Let’s see if this one is better (I believe I was over 3mb on the first image). I was also in RGB instead of sRGB
Nope, it does not look any better. Oh well.
Critique Style Requested:Standard
The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
Description
This was from my Fall colors Tetons/Yellowstone trip this past Fall. This was just after an early morning storm came through with temperatures just barely cold enough to drop sloppy wet snow flakes in the valley but cold enough to for snow to stick for a half day in the higher elevations. By the time I left the next day, only the top of the mountains had any snow left on them.
I converted this one to B&W to get more mood from the image. I felt like the color version just didn’t have the oomph that the B&W has.
Specific Feedback
Is the lower right portion of the mountain too dark? The portion that’s in shadow?
Does this feel moody?
Anything else you’d wish to share?
Technical Details
Z8, 24-120mm lens @ 120mm, ISO 800, 1/3200, f/9, hand held
Nice one, David. Yes, I feel it is quite moody. Agreed that the B&W probably would work better projecting moodiness. Two minor things, neither has anything to do with the artistic merits, just processing. I guess web compression is really strong here, cause the darker sections of cloud are quite blocky in the larger version. The image should have enough pixels to avoid that so I speculate it’s wc. There is one small dead pixel? I circled.
Interesting Michael. I see all the splotches that you mention. I am looking at the Lightroom file and I don’t see any of that. Also, this is not cropped much so the file should be plenty big enough. I did use RGB instead of sRGB so I may try uploading another file tomorrow to see if that makes a difference. Thanks for your thoughts.
Stunning image David! I always love it when it snows during a fall colors trip. I like the vignetting effect of the clouds that help frame the peaks and that you got the whole tonal range in from the bright snow to the dark shadows. The larger image looks great, the detail is ver nice throughout, I bet it would great printed large!
Very moody indeed, David. I love the peek-through-the-clouds look. I can see the banding in the clouds. It could be the conversion. Did you check the file size before posting and make sure it was under 3 MB?
Hi David,
Really gorgeous image. I love the light in the mountains, the fresh snow, the moody clouds promising to give the mountain a game of hide and seek.
FWIW, I created an export preset from LR that meets the NPN specs (just changed it recently because I noticed the specs had changed in the last 10 years ). It streamlined my workflow (export full size Adobe ProPhoto RGB for big prints, small sRGB jpeg for email or fb, and a special set of specs for NPN).
I think the new specs are 72 pixels / inch, so if it’s a camera with a big file and (maybe even a particular kind of pixel size) that might do it too.
But heck, it’s a fantastic image that should be printed big anyway…to heck with 3 mb!
I think it has something to do with the compression. My original file is clean as can be and this is only cropped about 5% so it’s pretty much a full size frame. My camera has 46mp. I should make an export preset like you did Marylynne. I think that first file was over the 3MB limit but I’m not sure why the smaller file is showing the same banding in the blacks. Anyway, I’m glad you like it. It was a very moody, wet and kind of miserable day but it made for some good photography.
David: What a marvelous scene and a wonderful comp and capture. I’m not much of an art historian but my immediate impression was that this had an Ansel Adam’s feel. Technical issues aside, this is a superbly crafted image. >=))>
Lovely!! It’s the perfect touch the way the fog dips toward the right to cradle the shaded area. I don’t think the dark area is too dark – but it looks like @Michael_Lowe ‘s post was an earlier version. Even that one is OK for me. The dark areas of cloud don’t come across as blotchy to me and don’t appear that way in the histogram, but to whatever extent they do visually, it wouldn’t be the number of pixels but the amount of JPEG compression. Or the monitor…
@Marylynne_Diggs , good idea on the presets. But for a JPEG for posting, the 72 ppi thing is meaningless – all that matters is the # of pixels height and width; a ppi value is for printing. My export preset resizes an image to fit inside pixel dimensions of 2500 x 2500 and JPEG compression (Limit File Size) to keep it under 1.5 K, but it can be bigger. Looks like there is a strict limit of 100MB but at over 3 MB the system will compress it, which may not be pretty.
Of course any conversion for posting here is a derivative file from the master file, which is kept at its native size. A file for printing would be another derivative file, hopefully not JPEG.
Thanks for that insight. I didn’t know that was the case. I think I followed that 72 p/in from a page on this site. Perhaps David can cue us up to where that is now. I couldn’t seem to find it today when I was confirming what I said above. I thought we had a limit of 1500 on the long side max, so that’s what mine is and a 3mb limit. The files are much smaller than they used to be. I keep them in a “Share and Delete” folder where I occasionally clean up knowing the processed rawfile and sidecar is still safe and sound
ML
I like the idea here of a mountain appearing out of a break in the mist. The question of how dark should the mist be is an interesting one. Personally I think it ‘should’ be lighter. I hate using the word should because there is no right or wrong. I see this mountain as a revelation. The mist breaks and you are uplifted by what you see. It’s sort of like the story of Brigadoon where a village appears out of the mists once a year. But you can look at it in another direction where there is darkness and a frightening apparition appears (think of the moon revealing itself in the werewolf movies). It looks to me that your intention is more on the 2nd approach. I’m a little confused why you chose that approach for these mountains. The only answer I can come up with is that you wanted to make the white peaks jump out more, hence the Adams comparison others have made. Like I said, I would go with a lighter treatment of the clouds/mist.
