Here's a steptoe Butte image I took this past weekend. I also took one without sky, but I liked how the layers of clouds worked with the scenery below. I actually dont know which condition I would like better...mid day light with clouds casting shadows on the land, or sunset, with the hills casting shadows upon themselves.
Rick - pretty impressive scene from Steptoe Butte! I love the interplay of light and dark among the browns and greens of the hills. I do find the closest cloud layers to be annoying because of their unsharp appearance (almost a motion effect?). Chopping off the top two horizontal layers of clouds produces a pano that is very pleasing to my eye...
Posted by Ned Fenimore on May 30, 2006 at 12:34 AM
I love the light, Rick. Crop down to remove all the blue at the very top, and add a little more to the bottom, and I'll be all over it like ugly on an ape!
I would crop off all the blue at top. It definitely draws my eye away from the hills below. Otherwise, this is a really nice image Rick. The play of light and textures of the landscape are just amazing.
I agree with Geoff about the closest clouds. Cropping them in the middle would help, but you'd lose that nice patch of blue at the top which keeps it from feeling too claustrophobic. Tough choice. Maybe just dodge and burn them a little? Either way, it's an excellent image as is.
Marc,
Just curious, did you ask permission from Rick to download and modify his image. Just to enlighten you, recently there was a problem with modifying people's images and modifying them. It was asked that if someone wanted to show an example, then they were to ask the owner to send a jpeg file to modify. Thus giving permission at the same time.
Jim, seriously. This is a tiny JPEG file. What do think I would do with it? Sell it to a calendar company? Print and frame it? Come on. I would think that Rick trusts me to never do such a thing, even if I could - which obviously I can't. The image is gone from my files the second I illustrated the crop I was suggesting. This is a critique forum. When I post here, I fully expect people to wonder what a crop here, an adjustment there, ect. would look like and the best way to evaluate this is often to experiement yourself. I would never even consider worrying about such things if it were my image. In fact, I would encourage it.
If I was worried about my jpegs being stolen, I wouldn't post them here, and I would have special code on my website to deter such a thing. I for one, appreciate Marc taking the time to work on one of my images to display his critique better.
I think a personal email to Marc, would have been in better form here...
Marc,
I think that the crop you did works better. My version showed more of a big sky kinda feel...but it did feel wierd at the same time. Thanks for the suggestion...I think I'll go with it...
Well for one I did not accuse Marc of stealing an image. I was just pointing out the following, from the owner of the website. He may have not known about this. After reading the statement again, it really defines the Main Galleries, and allows the regionals to police themselves. Here it is anyway.
For those of you who were not active on NPN at the time, a few years ago we struggled with this very issue. It all began when we welcomed reposts by others, and before we knew it, every thread had multiple reposts of the image, based on what the commenter thought it should look like ("Photoshop Derby"). It became so bad that we had to modify our posting guidelines to limit reposts to three per thread. Still, complaints persisted that photos were being reposted without permission.
Our current policy in the main NPN image critique galleries forbids the repost of an image by anyone other than the person who originally posted the photo (some of the regional group forums permit reposts by others, but they have to police it themselves).
If you wish to help a fellow member with their photo, here's what we suggest;
1. Contact the person who posted the photo and ask them to email the photo to you. This will absolutely prove that the photographer voluntarily sent the photo to you, and that it was not copied without their permission.
2. After you have "adjusted and improved" the photo, email it back to them with detailed notes on what you did to adjust the photo. What good is a repost if the original photographer cannot reproduce or understand how the adjustments were made? Better yet, they can try making the adjustments themselves based on the notes provided! The original photographer will then have the right to determine if they want the modified photo appearing as a repost.
Though this may not be the most convenient way to go about it, it absolutely protects your photo from reappearing in the thread without your express permission. And if you make the adjustments yourself, you have the opportunity to learn some new skills.
Though I'm sure not everyone agrees with it, this policy allows our members to learn and to teach, all without infringing the rights or perhaps even embarrassing others. TIA for your understanding and cooperation!
That's why we now have the layered GIF conversion on the main forums. Since no problem with this has ever been addressed on the PNWNP forum to my knowledge, I didn't see an issue with it.
If it was someone I didn't know well here on the forum, I'd ask. If I was going to have Ellen pop up in someone else's photo (she has a habit of doing that) I'd ask, other than that, I'd grab it and post it.
I was working on her appearing in that skylight shot I did the other day. I was in a rush though and couldn't finish it.
I have a real nice recent photo of Ellen I'll post just so we can stop hi-jacking Rick's post.
Discussion
17 repliesI agree with Geoff about the closest clouds. Cropping them in the middle would help, but you'd lose that nice patch of blue at the top which keeps it from feeling too claustrophobic. Tough choice. Maybe just dodge and burn them a little? Either way, it's an excellent image as is.
Just curious, did you ask permission from Rick to download and modify his image. Just to enlighten you, recently there was a problem with modifying people's images and modifying them. It was asked that if someone wanted to show an example, then they were to ask the owner to send a jpeg file to modify. Thus giving permission at the same time.
I think a personal email to Marc, would have been in better form here...
Marc,
I think that the crop you did works better. My version showed more of a big sky kinda feel...but it did feel wierd at the same time. Thanks for the suggestion...I think I'll go with it...
I have a real nice recent photo of Ellen I'll post just so we can stop hi-jacking Rick's post.