Please share your immediate response to the image before reading the photographer’s intent (obscured text below) or other comments. The photographer seeks a genuinely unbiased first impression.
Questions to guide your feedback
What catches your eye when you look at this scene? What questions do you have about the picture?
Other Information
Please leave your feedback before viewing the blurred information below, once you have replied, click to reveal the text and see if your assessment aligns with the photographer. Remember, this if for their benefit to learn what your unbiased reaction is.
Image Description
We started our climb of Mount Sinai at 1:30 am. Some of us walked. I rode a camel. The more athletic members of our group climbed the 750 stairs to the top. I waited here for the promise of a rising sun. The Biblical story of a mountain, a people, and a divine being that spoke to them all came to mind.
Technical Details
Taken with my Sony RX100vi. ISO 100, f/7.1, 1/60 sec.
Processed in LR and PS.
Specific Feedback
How do you react to the aesthetic, conceptual, and emotional aspects of this image? Are there specific technical issues that strike you?
Hi Barbara, Although the light in the sky initially grabs my attention, my eyes rest on the softness of the mountain tops. Very peaceful scene. My first question is, how to get to this beautiful place? Where is it…near the ocean or ? Lovely image.
Hi Barbara,
wow, what a beautiful scene. I love the colorful sky above the nice and soft mountains.
It definitely looks like a quiet and peaceful morning.
Is this a drone shot? Or were you standing at a vantage point?
At first, the lovely sky catches my eye. But my eye is also always drawn to the dark area at the bottom of the image. I would brighten it up a bit.
I just downloaded your image and opened it in PS… and suddenly the colors exploded. I realized that you exported your photo with the “ProPhoto RGB” color profile. My web browser (Google Chrome) seems not to be able to handle that profile. It looks like a totally different image when viewing it in PS.
I have not changed anything. The image was just exported again with the SRGB profile:
after I read Jens’ commentary, I realized that I can save my words. I was going to propose to introduce some red highlights via a tonal adjustment, but there it is
Concerning your question: It’s the different layers that catch my eye.
What @Jens_Ober said!! His version shows the true image, which is gorgeous.
Always convert to sRGB for exporting a JPEG. Don’t use “assign” – that will give a very wrong color appearance. Convert. Browers can’t handle ProPhoto RGB. And it has pitfalls in that it can contain colors that are beyond the range of monitors, printers and even the human eye! Operator knowledge is vital as is out-of-gamut checking.
There are two pitfalls with color spaces when someone pulls an image and opens it in PS. First they need to have their Color Settings set to warn them of a profile mismatch. Sadly, that is not the default and every time I update PS I have to re-check it. Second, they then need to to tell PS to convert it to their working space IF they plan to look at the histogram. If they don’t do that, the appearance will be correct but not the histogram!
After reading the hidden text, what an amazing experience! Yes, my eyes go to the gorgeous sky first but then rest on the beautiful mountains. The colors and tonalities there are perfect and provide a worthy base for the sunrise. Your efforts were well-rewarded!
I can’t imagine spending several hours on a camel!!!
@MadeleineGallagher , @Markus_Albert , @Jens_Ober , @Diane_Miller , Thanks to all of you for your reaction to the image. Most importantly, I now understand why many of my images look dull when I post them. Thanks to Jens you can all see it as it should be. I have been very confused by the color space popup I get in PS. I finally turned it off because I did not know how to answer. I am now clear about sRGB for the web, but uncertain about what I should be working with when editing my pictures. As to where I was when I took this picture, I was high up on the slopes of Mount Sinai. Getting there on camelback was unforgettable.
Probably back in the last century, there was an article online titled something like “Pro Photo or Con Photo.” (Read the title knowing there is no such color space as Con Photo.) It was very technical and I used to advise people, if you don’t understand the article, don’t use Pro Photo.
The Adobe RGB space is almost covered by modern monitors and matches all but the most advanced printers. It can save a lot of pitfalls as a working space. You need to have the profile mismatch warning checked and to convert an image to your working space if you want an accurate histogram.
Here are my settings. I used ProPhoto for years and finally gave up on monitors and printers coming close enough. If I ever want the gamut for some special image, I’ll reset my working space and go back to the raw file and rework it. (I’m sure I can do better on every raw file I ever did, going back more than two weeks…)
A beautiful image of a beautiful mountain desert.
Almost 50 years ago I walked a few days in the Sinai, occupied area then, and couldn’t shoot any images. There hadn’t been an opportunity to buy more film. Those were the days…
Thanks for sharing this scene, I love it. And thanks to @Jens_Ober , who fortunately downloaded the original image and gave us the right colours.
I have my work space settings like yours. I did not understand the part abour the histogram. That is helpful. When I edit a RAW file first in LR what color space is it in? I do just minimal adjustments in LR because I can use the linear profile for my camera as the basis to start editing the file. Then I take it into PS. I have another question about saving the file as a sRGB file. I understand I need to do that for viewing on the web. How do you do it for other purposes?
LR and other raw converters don’t have a color space as such, but can contain approximately the same gamut as ProPhoto, which equals the gamut of today’s best sensors.
Using a linear profile is wonderful, but you say you do minimal editing in LR – to use a linear profile you should be doing significant adjustments once it is chosen as the profile, to maximize the greater tonal overhead available in a raw converter compared to PS. Then that adjusted file is ready for further work in PS.
You want to convert to sRGB for any JPEG, for the web (including things like email or Facebook/Instagram/web sites) or for lower end printing, and attach/tag the profile. For high end printing, it depends on what the printer wants but you can often do AdobeRGB and sometimes ProPhoto with high end printers, again with the profile tagged so the printer software knows how to interpret the colors.
When you export from PS there should be a dropdown to convert to sRGB and one to check to embed the profile. I think there are some lower-end export/save dialogs that don’t give that option and I’m not sure if they do it behind the scenes or don’t bother with it. I use the legacy “Exoprt for Web” to give me all the options. When you export from LR and choose the desired color space in the dialog, it will automatically convert to that space and embed/tag the profile.
Diane, I appreciate your taking the time to help me untangle the choice of color space. I found how to save/export from PS, which assured me that the size and color space were what I needed.
As to processing in LR, I am doing more now that I am using the linear profile for my camera. I am learning to trust the exposure and color balancing that I can do in LR. I am so used to using the TK8 plug-ins in PS that I want to get there and do what has become very comfortable for me there. I haven’t really given LR it’s due. I will continue to explore what I am missing there. Thank you.
Just to cover bases here, I assume you’re familiar with Tony Kuyper’s article on linear profiles? He shows simple but necessary basic steps in LR before going to PS. When you go to PS you have baked tonalities in the file and they are much less amenable to good adjustments.
For many of my typical images, there is little reason to favor a linear profile over the default Adobe Color. It’s harder (more work) to start with the linear one and often after adjusting it I’m right where Adobe Color would have started. I find it most useful when the raw file is too high in contrast. It lets me salvage a little more highlight detail, but often not much.
You can always go back to a raw file and process it differently in LR – make a Virtual Copy if you want to preserve the slider positions. It’s a good way to compare several different versions.
I am familiar with Tony Kuyper’s article. It is more work starting with the linear profile in LR. I appreciate your suggestion regarding using it with high-contrast photos. You have been very helpful. Thank you , @Diane_Miller .
