[GALLERY] Phopo's works

[Phopojijo]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v342/Phopojijo/bwtest.jpg

A little test of black and white photography.

[Patrickssj6]

Too grainy, object is too centered. If the house would be cutoff on the right site of the picture and you would see more from the left...that would have been better IMO...unless of course I'm missing something special about that picture, in that case I'm sorry. ^^

[Phopojijo]

Yea it was a test... though yea I should have taken the pic a bit more to the left caught the top of an apple tree.

If I wanted it a bit better I would have NoiseNinja'd it.

[Phopojijo]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v342/Phopojijo/bwout.jpg
A second attempt. The clouds weren't as nice as they were earlier... but the technical issues are fixed. Would have bloomed the hedges a bit more except that would cause the tree to clip.

[Zeph]

The first one was fine. It was actually better than fine, but not up to great. It has some great use of visual weight and the house is positioned perfectly to allow a balance to be formed with the sky. Patrick is crazy to say the house is "too centered". Any more to the right and you'd lose your balance in the sky. Any more to the left and it would be centered. The only thing of concern would be the point on the roof being close to the exact center. Some people might see it for what it is instead of looking at the movement in the roof as a whole. Dont listen to those people if they say anything about that point, btw.

I feel the second attempt is terrible. There's soo much undefined noise in the leaves with nothing to balance it out. Are you photoshopping these (not including levels) or are they just straight from the camera?

[Reaper Man]

Needs more contrast (then again, I prefer high-contrast b&w). Also, I think you chose a pretty boring subject to photograph.

[Phopojijo]

Yea, I'll try again on a better-cloud day. The second one I noise ninja'd which caused a bit of over-sharpening in the leaves. (And bloom on the roof making it look almost like it was cut/pasted XD)

This is just to learn the basics... it's actually just a place near my house... the "house" actually is a chiropractor.

The contrast was kinda at the limit... actually a bit beyond... which is why the leaves are blooming a bit.

[DaneO'Roo]

I actually like the richness in the black.

[Phopojijo]

Yea that was accomplished using Photoshop CS3's black'n'white filter, shadow/highlight filter, and the local contrast curve... in that order. (Also tweaking with the RAW file if UFRaw worked...)

Black'n'White filter allows you dial up/down each colour individually. Say you want blues dark and rich but greens bloomed. Turn blue to the left, green to the right.

Shadow-Highlight lets you tweak the detail in the shadows and highlights. It flattens the image a bit, but it restores a lot of detail that otherwise would be missed.

Curves finally lets you restore the depth by boosting the lights and damping the darks... making it look less flat.

Ray Maxwell (http://photo.net/photodb/member-photos?user_id=849623) Had that as one of his tutorials when he appeared on TechTV.

[DaneO'Roo]

I know Phopo :P

[Kalub]

Curious about this NoiseNinja, care to clue me in?

[Timo]

It's a program that's amazing at getting rid of noise in an image:
http://www.picturecode.com/graphics/before_after_hockey4.jpg

[DaneO'Roo]

Holy shit o_o

[Llama Juice]

The first picture I feel that the house is too centered. I know it's more off to the right than actually centered, but that interesting part of the building is centered, making the visual weight of the building all go to that part of it. Your eyes stay there and don't really venture off into the rest of the image.

The second image... that tree is just ugly as hell. If the tree actually wasn't there I feel that the piece would be perfectly balanced. The small interesting object vs large open negative space makes for pretty solid balance.

[Patrickssj6]

I beg to differ, I love that tree in black and white.

Different tastes :horny:

[Llama Juice]

If the tree was less cluttered or something.. I dunno. It just looks like a noisy mess to me.

[Zeph]

Llama, you dont seem to understand visual weight.

[Llama Juice]

In the second picture I just don't like the tree. It's ugly and confusing to look at because of the noisy mess of pixels that make it up.

The first picture doesn't seem balanced to me and the actual layout of it is boring because your eyes are drawn to the center of the image without a lot of other places to go.

http://www.llamajuice.com/h2v/bawhouse.jpg

If the shot were to pan over to where my red box is and have only sky and that hedgeline continuing the piece would be balanced perfectly and it would have a more interesting composition.

