much, since you don't have the amount of air between the camera and the shadow to make the cast seem reasonable. It came because you amped up the saturation, which doesn't seem to have hurt the stuff in the sunlight very much, but it did a job on those shadows. I'd paint out the saturation/vibrance move in those places.

Click to expand...

Cool. Thank you. I'm going to read this again, while looking at it on my PC monitor, vs. My Android tablet here. And might even see if tweaking it to correct things you mentioned, improves it in my own eyes.

JimKasson said:

The image also has more clarity than I'd like to see. The fine details seem to stand out more than is natural, and makes the image have some of the feeling of a drawing to me.

JimKasson said:

Click to expand...

I'm actually more OK with the saturation moves in this one than in the other one. It's not trying to be realistic at all, so whether it succeeds or not is moot. It's a postcard; it's eye candy, and as such it's not bad at all.

Click to expand...

Okay. Yea, this is definitely for color freaks like myself ☺

JimKasson said:

I would straighten out the verticals, though.

Click to expand...

I did try that, but I felt like the tilted verticles add to the, "Wow, that must have been some good stuff" feeling

JimKasson said:

Is that what you wanted?

Click to expand...

Exactly what I wanted.

JimKasson said:

Jim

Click to expand...

Oh and btw, let me show you one more thing..... here's another version of that first one, before I had done much too it (other than stitching four vertical shots, made from four bracketed sets of 5, then ran through Photomatix....

No secrets here ☺

Click to expand...

Now that I see the capture, I see why only some shadows are purple. The natural ones are; the ones that you invented are not.

Click to expand...

JimKasson said:

I am not offended by the made-up shadows. But I think that, like when sticking a moon where it wasn't in the original capture, the act of creating an image that is so far from what you saw when you tripped the shutter carries with it the responsibility to make it look as if it were real. That is usually more difficult than most people think it will be.

Click to expand...

JimKasson said:

Jim

Click to expand...

Chris Wolfgram ✝️

Explore Chris Wolfgram ✝️’s 1,110 photos on Flickr!

www.flickr.com

Fishchris said:

Hey Jim, just to be clear, your saying my "fake" shadows look okay, but the natural ones look fake / too purple ? Not sure how that happened lol

Click to expand...

Rick Knepper said:

Fishchris said:

JimKasson said:

Fishchris said:

First off, I want to say, this has to be about the friendliest forum section I have seen here on DPreview !

So I'd just like to ask, if you can find a few minutes to spare, could you take a look through a maybe the first page of my website (I think my website offers the best IQ) and tell me which photos are (in your personal opinion) not too overdone, and which ones are ? Obviously my photos, like most photographers I think, vary to some degree. I do try to stay somewhat consistent, but even aside from processing, obviously the scene might have very subdued color and contrast, or look kind of crazy even in real life.

I'd think these show my range pretty well.....

Click to expand...

I'll just comment on them. But before I do, I should note that there are only two people who need to be satisfied by a photograph: the photographer and the intended viewer. If you like these images, and your audience does, too. There is no reason to seek affirmation from third parties.

Click to expand...

Well hey Jim, even as much as I am happy with these, I'm always open to suggestions. As I don't think I have ever produced an image which could not be improved at least a little touch in one way or the other.

Rick Knepper said:

I'm assuming you read the "power tools" post. I'm going to go a step further and ask you if you like black-light paintings on velvet. If you do, read no further. What follows are my personal reactions.

Click to expand...

Black Light photos on velvet.... well, I'd probably have to be pretty high for that lol

Rick Knepper said:

Rick Knepper said:

Click to expand...

When you attempt an iconic shot like this, you should know that, to a sophisticated audience, you are raising the bar considerably. I don't even try to do these kinds of shots anymore, since so many great photographer have done such a great job with them.

If you read the section on "trophy hunters" here , you'll see where I'm coming from.

That said, I'm going to pretend that I never saw this scene before.

There are two things that bother me most about the shot. The first is the clouds are so high in contrast that they look unnatural. The second is the purple shadows on the cliffs. I know where that comes from, and a certain amount of that shade is reasonable, but that is just too much purple for me. The other place you see that is in the shadow of Spider Rock. It's not as blue/purple, but it's still too much, since you don't have the amount of air between the camera and the shadow to make the cast seem reasonable. It came because you amped up the saturation, which doesn't seem to have hurt the stuff in the sunlight very much, but it did a job on those shadows. I'd paint out the saturation/vibrance move in those places.

