I love hiking up the steep prairie trail at Chip Ross Park. This is looking South West over part of the Coast Range. I thought the layers of clouds looked really neat so tried capturing them.
Anything
Is this a composite: No
Nikon D3400
ISO 100
f/6.3
70mm
1/1250
Changed to black and white , repaired/hid some buildings, adjusted shadows, darkness with curve tool in Pixelmator photo
That’s quite a unique looking sky with the horizontal banding and the smalle floating clouds above. I would probably try to draw out a little more shadow detail.
The little cluster of clouds at the top center adds interest, and helps this composition avoid having a static 50/50 horizon. They help create a sense of layering within the scene. I agree with @Michael_Lowe that it could benefit from some more shadow detail in the foreground, as presented its pretty blocked up. Since this is B&W, you can push contrast further than you can in color, and I think the image would also benefit from more contrast in the highlights and midtones.
@Michael_Lowe @Ed_McGuirk
Hello Michael and Ed, Thanks so much for your feedback, I tried adjusting things as best I could with my app (Pixelmator photo for iPad) this was about as best I could do without ruining other parts of the photo. It doesn’t have a function where you can change just one part of the image. But if you get a chance, how does this look?..
The shadow detail in the foreground is much better. In the first version I did not even see that tree in the LRC, the shadows were so dark. The added highlight contrast helps the midground to have a bit more snap.
If you are interested in landscape photography, processing with software that only allows global, but not local adjustments, is like fighting with one hand tied behind your back. The inability to do local adjustments is a big handicap. One of the best things you could do to improve your image quality is to migrate to a software like Lightroom, which has good local adjustment tools. I would estimate that about 2/3’s of the processing suggestions made here in NPN landscape critique involve recommending local adjustments (and most of the rest involves crops). My guess is that once you experience the ability to easily make local changes, you will wonder why you didn’t switch software a long time ago.
@Ed_McGuirk I know you’re right about that, Ed. I would definitely go over to those tools if I had a computer. I’ve tried the Lightroom /Photoshop apps on my iPad about 4 times in the past 3 years, as well as other ‘made for iPad’ apps. They all feel very clumsy to me, but I think it’s just because of the iPad. The main feature I like with Pixelmator photo is being able to convert raw to jpeg and doing the basic adjustments all in one place. I have seen that Pixelmator has come up with a new version so I’ll be checking that out. On a note about in camera adjustments, I know I should have had a smaller aperture /slower shutter, (but I was also trying to shoot some birds, so I ended up just changing the ISO) it probably would have given me more details if I had done that, am I correct?