An object that is falling off the edge of the viewing plane carries more visual weight than an object enclosed in the picture. The large negative space also carries a lot of weight because of the size of it.

A more extreme example of this principal of small interesting positive space vs large boring negative space....

http://www.llamajuice.com/h2v/balance.jpg

The small vibrant red counters the large bland yellow. If I were to add more red to it and close it off the side there it'd give it so much more weight that it'd be unbalanced.

http://www.llamajuice.com/h2v/balance2.jpg

The difference between my example and his picture is that the negative space isn't as boring as the large bland yellow I have, therefor it carries a lot more visual weight than my yellow. That's why his house (my red) needs more weight to counter the sky (by pressing it against the image plane.

[Bad Waffle]

Jeez llama, you really wanted to prove zeph wrong on that one o_o

Meh, the tree is ok, but it really makes obvious that contrasty bridge between the sky and the rest of the picture, which just looks sloppy. Get a workaround for that in your workflow.

[Llama Juice]

^^ Kid makes claim about me. I prove claim wrong. Kid shuts up.

Post your new one Phopo!

[Hunter]

Holy shit o_o

*Dane runs out the house to buy this program*

[Phopojijo]

Sure I guess...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v342/Phopojijo/tempout2.jpg

Really just trying to learn how to shoot black and white for when I go out to the cottage... so I can take some nice shots and do some black and white prints when I get back for someone.

[Bad Waffle]

sky looks way too dark.

[Phopojijo]

That's the intention. May have overdid it though.

[Phopojijo]

Decided to do a bit of Infrared testing... again... from my back yard... because the weather sucks and it wouldn't be worth it to go elsewhere.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v342/Phopojijo/pool_net.jpg

[ThePlague]

That sky looks badass.

[Sever]

That just looks cool, literally and figuratively. It looks like ice, instead of leaves, are growing on those trees. Even the sky and the pool look chilled.

[Syuusuke]

Oh god noiseninja, I need that.

For a second phop, I thought you lived in a surreal winter-wonderland with the only thing in reality is a blue pool.

[Phopojijo]

That sky looks badass.It was just a crappy overcast day too :p I was lucky I could add that definition in the RAW.

For a second phop, I thought you lived in a surreal winter-wonderland with the only thing in reality is a blue pool.Well, I do live in Canada :awesomesanta:

[PenGuin1362]

you got snow in my summer.

[Reaper Man]

Looks interesting, but, yet again, an extremely dull subject. Also, try this:
http://digitalphotographer.com.ph/forum/showthread.php?t=5931
and this
http://news.deviantart.com/article/36914/
Scroll to the post processing info.

Why not take your camera somewhere.. y'know.. interesting. IR is cool and all, but that's about it. A boring shot in infrared is still a boring shot. "The weather sucks" is a lousy excuse. Bad weather makes for interesting, dramatic shots - just look at those clouds!
http://digital-photography-school.com/the-6-challenges-for-photographers-to-making-the-best-of-bad-weather
http://technology.sympatico.msn.ca/Tips+for+Shooting+in+Bad+Weather/Photography/Tips/Articles/tipsforshootinginbadweather.htm?isfa=1

After a little bit of fiddling around with the post-processing techniques, I give you a somewhat more interesting shot:
http://img27.imageshack.us/img27/2353/31657715.jpg

[Phopojijo]

Actually it was pretty well overcast so there wasn't much in the clouds. That detail I had was HEAVILY in tampering with the RAW. Bad weather wasn't the problem... it was total f'cking overcast that was the problem. No cloud detail at all.

So yes, I will take my camera "somewhere interesting" -- but no sense sitting on my ass until I do.

By the way... your first link... http://digitalphotographer.com.ph/forum/showthread.php?t=5931 -- Said they shot in RAW with a tungsten white balance...

o_O There *IS NO* white balance in a RAW. Your white balance is generated when you edit your raw and save it as a 24-bit image o.O

[Joshflighter]

Reminds me of japan for some reason. :o

[Reaper Man]

Actually it was pretty well overcast so there wasn't much in the clouds. That detail I had was HEAVILY in tampering with the RAW. Bad weather wasn't the problem... it was total f'cking overcast that was the problem. No cloud detail at all.

So yes, I will take my camera "somewhere interesting" -- but no sense sitting on my ass until I do.

