Ferrari at Mount Washington

[John Bubela]

I went on a vacation to New Hampshire this past week. I hiked up mount washington and saw this at the top. I thought it was one of my better shots from the trip and wanted to hear how I could have made it better .
http://img162.imageshack.us/img162/8894/nhferrari2ep6.jpg

[John Thawley]

I'm struggling with the horizon a bit... not sure, but there seems to be a conflict betwen the car;s horizontal plane and the horizon. But... it needs a tweak there and perhpas a little cropping.

Given the opportunity to shoot again. (and now you will hear me for the rest of your photographic life :) ) BEND YOUR KNEES. You could have played with the drama of the car's lines and put in even more background.

Finally, POST PROCESSING. This image needs punching up.

If you want to email me the hi-res, I'd be happy to play with it and make some notes on what I do.

JT

[John Bubela]

Thank you for the tips, I'll try to get that email out soon.

[John Thawley]

Here's a quick post process of John's image. There was no EXIF data attached so I'm not sure if we were starting with an "out of the camera" image. None-the-less, I started by rotating the image to improve the horizon. I realized after doing it, the ground was actually curving back tpward the camera and the car's hood and dash made the best horizontal plane. The original image was confusing in that respect.

This required a 95% crop all the way around... and I think I liked how that trimmed a bit off the car too.

I adjusted the levels slightly... though I found I had to be careful with the yellow... some of the shade areas were going "bronze" on me. Next I used the Selective Color adjustment to get my yellow where I wanted it. Selecting the yellow swatch, I took away black, pushed the yellow and bumped the cyan just a touch. I also adjusted the Cyan slightly to get more out of the sky.

I then applied Fred Miranda's Velvia Vison pllug in. Pretty mild settings, but I think it put a little brightness and warmth in what appeared to be an overcast scene.

Lastly, I used Fred Miranda's Intellisharpen II... I perfer this over Photoshop's USM because it allows you to sharpen details and lower or remove the halo typically introduced by USM.

I also used Fred Miranda's Web Presenter plug-in for sizing the image to post.

My one dissapointement was not being able to make the car "shiny." So... nothing to go "WOW" over... but I think we brought the image to life.

Thanks to John for letting me "Pimp" his photo.

JT

[Erik Anderson]

The colors are details are certainly brought out in the revision. Had you looked at cropping the sky out a bit? Perhaps just above the 4th row of mountains? I feel like my eyes migrate to the top of the photo since it's brighter than the car. Cropping down brings everything together, IMO.

[John Thawley]

I typically will try to keep the original size ratio intact. I'm not too bother by the sky, but I think where you're going is what I was referring to about shooting from a lower perspective.

JT

[Jason Jenkins]

I think the rock in the window above the passenger seat bothers me the most, it almost looks like someone head and I keep looking for the shoulders that are not there.

[Daniel Buck]

I think if the sky should be darker in John's revision, it looks like it clips 255 pretty hard, loosing the cloud detail. Looks like maybe some of the yellow paint is a little to saturated as well? I do like the updated rotation of the image though, looks better I think.

The darker paint in the original doesn't bother me, but I would put a curves layer on the wheels (masked) to give them some punch, and possibly the tail lights and exhaust pipe highlight as well.

Was a polarizer used? I'm seeing an odd lack of reflection on the rear fender, the reflections just stop right behind the gas cap.


My computer just took a dump tonight, if I get back up and running I'll photoshop the wheels and such in the original if you want to see my take on that aspect. Thats one thing I do to just about all of my car photos, isolate the wheels, headlights and emblems and give them a bit of punch (even if they aren't chrome) with a painted curves layer mask.

[Daniel Buck]

here is my photoshop (I didn't mess with the crop or rotation, I think John nailed that!)

Take it into photoshop and toggle between mine suggestion and your original posted image, that will give you the best look at what I'm doing with the image.

Basically, I brightened the wheels a bit, brightened the tail lights a bit with a curves layer, darkened the sky (with a grad curves layer) and then punched up the contrast just a bit on the yellow paint it self (again, masked curves layer). To my eyes (and monitor! haha!) the darker richer yellow looks better, The darker sky is picking up some artifacting in the top left corner, I'm not sure if thats from the .jpg compression (editing a compressed image, then compressing again) or if it's dust on the chip/lens, or just odd clouds.

My reason for darkening the sky is because thats how I like my images, I don't like my skys to blow out to white, and also on this particular image, I think the the rich yellow and the now darker blue sky go quite well together.



http://www.danielbuck.net/wip/yellow_update_01.jpg

[Mike Ditz]

Nice job Daniel!

[John Thawley]

I really like the sky. I'm not sold on the yellow.... Ferrari yellow is not that dark... but, nice job on everything else. Looks great.

PS: A very little well known fact. :) The first Ferrari was not red... it was yellow.

JT

[Erik Anderson]

Take Daniel's sky and put it on John's Ferrari and I think we have a winner.

[Daniel Buck]

I'm not familier with Ferrari yellow, but to my eyes the darker yellow works better. Opinions though :-)

[Erik Anderson]

I'm not familier with Ferrari yellow, but to my eyes the darker yellow works better. Opinions though :-)

The darker yellow looks smoother and more pleasing to the eye (IMO), but the Ferrari yellow is much brighter. How one edits the photo depends on who the photo gets marketed to! :D

[Daniel Buck]

The darker yellow looks smoother and more pleasing to the eye (IMO), but the Ferrari yellow is much brighter. How one edits the photo depends on who the photo gets marketed to! :D
that's probably true! And I bet Ferrari is pretty anal about their colors when printed, haha! :D At work, we have a fair amount of play room with the color of the cars, as long as we can convince the clients that it looks good (or better than what they chose originally) Otherwise, they play the "it's to dark, it's to green, it's to bright" game till the cows come home, cause paint looks different in different light. Especially metallics! haha!

[John Bubela]

Thanks guys!
I have some time off from work in a few days so I'll try some of these techniques out on my own.
I did use a polarizer, but I just shot with it it on and didn't really turn it for a desired effect.
The artifacts on the image seem to be on the original a bit too, images have been a bit noisy at 50iso lately. This is one reason why I feel the need to upgrade to a 30D from my S2 IS.