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Challenge: Can you make "My Little Dingy" in a Compelling style?

Cem_Usakligil

Well-known member
My little dinghy..

By now, we all have gotten used to the excellent pictures of very exclusive yachts Nicolas. This snapshot is obviously incomparable to them, but I liked the angle created by my beloved EF-S 10-22mm so much that I’ve decided to share it here with you :).

img_21518_0_135569882-O.jpg


Cheers,
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
HI,

Cem, this is an interesting picture. The color at first blush is not spectacular. But the interest of the boy in the massive ship is! What could he be looking at and what might he be thinkiing?

This picture has much more if one looks deeper. So have you explored any different ways of processing the image in color and in B&W? This might be done by you yourself, if you wish.

Otherwise would you entertain this as a challenge? Or not at all?

However, I do believe that the image to my mind might not be finished in your mind! :)

Asher
 

Cem_Usakligil

Well-known member
Size is everything?

...Cem, this is an interesting picture. The color at first blush is not spectacular. But the interest of the boy in the massive ship is! What could he be looking at and what might he be thinkiing?..
LOL, that's the beauty of the scales/sizes at hand here. This "boy" was actually a rather big guy.
I have some other shots where his pose can be seen a bit better (i.e. pondering), but I have not posted one of them since the ship itself was less visible. Maybe I'll post a few crops later as an indication.

Please feel free to kick off a challange if you really think that it's worth it. :).

Cheers,
 

nicolas claris

OPF Co-founder/Administrator
Cem
this is a very nice shot.
I like the angle, the boy (as already mentionned), the colors and the composition!

The only thing different I would have done is correction of lens distortion, as for an example from
This uncorrected
To the same but corrected

I think then your image will be much more "punchy"

The correction were made in PS CS3 (the same as CS2) "lens deformation" filter.
One trick when you shoot that kind of view and you know that you WILL HAVE to do some lens correction is to frame a bit larger than necessary. Lens correction do crop…

Hope it helps!
 

Cem_Usakligil

Well-known member
Cem
this is a very nice shot.
I like the angle, the boy (as already mentionned), the colors and the composition!

The only thing different I would have done is correction of lens distortion, as for an example from
This uncorrected
To the same but corrected

I think then your image will be much more "punchy"..
Hi Nicolas,

Coming from you, this is the biggest compliment I can get on this picture, thanks! <blushing>

What I thought was that it demonstrates what a fine and capable lens this nifty little EF-S 10-22mm is. That's why I did not do any lens corrections at the beginning but was planning on doing so later. I'll get onto to it then...

Regards,
 

Asher Kelman

OPF Owner/Editor-in-Chief
Cem will link to a larger picture. Please explore it and edit it with the idea that Cem looked at the scene: the boy the massive ship, the water and city at the skyline, the cobblestones and shadows and the clear sky above. Maybe there were seabirds just passing and noises of ropes and wires moving in the wind and the sounds of water against the dock.

Now you have the job of rendering that one file in the best way you can preserving the structures and maintaining the identity of the images but having total freedom to change any aspect of the image to deliver a unique and impressive vision that has it's own being or sense of identity as a child of the parent image. You can work in color or B&W.

Add © Cem Usakligil and you donate and assign all your creative work back to him in return for participating as we always do in OPF. Hopefully your own work will get great treatments by others too! The versions might at some times be used in an article or other form show to illustrate this creative process at which time all contributors will be given credit.

Please give this your best! I hope you have a lot of fun!

Asher
 

Cem_Usakligil

Well-known member
Here is the link to the bigger, lens corrected version...

... as promised.

I've corrected the lens distortions using DxO 4.2 (just the lens corrections and keystone, nothing else) and have exported the result as a DNG. In Lightroom, I have then corrected color the balance and exported to TIFF. In PS CS3, I have added copyright and saved as JPG.

img_21557_0_135689395-L.jpg


The link to the 1600 pixels wide version is here...

Thanks for your kind interest :).

