"Mossy Falls"
Category: Color
Contest Score: 25/27 - Third place
(At least one person received a perfect score this evening)
Print medium: Matte paper
Print Size: 11x17
Location: Somewhere in Vermont
Camera gear:
- Canon Digital Rebel XTi
- Tamron 18-200mm telephoto lens
- Possibly used a Circular Polarizer, but don't recall
- Tripod
Photo Specs:
Raw Image > Converted to Jpeg to for printing
Focal Length: 95mm
Aperture: 36
Shutter Speed: 20
ISO: 100
Software used:
- Photoshop
Lessons learned:
- Had some hot spots in the moss and water that I should have removed by either burning the area down, or by using Camera raw in PS and pulling back the highlights. The later of the two would be less destructive to the overall photo.
- Long exposures with water give some cool silky effects, but I needed to pay attention to where the sun was shining (i.e. the hot spots)
"Ice Curtins"
Category: Color
Contest Score: 19/27 - Did not place
Print medium: Metallic paper
Print Size: 11x17
Location: Downstream from Blue Hen Falls. Just before the massive waterfall before it hits Boston Mills Ski Resort (http://www.gowaterfalling.com/waterfalls/bluehen.shtml) This wasn't actually a waterfall, it was a frozen shale wall before the waterfall...
Camera gear:
- Canon Digital Rebel XTi
- Tamron 18-200mm telephoto lens
- Tripod
- Remote shutter release
Photo Specs:
Raw Image > Converted to JPEG for printing
Focal Length: 25mm
Aperture: f/5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/60
ISO: 200
Software used:
- Photoshop
- Noise reduction software
Lessons learned:
- Over processed with the noise reduction software... again... should have just used the software that came with the camera to remove some of the noise.
- Printed on metallic paper... big mistake in this instance... The paper actually caused the lighter tones to be blown out, thus resulting in a lower score. Metallic works great in some instances, but this wasn't one of them...
- I printed this on an 11x17 sheet... with the lack of detail in certain spots I shouldn't have printed to a smaller sheet.
Final Thoughts:
I may try to reprocess the last photo using Camera Raw in Photoshop to fix any problems I had with this contest entry. I still think this could do well! Then again, I could be totally wrong, and it will suck in competition again... that's part of the fun!
Make sure you print to the appropriate size sheet for the level of detail in your photo. If you find that you have areas with low details, hotspots, or substantial grain/noise, consider printing on a smaller sheet that won't highlight your photo's downfalls. Printing to the wrong size sheet could cost you points, where every point matters.
If you haven't already, I highly recommend saving your images as PSD files, as you have the ability to go back and retouch things that you wouldn't be able to with Tiffs or Jpegs. Equally as helpful is to "convert your layer to a smart object", as you'll be able to go back and fix some of the changes you made... Make sure you "flatten your image" before you save to Jpeg (for digital uploads), but don't save over your PSD.
Youtube can help on eithr of these subjects, and most any other Photoshop related techniques and questions!