A couple of shots on the way to Hyde Park

[Jim Kuo]

I went to a workshop ran by IC photosoc about light painting. As much fun as it was, my calligraphy skill was so bad that I wasn't able to make legible "Hello RPF" attempts. So I gave up and took these pictures instead .

Sunset at the local station, on my way into town.

The Serpentine at night

I thought these are nice, but comparing to the shots I've seen on Google+ from other landscape photographers, they are pale in comparison. I am hoping to learn some tips about what I should try in similar situations to give these kind of scenes more "pop".

Thanks for viewing.

Jim

 

[Dan Cattermole]

I got excited then and scrolled down as quick as I could to hopefully see someone else on here light paint..... But then ....
Hahaha!!! Only kidding jim, never the less, these shots are cracking!

 

[Jim Kuo]

Haha, Dan. I also really wanted to do some nice light paint pictures, but I failed miserably. These photos are my consolation prize for the night

 

[Hamish Gill]

Jim you shouldn't tease Dan like that, you will damage his fragile little mind

What sort of "pop" are you trying to acheive?
Post an example photo, and I'll try to tell you how to do it...

 

[Jim Kuo]

Thanks Hamish, essentially, I am trying to give the viewer the feeling that "wow, these are really spectacular", but the feeling I get myself atm are "these are (only) nice". I will try to find concrete examples.

 

[Pete Askew]

Hi Jim, How about use a cross-process simulation? That can often lift a sunset quite nicely.

 

[Jim Kuo]

Wow, this looks cool.

I am not familiar with cross-processing, could you elaborate on what it does and what kind of effects it can deliver?

 

[Brian Moore]

Jim that first shot,...the way the foliage is in silhouette...it could pass for the desert in Southwestern USA. Nice.

 

[Jim Kuo]

Thanks Brian. My local train station is situated on the top of a small hill, so we can get good views of the surrounding vicinity. I often caught this sunset on my way home, but this was the first time that I had my camera with me to capture what I saw .

 

[Pete Askew]

Cross-processing is actually a chemical process where you effectively develop a film in the wrong chemistry. For example, you might develop colour print film in the chemistry intended for transparency film (Brian sometimes develops colour films in B&W chemistry). This results in a shift in colours away from the norm and an increase in contrast. What I used was a digital simulation of this using NikColorFX 4 but there are several other ways ranging from manual manipulation of the colour channels and curves in PS and LR to downloadable presets for LR and add-ins for PS. Aside from Nik, probably the best of the add-ins is probably PhotoKit Color 2 from Pixel Genius (PixelGenius - PhotoKit Color). There are also several presets for LR at Presets Heaven, for example Cross process Lightroom presets – #01 | Presets Heaven

Hope this helps.

 

[Pete Askew]

Cross-processing is actually a chemical process where you effectively develop a film in the wrong chemistry. For example, you might develop colour print film in the chemistry intended for transparency film (Brian sometimes develops colour films in B&W chemistry). This results in a shift in colours away from the norm and an increase in contrast. What I used was a digital simulation of this using NikColorFX 4 but there are several other ways ranging from manual manipulation of the colour channels and curves in PS and LR to downloadable presets for LR and add-ins for PS. Aside from Nik, probably the best of the add-ins is PhotoKit Color 2 from Pixel Genius (PixelGenius - PhotoKit Color). There are also several presets for LR at Presets Heaven, for example Cross process Lightroom presets – #01 | Presets Heaven

Hope this helps.

 

[Jim Kuo]

This looks interesting and very useful to what I wanted to do, thanks Pete!

 

[adrian jordin]

I actually like the first shot as it is, but in the spirit of experimentation I ran it through my favourite Topaz photoshop filter.
This soups up the saturation and the detail, basically.



This may not be to everyone's taste, but its worth trying to see if you like the effect...

Adrian

 

[Jim Kuo]

Your example (which I think looks cool) illustrates what can be achieved by other post processing techniques/filters, thanks adrian