Click to expand...

Cool. Thank you. I'm going to read this again, while looking at it on my PC monitor, vs. My Android tablet here. And might even see if tweaking it to correct things you mentioned, improves it in my own eyes.

Rick Knepper said:

The image also has more clarity than I'd like to see. The fine details seem to stand out more than is natural, and makes the image have some of the feeling of a drawing to me.

Rick Knepper said:

Click to expand...

I'm actually more OK with the saturation moves in this one than in the other one. It's not trying to be realistic at all, so whether it succeeds or not is moot. It's a postcard; it's eye candy, and as such it's not bad at all.

Click to expand...

Okay. Yea, this is definitely for color freaks like myself ☺

Rick Knepper said:

I would straighten out the verticals, though.

Click to expand...

I did try that, but I felt like the tilted verticles add to the, "Wow, that must have been some good stuff" feeling

Rick Knepper said:

Is that what you wanted?

Click to expand...

Exactly what I wanted.

Rick Knepper said:

Jim

Click to expand...

Oh and btw, let me show you one more thing..... here's another version of that first one, before I had done much too it (other than stitching four vertical shots, made from four bracketed sets of 5, then ran through Photomatix....

No secrets here ☺

Click to expand...

Hopefully, there is room for more than just one opinion here.

I disagree with Jim on several points not because I am saying he's wrong in his opinion because he is entitled to it but because I have a different objective with my photography than he does. And, I agree with a couple of his points.

Clarity and sharpness of detail across the frame, front to back may not be natural looking (with my naked eye, I can't focus on Spider Rock, the back of the canyon and the floor of the canyon all at the same time) but I can use a camera to create a single image that has all of the aforementioned aspects in focus. Speaking of clarity of detail, I think Jim's statement on this topic probably needs some clarification.

I prefer clarity and sharpness that is achieved by hi-rez sensors and hi-rez lenses and enhanced with specialized processes to remove the effects of an AA-filter if present, diffraction and other aberrations. Processing of any type begins to degrade image resolution, but like diffraction, loss of resolution through processing becomes visible gradually and eventually becomes limiting to detail as the processing becomes heavier, one of side-effects being the "painterly" image.

I have the same images shot at Spider Rock with a 5D2 in 2010. I dislike the shadows so much that I keep telling myself to delete the set. And I may if I ever get back to Canyon de Chelly to reshoot. I am curious about the fake shadows in the first image myself. When I see clouds with dark bottoms in an otherwise sunny scene, even clouds that were actually there, it doesn't look realistic.

I personally shoot for an audience of one, myself, so I won't pretend to know or care what other people think. There's something to be said for following one's own vision in creating images. If you are selling as a freelancer, then there will be enough folks on the planet who are of the same mind and will buy your stuff. Of course, there are those professionals who shoot on someone else's spec and I would find that technically difficult to do. However, listening to other opinions doesn't mean you have to change your overall style.

Click to expand...

Chris Wolfgram ✝️

Explore Chris Wolfgram ✝️’s 1,110 photos on Flickr!

www.flickr.com

JimKasson said:

Fishchris said:

Hey Jim, just to be clear, your saying my "fake" shadows look okay, but the natural ones look fake / too purple ? Not sure how that happened lol

Click to expand...

If happened because the real shadows are lit by the blue sky, and the fake ones started out being lit by the sun before you lowered the luminance. When you turned up the saturation, you turned the shadows lit by the sky purple, but the white balance of the fake ones was the same as the sunlit portion of the scene, so they didn't go purple.

Jim

Click to expand...

JimKasson said:

Rick Knepper said:

Hopefully, there is room for more than just one opinion here.

I disagree with Jim on several points not because I am saying he's wrong in his opinion because he is entitled to it but because I have a different objective with my photography than he does. And, I agree with a couple of his points.

Clarity and sharpness of detail across the frame, front to back may not be natural looking (with my naked eye, I can't focus on Spider Rock, the back of the canyon and the floor of the canyon all at the same time) but I can use a camera to create a single image that has all of the aforementioned aspects in focus. Speaking of clarity of detail, I think Jim's statement on this topic probably needs some clarification.

Click to expand...

Maybe I should have capitalized "clarity". I was talking about the effect of the Lr control with that name.

Jim

Click to expand...

