1st Place - Rock Formation by jvkelley photo - ctfchallenge photos at pbase.com

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11-NOV-2006	jvkelley

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ctfchallenge		23-Mar-2008 05:51
Naw.. be a good magician and let us wonder in awe ;) You've already told more than enough. At least wait till after the challenge! -k2

Karl C.		23-Mar-2008 05:29
But seriously, maybe JV can humor us with an unprocessed original version in the pending gallery? I'd love to see just how much level-whanging went on.

Karl C.		23-Mar-2008 05:27
The secret is to hike all day without enough water in the scorching heat, so the evening light arrives simultaneously with the delirium!

Rod		22-Mar-2008 21:53
Why don't the shadows look right to my eye JV Have you altered their relationships with the four section thingy? There's obviously a great picy in here it's just that I think JV got too excited with the four section curves whanging:-) Karl if this is how you remember this sort of scene you must be a heavier drinker than me & your pupils are stuck open:-)

ctfchallenge		22-Mar-2008 16:55
Perfection.. thank you. Only done that once myself, a necessity because of sheer size (a 32bit/1200dpi color scan). Have to compliment you on the composition also: I looked all over the web for pictures of this scenery. Nothing came even close to the majestic impact this POV has. -k2

ctfchallenge		22-Mar-2008 15:49
I broke the original into 4 sections, and adjusted the levels on each one separatley. - J.V.

ctfchallenge		22-Mar-2008 09:49
Orange filter? -k2

Karl C.		22-Mar-2008 07:21
I don't get the HDR discussion. This is exactly how the South West looks to me in my memories. I think the biggest secret was getting the right natural light, wasn't it?

ctfchallenge		21-Mar-2008 22:28
Thanks again everyone who has commented. I'm glad that some of you really like this one, and I'm okay with those who don't. Kiki and Rod, I'm enjoying reading the debate. There is a reason it doesn't have the HDR halos, it's not HDR. It was shot with a circular polarizer though, but that's not quite the secret either. - J.V.

ctfchallenge		21-Mar-2008 21:40
Here are samples of where HDR has waved goodbye to the real world. The article starts with "Applied carefully.." and then list 35 pictures where it almost without exception has NOT been applied with much care: http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/03/10/35-fantastic-hdr-pictures/ -k2

ctfchallenge		21-Mar-2008 21:24
Adams hammered luminosity like crazy. There's a HDR discussion here: http://www.flickr.com/groups/truetonehdr/discuss/72157594461738847/ See the second last entry from Jeff Sullivan. HDR techniques are not a bad thing in themselves. Overdone they look impossible, and many tend to overdo it. But in this picture, tonality is all the time heading in the right directions - things are darker where they should be. No tell-tale halos. Looks like it was shot with a CP and perhaps burnt with some vignetting in the sky towards the left - good result. This pic is cooked just right. -k2

Rod		21-Mar-2008 19:55
I was going on something I read over at the other challenge about HDR type images having less detail or something than normal images, as though it creates an illusion. I know nothing of the technical side of all this but maybe it's not that the tones are missing it's just that the graduations from one tone to another is missing. Anyhow one thing I am forgetting is this is a high contrast challenge & this is a high contrast picy init so I shouldn't be expecting normal looking picys as most of us have posted unnatural looking picys. I just can't cop these HDR looking picys parading around as great photos instead of the computer graphics they really are. RIP Ansel:-)

ctfchallenge		21-Mar-2008 16:09
This is just perfect - Debi

Karl C.		21-Mar-2008 11:45
I really like this too. It's not just the contrast of tones but of smooth and gritty textures that I look for... to me, it feels more full-spectrum than a lot of color photos out there!

ctfchallenge		21-Mar-2008 08:37
Heh.. there are only 256 unique tones in this image but you don't get more in a digital B&W 8-bit JPG file. Do you mean to say it's oversharpened? DR can't get higher in 8-bit anyways, unless you use color format instead and "emulate" an expanded B&W luminance depth with low saturation colors. But look at that histogram.. great DR. A beautiful conversion to high contrast to the extent that it wasn't HC from the start. A digression: Something the threshold tool is perfect for is to check for the amount and location of pixels with luminance values of 0 or 255 (all black/all white). Drag slider all the way to extreme left/right and you see them. -k2

Rod		21-Mar-2008 07:14
Ansel strove to get the maximum amount of tones from Black to white in his picys. He didn't remove tones to give a false sense of clarity. Get real Kiki:-)

ctfchallenge		20-Mar-2008 20:16
Incredible...otherworldly and awesome. The clouds and the rays of light don't hurt, either. --Mary Anne

ctfchallenge		20-Mar-2008 16:27
Very nice - someday I'd like to see the color version too, although this is perfect for this challenge. Penny Street

ctfchallenge		20-Mar-2008 14:39
Thanks neo and k2. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade also had a scene here. - J.V.

ctfchallenge		20-Mar-2008 11:40
Great work! Looks like a stage set the same way some Ansel Adams photos look like stage sets ;) And perhaps because so many classic western movies have used this natural backdrop, being shot on location in the southern plains of Texas. A search on imdb.com only came up with "The Sundowners" (1950) and a TV series from 1960, "Story of a Family", as being specifically shot in Palo Duro Canyon. But the region enjoys world fame for this amazing scenery, and thematically a whole heap of old western movies are about its history. "Art imitates nature".. -k2

Rod		20-Mar-2008 09:10
Looks uncool to me, totally unnatural looking. Looks like a stage set.

Guest		20-Mar-2008 02:50
Cool!!

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