Heavy digital manipulation - does it show?

[sjt1]

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I have just processed a picture - see below. It is a panorama of about 5 pics shot using an M8 and a 90 / 2.8 last Saturday. I have done quite a bit of processing on it and I want to see if the processing shows. I have worked about an hour on it now and I cannot see the wood for the trees, so fresh pairs of eyes would be helpful.

 

[ATTACH]156475[/ATTACH]

 

If anyone could have a look and see if they can spot any obvious digital manupulation or anything "disturbing" about the pic, that would be very helpful. I am sort of looking for "first look" opinions from fresh pairs of eyes to see if anything jarring jumps out.

 

I am deliberately not saying what manipulation I did becuase I don't want to influence any opinions (if there is sufficient interest I will show the original and say what I did later on). Its not really a "guess the processing" thread, its more of a "did I get away with it?" thread!

 

Thanks for any input

 

(PS there is a bigger pic on the flickr page in my signature if anyone wants to scrutinise the pic further)

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[john_j]

Greetings-

 

 

Looking at your image, I feel the upper clouds are a bit over-done. Had I'd been making this picture in my darkroom, I would have burned the top clouds for less time.

 

Keep shooting and processing,

 

Best,

[pop]

Steve -

 

I can see no obvious artifacts or defects. However:

 

I think the dynamic range of several parts of the image is somewhat "astonishing" (i.e. suspect of having been doctored):

- the clouds

- the nearest hill and the plain just beyond it. Given that there is considerable haze in the distance, I would suspect that it ought to be visible in the middle distances as well.

 

The sharpness of the grass in lower left hand corner and some of the fields on the nearest hill appears to stand out against other parts of the image. This is more marked on the copy you placed on flikr.

 

I notice that the image you posted here is quite heavily compressed. Did you reduce it to a size of less than 244.1 kB before uploading?

[delander †]

I think the sky is the problem that stands out immediately. The clouds look to contrasty or too sharp also there is some strange 45 degree banding. Diifficult to be sure at this size.

 

Jeff

[stunsworth]

The clouds look strange, but as mentioned earlier it's difficult to judge much with such a small image.

[jaapv]

Whatever else, on this little jpg it looks oversharpened.

[ChrisC]

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...... a panorama of about 5 pics.......)

 

Steve - The clouds screamed at me immediately; those dark tones and contrast range look unbelievable in sunny day cumulous clouds. Your processing work and any faults have been reduced with the size reduction for web posting; faults are more apparent at the native large file size of your panorama, or it's simulated print size. I suspect that some highlights might be lost in the clouds and the concrete post in the foreground, but I'd prefer to examine it at full size to be sure. At web size however, nothing else seems too bothersome compared to the sky and clouds.

 

If; by 'heavy digital manipulation' you are alluding to complex image joining and inserts etc., the image is too small to tell. [Have you used layering techniques - can you easily undo the sky without losing too much work on the image?].

 

.................. Chris

[tobey bilek]

It shows to those who have used film and made darkroom prints like me.

 

This is neither good or bad, if it is the picture you want. Ansel Adams were heavily manipulated as were Eugene Smith. I probably would not get the same print from the same neg, buy my offering would be less interesting.

[wstotler]

Steve - The clouds screamed at me immediately; those dark tones and contrast range look unbelievable in sunny day cumulous clouds. . . .At web size however, nothing else seems too bothersome compared to the sky and clouds. .................. Chris

 

Yes. Agreed.

 

Thanks!

Will

[miami91]

Whatever else, on this little jpg it looks oversharpened.

 

 

Agreed. In addition to the foreground clouds looking too "burned in", the edge sharpening looks rather jarring. There's also a lot of noticeable grain/noise in the sky, which maybe is the result of shooting at a higher ISO (the settings aren't mentioned), but would certainly be exacerbated by oversharpening. And outdoors during daytime, not sure why a higher ISO would have been used.

 

Jeff.

[farnz]

Steve,

 

Since you asked, with respect, there are a number of factors that suggest pp to me:

1. The long shadows from the trees in the middle foreground indicate that the sun is low so the burning of the undersides of the clouds looks darker than it should be.

2. The highlights in the clouds are burnt out but the shadows in the woodlands in the middle foreground have also lost their detail so the dynamic range looks odd; either the highlights or shadows should have been correctly exposed.

3. The distant fields have low contrast, suggesting haze, but the fields on the mid, far right show more contrast than the fields on the mid, far left, which suggests that the contrast has been artificially reduced for effect.

4. The white pedestal at front left is lacking a long shadow (although it *might* be hidden by the grass) suggesting that it may have been shot at a different time of day.

5. The contrast in the woodlands in the centre of the picture is darker than the woodlands on the right hand side.

6. The horizontal band of clouds are much darker on the right hand side and show clear horizontal banding indicating burning.

7. The area at the centre-left of the picture towards the body of water shows dodging since it is lighter than than the areas on either side.

8. The landscape is missing shadows for that weight of clouds.

 

Having said the above, it is a very pleasant scene and there are no obvious tell-tale joins between the adjacent pictures.

 

Pete.