Fishchris said:

JimKasson said:

Rick Knepper said:

Hopefully, there is room for more than just one opinion here.

I disagree with Jim on several points not because I am saying he's wrong in his opinion because he is entitled to it but because I have a different objective with my photography than he does. And, I agree with a couple of his points.

Clarity and sharpness of detail across the frame, front to back may not be natural looking (with my naked eye, I can't focus on Spider Rock, the back of the canyon and the floor of the canyon all at the same time) but I can use a camera to create a single image that has all of the aforementioned aspects in focus. Speaking of clarity of detail, I think Jim's statement on this topic probably needs some clarification.

Click to expand...

Maybe I should have capitalized "clarity". I was talking about the effect of the Lr control with that name.

Jim

Click to expand...

Well if the clarity is off, I did actually achieve that through different means, as I don't use LR anymore, and CS6 doesn't have a "clarity" slider. Aurora HDR does now, but I processed Spider Rock using Photomatix.

Click to expand...

Richard Feynman said:

A thought occurred to me as I was reading this thread. It seems the term "over processed" could be broadly categorized into two areas.

1. Processing that is primarily technical in nature. Applying too much sharpness, underexposing or overexposing an image etc. This category is fairly objective in nature.

2. Processing that is primarily artistic in nature. The color applied to clouds, where an image should be cropped etc. This category is somewhat subjective in nature.

Is this a distinction without a difference? Thoughts?

Click to expand...

• What is the intended mode of display? A print will have different technical values than a screen display, and from there there are different screen displays available, different print modes available (and their supports).
• You seem to be interested in selling prints, and therefore I assume you value prints as a medium. But we are looking at the work on screens, which is another medium altogether. This isn't your fault---Of course!---but still, how can we truly judge what we are seeing?
• Scale plays a huge role as well. Some things can scale up and down reasonably well, within limits, and some things need to be a particular size. But here we are not presented with the designated size, and if large, we couldn't even see it anyway on our smaller screens. I've seen images of Jim's work online that were shots of the prints, and so I could get a fix on how I would most likely feel about those pieces, although still I'd have to see them in person.

tex said:

Odd week that didn't allow me much time to respond, so sorry about that.

The very first thing I will say, and this is very important, is that I can't really see your images on your website well enough to give to give a good response. This has a lot to do with my increasing distrust of what I am seeing online in terms of technical merits.

A great deal of how an image should look depends on several things:

• What is the intended mode of display? A print will have different technical values than a screen display, and from there there are different screen displays available, different print modes available (and their supports).
• You seem to be interested in selling prints, and therefore I assume you value prints as a medium. But we are looking at the work on screens, which is another medium altogether. This isn't your fault---Of course!---but still, how can we truly judge what we are seeing?
• Scale plays a huge role as well. Some things can scale up and down reasonably well, within limits, and some things need to be a particular size. But here we are not presented with the designated size, and if large, we couldn't even see it anyway on our smaller screens. I've seen images of Jim's work online that were shots of the prints, and so I could get a fix on how I would most likely feel about those pieces, although still I'd have to see them in person.

Click to expand...

tex said:

Thus it's extremely difficult for me to accurately assess what's happening with the work I can see on your website from a technical standpoint. That said, I will agree with Jim that there's a "clarity" issue.

But here I will diverge from him slightly. What looks to be your fondness for the "clarity" slider in LR (or equivalent effect in another program) seems to point to something you are personally looking for from the work you are doing---a kind of "laser eye" ability to cut the "haze" and look into the scenes in a kind of psychotropic way. They are a bit hyper-real. I'm getting a sense of you looking for something, and that intensity of the "clarity" in PP is giving these images a hint of the anxiousness of that searching into. So rather than criticize you for being heavy handed with PP, I would ask you to stop and really evaluate what it is you are looking for.

Click to expand...

tex said:

As a hint, try taking a look at the work of Eliot Porter if you don't already know it. He's sort of an anti-Adams ( not that he was against Adams). I think you should look at him for the fact that he is not doing what you are trying to do, and yet he is totally successful in producing introspective landscape work. His work is not spectacular, rather the opposite. I'd look at some other landscape photographers whose work is a little more odd, in order to get at what is odd about it and how that has been accomplished. Look at Sally Mann's recent landscape work, and look at the work of the pictorialists. These are all also opposite to what you are doing. Other people I'd look at would be Eggleston and Meyerowitz, their landscape work, which again is the opposite of spectacular.