@Igor_Doncov, @Diane_Miller, @Marylynne_Diggs, @Bill_Fach, @Dennis_Plank, @Ralf_Mantzel, @Michael_Lowe, @Scott_Fricke
Thank you all for your thoughts and interpretations of this image.
Michael, thanks for Bringing the sky compression to my attention. I don’t seem to be able to do anything about it as I’ve tried uploading a couple of retries with no luck so I just delete them. And thanks for your Thoughts on the actual image.
Scott, I’m actually printing this one over the weekend because my wife wants to replace another black and white image in the house and she likes this one. We’ll see how it turns out. Thanks for your feedback,
Ralf, Out of darkness comes light was sort of my intention with one ad your thoughts Align with that. Thanks
Dennis, The file was indeed over 3mb so the compression killed the first image I posted but I can’t put my finger on why a smaller image did almost the same thing. I’m just gonna move on from this one knowing that my file in LR has none of the banding issues seen here, Oh well.
Marylynne, I’m glad you liked this one. And thanks for convincing me that best thing I can do is to create a preset for NPN. As noted above, I’m printing this one over the weekend. I can’t wait.
Bill, Thanks for your interpretation of this one. I certainly see what you mean by an Ansel Adams feel even though I wasn’t going for that. My thought was, Out of darkness comes light. Yep, the technical issues have still not been resolved so I’m moving on from the issue.
Diane, Thanks for your thoughts on the image and the compression. I can always count on you to help with the technical side of things where I am basically useless. So thanks for that. This image was cropped about 5% so it’s nearly full frame and a large file. The system compressed this because it was over the 3mb limit which could have something to do with it. Thanks again Diane.
Igor, Thanks for your input.
As I have said above, my intention was, Out of darkness comes light, but the original files clouds were not this dark. That was my choice. I can see how I could redo this and make it more about an uplifting revelation rather than a moody high contrast scene which is where I went. I think I’ll rework it and if I like it I’ll post it. Thanks for your thoughts.
Magnificent David, for all the reasons noted above. I love the mix of jagged and smooth, and the “tease” of the clouds leading to the full reveal on the left is perfect.
In that vein, my only “personal preference” suggestion is a crop removing a bit from the right and top to move that left peak’s tip smack into the “rule of thirds” location when viewed as a whole with the frame included.
If I download your image and view it in Photoshop the clouds are smoother, so it must have something to do with the way that the browser, or NPN, presents it. (More and more I do look at images in Photoshop if I want to check precise details.) Regardless, in your current version it’s real subtle and I don’t think I would have noticed if it hadn’t been under discussion.
This is a very compelling image. You just can’t go wrong with fog and mountains! I like the darkness of your processing. Somewhere along the line I came to the belief that a good B&W should have blacks that are almost clipped but not quite and whites that are pushing the edge on the other side, but not all the way. The mountains are the subject, but that dark spot makes my eyes dance back and forth between the white peaks and the dark lowlands. I love that! As far as resolution goes, I have been very satisfied by exporting from Lightroom as a jpeg at 100% quality, resized to 2048 pixels on the long side, and 300 pixels per inch. I can’t say that I have ever experienced blotchiness in areas like fog or hazy skies when doing this.
I love this image of the Grand Tetons kinda floating up in the sky and an ethereal feel to it. I like the monochrome, pops the snow capped peaks reduces all other distractions.
@John_Williams, @anuradha, @Paul_Holdorf, thanks very much for your interpretations on this and the the web compression that has blotched this image up. I printed this over the weekend and we are framing it for one of our walls in the staircase. John, I took your suggestion of a slight crop and liked it so that’s how I printed it. Thanks for that. Paul, I agree with regard to black and whites. I’ll even go a step further and say that it doesn’t bother me to completely blow out the whites or the blacks so long as it doesn’t scream, “look at me.”
I think the question of whether the foreground is too dark depends on what you were trying to capture. If you were after more of an iconic photo then yes it’s too dark - but I say that out of pure subjectivity - but if you were after an image that invokes a mountain top that is far away which gives it a bit of a dreamy feel, then success! I also think the foreground has the look of a bit too much modeling but take that with a large bag of salt since I have zero experience dealing with Photoshop. But I really like this image as it evokes a strong feeling.
). It streamlined my workflow (export full size Adobe ProPhoto RGB for big prints, small sRGB jpeg for email or fb, and a special set of specs for NPN).