Regards,
 

Tim Armes

New member
Hi Cem,

Here's my take. I decided to try to add a little moodiness to the image - tastes may vary...

The workflow was the following:

1) Remove the warps at the front of the boat. I felt that these distracted from the image.
2) A little PWL (painting with light) to add a little 3-dimensional interest
3) Created a moody feel using a blurred layed with low opacity
4) Desaturated the image to get the look I was after
5) Added a slight vignette to draw the viewer's attention to the boat itself.

Caveat: This was done on an uncalibrated monitor.

Regards,

Tim

CemUsakligil1.jpg

 

Cem_Usakligil

Well-known member
Great effort....

Hi Tim,

Firstly, thanks a lot for having a go at this :).

...Here's my take. I decided to try to add a little moodiness to the image - tastes may vary.....
I like it, it really opens up a new perspective towards making the image more interesting..

...
1) Remove the warps at the front of the boat. I felt that these distracted from the image....
Removing the warps has been done very neatly. It looks better this way, although I still have a soft spot for the original. Therein, it looks as if the boat is being pulled to the left by an unforeseen force such as the "Lange Wapper", the huge mythical guy who used hang around at Antwerp..

The "Lange Wapper" as seen by Cem himself ;-):
img_21574_0_135706031-O.jpg


...2) A little PWL (painting with light) to add a little 3-dimensional interest..
How, particularly, do you do this?

BTW, I like the moody look and the contrast of the cobblestones and the subtle highlight on the man a lot.

Cheers,
 
Last edited:

Tim Armes

New member
Painting with light

Tim Armes said:
A litte PWL (painting with light) to add a little 3-dimensional interest...
How, particularly, do you do this?

Hi Cem,

The way I do it is as follows:
  1. Hold down the Alt/Option key and create a new layer
  2. In the dialog box, choose Soft Light for the mode, and choose to fill the new layer with the neutral colour (50% grey in this case)
  3. You can now paint into this layer using a low opacity brush. Paint with white to lighten the image and black to darken it.
I recommend using a large and very soft brush. The technique works better when you're not trying to be precise.

Tim
 

Cem_Usakligil

Well-known member
Hi Tim,

Great info as usual, thanks. Maybe I should have been more specific in my question. What I was wondering about was not the PS technique behind it, which I am reasonably comfortable with. I was actually wondering which areas of the picture you choose to paint with light and how do you decide what works and what doesn't. A bit like trying to peek into the artist's mind really, but by all means, feel free to keep your "trade secrets" to yourself if I am asking for too much ;-).

Cheers,
 

Tim Armes

New member
Hi Tim,

Great info as usual, thanks. Maybe I should have been more specific in my question. What I was wondering about was not the PS technique behind it, which I am reasonably comfortable with. I was actually wondering which areas of the picture you choose to paint with light and how do you decide what works and what doesn't. A bit like trying to peek into the artist's mind really, but by all means, feel free to keep your "trade secrets" to yourself if I am asking for too much ;-).

Ah.

That's a very difficult question to answer. I have an idea in my mind and I paint until I happy with the result. The great thing about using a layer technique is that you can play until it's right.

Often, I would reduce the brightness of the less important parts and increase the brightness of the more important parts, which subtly focuses the attention of the viewer to the right places. In other cases I try to add light to an otherwise flat image, and this may need more care.

In this particular case I darkened the pavement areas and the back end of the boat, then I added some light to the front of the boat and around the man.

The idea is no different than the standard dodging and burning practises that have been carried out in the darkroom since photography began. The "how" is easy to explain, I think that the "why" can only come from within, and is the result of either artistic genius or (for most us of) experience and experimentation.

Tim
 

Cem_Usakligil

Well-known member
...The idea is no different than the standard dodging and burning practises that have been carried out in the darkroom since photography began. The "how" is easy to explain, I think that the "why" can only come from within, and is the result of either artistic genius or (for most us of) experience and experimentation...
Great answer! Thanks again for taking your precious time <very big smile>.

Regards,
 
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