By the way... your first link... http://digitalphotographer.com.ph/forum/showthread.php?t=5931 -- Said they shot in RAW with a tungsten white balance...

o_O There *IS NO* white balance in a RAW. Your white balance is generated when you edit your raw and save it as a 24-bit image o.O
Uh, yeah there is. You can just change the white balance post-process. However in-camera, you can specify which white balance you want it to be recorded with at the time. Otherwise, your raw files would look bizarre, neutral toned all the time. :eng101:

[Phopojijo]

But there's no reason to mention that since it's not representative of what appears in the 24-bit he posted o.O He could easily have changed the metadata at any point (before he crushes it down to 24-bit of course).

[Phopojijo]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v342/Phopojijo/tree_out_web.jpg

This shot was a little more set up...

[ThePlague]

It's a cool photo, but it's not that appealing to the eye with the tree right in the center. I'd suggest off centering the tree, and getting landscape or something in there too, because right now it's kind of boring.

[Reaper Man]

Actually, I think that the center composition works for that shot. Pretty dramatic looking, but do something with the IR, don't just post it as-is with the purple tint, did you try any of the tutorials I linked you to?

For example, a simple adjustment with levels to specify the medium gray tone gave me this:
http://img193.imageshack.us/img193/180/ircolorcorrected.jpg
Swapping the red/blue channels in the channel mixer, then a lowering of saturation for a more subdued look gave me this:
http://img31.imageshack.us/img31/831/irchannelmixed.jpg
Black and white IR photos look great too:
http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/5233/irblackandwhite.jpg

In brief: do something with your IR shots, because as they are normally, they're nothing special.

[MetKiller Joe]

http://img31.imageshack.us/img31/831/irchannelmixed.jpg


Reaper or Phopo, could one of you make that in a hi-res pic for wallpaper?

Its beautiful. It feels like a mix between anime and CG (I even see a wee bit of tilt-shift type stuff).

[Reaper Man]

Reaper or Phopo, could one of you make that in a hi-res pic for wallpaper?

Its beautiful. It feels like a mix between anime and CG (I even see a wee bit of tilt-shift type stuff).
Can't help you there, he's got the original file. As for the tilt-shift effect, that's actually just motion blur, due to the long exposure required when shooting infrared digitally, with a camera that still has it's low-pass filter. (The leaves were blowing in the wind.) http://img17.imageshack.us/img17/4386/photo101.gif

Fuck, I am such a photography nerd :iamafag:

[Phopojijo]

http://www.loosescrew.ca/Tree_Infrared_Raw.dng

Here's the (as-shot) RAW file in Digital Negative format... as you can see I actually *did* process it a bunch... that was the effect I was going for.

And yes I did try some channel-mixer, etc. tutorials... I just didn't publish any of them o.o Just playing around with this stuff at the moment dude o.o Relax.

Thanks for the criticism and advice, but I'm not ready to tweak my shit to that extent yet. Seems almost like you're taking offense to my nonchalant-ness.

Keep up with the advice, it's great, but don't get upset if I use it at my own pace. If you're not? That's cool. Just making sure.

[Phopojijo]

My girlfriend made a sketch a couple years ago...
So I decided to colourize it... give it the good 'ole Photoshop treatment.

http://images.yuku.com/image/jpeg/58935e60d387818b5ec2809da76ff6e0f466058.jpghttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v342/Phopojijo/Sea_Serpent_Final.jpg

[Futzy]

Drunk Medusa Manmade Disco Stick yes.

[CrAsHOvErRide]

nice six pack

[Phopojijo]

Just got a Canon T2i... needed better than my Powershot A620 for work... and I was putting it off for a while but finally decided to snap on it.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v342/Phopojijo/ring2.jpg

Pretty much my first pic with the new camera (it was taken within the first 10 minutes of having it... so close enough). Didn't do anything to it yet besides a simple crop and a simple resize... because I'm not going to put all 18 megapixels on my photobucket. That would just be nutty.

[Phopojijo]

Another one... boxing with my monitor's color profile a little bit. Not the best -- but just playing around.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v342/Phopojijo/frogpant-new.jpg

Also a tweak on the ring -- not necessarily better or worse than the one above... but a different style.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v342/Phopojijo/satsmallout.jpg