Click to expand...

tex said:

By really analyzing these artists who are doing something very different from your work, then hopefully you'll get a keener sense of your own, how and why it is different. The why is maybe the most important.

I think if you can get a better fix on what it is you are wanting photography to express as a medium (all bits of that, exclusive of nothing), then the appropriate PP will present itself after some struggle to get it right for you. Along with more precision in subject matter. Remember that one thing important about Good Taste is that it is authentic, and that doesn't mean slavish.

Click to expand...

tex said:

Odd week that didn't allow me much time to respond, so sorry about that.

The very first thing I will say, and this is very important, is that I can't really see your images on your website well enough to give to give a good response. This has a lot to do with my increasing distrust of what I am seeing online in terms of technical merits.

A great deal of how an image should look depends on several things:

• What is the intended mode of display? A print will have different technical values than a screen display, and from there there are different screen displays available, different print modes available (and their supports).
• You seem to be interested in selling prints, and therefore I assume you value prints as a medium. But we are looking at the work on screens, which is another medium altogether. This isn't your fault---Of course!---but still, how can we truly judge what we are seeing?
• Scale plays a huge role as well. Some things can scale up and down reasonably well, within limits, and some things need to be a particular size. But here we are not presented with the designated size, and if large, we couldn't even see it anyway on our smaller screens. I've seen images of Jim's work online that were shots of the prints, and so I could get a fix on how I would most likely feel about those pieces, although still I'd have to see them in person.

Thus it's extremely difficult for me to accurately assess what's happening with the work I can see on your website from a technical standpoint. That said, I will agree with Jim that there's a "clarity" issue.

But here I will diverge from him slightly. What looks to be your fondness for the "clarity" slider in LR (or equivalent effect in another program) seems to point to something you are personally looking for from the work you are doing---a kind of "laser eye" ability to cut the "haze" and look into the scenes in a kind of psychotropic way. They are a bit hyper-real. I'm getting a sense of you looking for something, and that intensity of the "clarity" in PP is giving these images a hint of the anxiousness of that searching into. So rather than criticize you for being heavy handed with PP, I would ask you to stop and really evaluate what it is you are looking for.

As a hint, try taking a look at the work of Eliot Porter if you don't already know it. He's sort of an anti-Adams ( not that he was against Adams). I think you should look at him for the fact that he is not doing what you are trying to do, and yet he is totally successful in producing introspective landscape work. His work is not spectacular, rather the opposite. I'd look at some other landscape photographers whose work is a little more odd, in order to get at what is odd about it and how that has been accomplished. Look at Sally Mann's recent landscape work, and look at the work of the pictorialists. These are all also opposite to what you are doing. Other people I'd look at would be Eggleston and Meyerowitz, their landscape work, which again is the opposite of spectacular.

By really analyzing these artists who are doing something very different from your work, then hopefully you'll get a keener sense of your own, how and why it is different. The why is maybe the most important.

I think if you can get a better fix on what it is you are wanting photography to express as a medium (all bits of that, exclusive of nothing), then the appropriate PP will present itself after some struggle to get it right for you. Along with more precision in subject matter. Remember that one thing important about Good Taste is that it is authentic, and that doesn't mean slavish.

--
tex_andrews, co-founder and webmaster of The LightZone Project, an all-volunteer group providing the free and open source LightZone photo editing software.
"Photography is the product of complete alienation" Marcel Proust
"I would like to see photography make people despise painting until something else will make photography unbearable." Marcel Duchamp

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Richard Feynman said:

You mentioned that he may be looking for that hyper real look. If that is the case, even if it is not your and Jim's preferred look, do you or Jim think there is a better way to achieve that without overrelying on the clarity slider.

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tex said:

Odd week that didn't allow me much time to respond, so sorry about that.

The very first thing I will say, and this is very important, is that I can't really see your images on your website well enough to give to give a good response. This has a lot to do with my increasing distrust of what I am seeing online in terms of technical merits.

A great deal of how an image should look depends on several things:

• What is the intended mode of display? A print will have different technical values than a screen display, and from there there are different screen displays available, different print modes available (and their supports).

• You seem to be interested in selling prints, and therefore I assume you value prints as a medium. But we are looking at the work on screens, which is another medium altogether. This isn't your fault---Of course!---but still, how can we truly judge what we are seeing?
• Scale plays a huge role as well. Some things can scale up and down reasonably well, within limits, and some things need to be a particular size. But here we are not presented with the designated size, and if large, we couldn't even see it anyway on our smaller screens. I've seen images of Jim's work online that were shots of the prints, and so I could get a fix on how I would most likely feel about those pieces, although still I'd have to see them in person.

Thus it's extremely difficult for me to accurately assess what's happening with the work I can see on your website from a technical standpoint. That said, I will agree with Jim that there's a "clarity" issue.

But here I will diverge from him slightly. What looks to be your fondness for the "clarity" slider in LR (or equivalent effect in another program) seems to point to something you are personally looking for from the work you are doing---a kind of "laser eye" ability to cut the "haze" and look into the scenes in a kind of psychotropic way. They are a bit hyper-real.

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tex said:

I'm getting a sense of you looking for something, and that intensity of the "clarity" in PP is giving these images a hint of the anxiousness of that searching into. So rather than criticize you for being heavy handed with PP, I would ask you to stop and really evaluate what it is you are looking for.

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tex said:

As a hint, try taking a look at the work of Eliot Porter if you don't already know it. He's sort of an anti-Adams ( not that he was against Adams). I think you should look at him for the fact that he is not doing what you are trying to do, and yet he is totally successful in producing introspective landscape work. His work is not spectacular, rather the opposite. I'd look at some other landscape photographers whose work is a little more odd, in order to get at what is odd about it and how that has been accomplished. Look at Sally Mann's recent landscape work, and look at the work of the pictorialists. These are all also opposite to what you are doing. Other people I'd look at would be Eggleston and Meyerowitz, their landscape work, which again is the opposite of spectacular.

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tex said:

By really analyzing these artists who are doing something very different from your work, then hopefully you'll get a keener sense of your own, how and why it is different. The why is maybe the most important.

I think if you can get a better fix on what it is you are wanting photography to express as a medium (all bits of that, exclusive of nothing), then the appropriate PP will present itself after some struggle to get it right for you. Along with more precision in subject matter. Remember that one thing important about Good Taste is that it is authentic, and that doesn't mean slavish.

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tex said:

--
tex_andrews, co-founder and webmaster of The LightZone Project, an all-volunteer group providing the free and open source LightZone photo editing software.
"Photography is the product of complete alienation" Marcel Proust
"I would like to see photography make people despise painting until something else will make photography unbearable." Marcel Duchamp

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JimKasson said:

Richard Feynman said:

You mentioned that he may be looking for that hyper real look. If that is the case, even if it is not your and Jim's preferred look, do you or Jim think there is a better way to achieve that without overrelying on the clarity slider.

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There's nothing wrong with the Lr Clarity tool per se. And the OP has stated that he didn't use it, but used another tool. In my mind, that look is achieved with lots of medium-scale sharpening (like with the Clarity tool), increased saturation, higher contrast, and HDR tone-mapping effects. I don't think there's anything wrong with it -- and it make be the perfect thing -- as long as that look is consonant with the larger goals of the image. I find it unpleasant as the default image processing style. I'm not alone, but I may be in the minority.

Look at TV displays' default adjusted state straight out of the box: too sharp, too blue, too contrasty, and possibly too bright, at least "too" all those things by my estimation. It sometimes takes me half an hour to wrestle the image into a semblance of realism (some manufacturers are now providing non-default presets that aren't too bad: yay!). The manufacturers do those eyeball-searing default settings for a reason; most folks must like it.

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Richard Feynman said:

A thought occurred to me as I was reading this thread. It seems the term "over processed" could be broadly categorized into two areas.

1. Processing that is primarily technical in nature. Applying too much sharpness, underexposing or overexposing an image etc. This category is fairly objective in nature.

2. Processing that is primarily artistic in nature. The color applied to clouds, where an image should be cropped etc. This category is somewhat subjective in nature.

Is this a distinction without a difference? Thoughts?

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Richard Feynman said:

Jim, Using your TV analogy, to me, a display properly calibrated to D6500

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Richard Feynman said:

looks more real in every way - better depth, more accurate color, better shadow detail, better clarity.

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Richard Feynman said:

As you know, accurate does not have to equal "boring". The newer OLED sets especially drive this home, when properly calibrated they are breathtaking and as "real" as it gets.

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