Five Four Piggies

Dear Reader,
You may want to grab a mug, or a bottle – this could take a while. Today is a continuation of my last post “Return to Gleichen“. In that post I introduced a dozen uncleaned fish. One of the fish was infected with a parasite and had to be tossed. I tried dressing it and putting lipstick on it. Even though it looked like a good fish, it was just a piggy – no market for you.

The remaining fish are presented as pairs – raw fish followed by cleaned fish. The tools I use for cleaning fish are Lightoom, The Nix suite, and very rarely Adobe Photoshop when I want to remove something. Silver Efex Pro is from the Nix Suite and is wonderful for working with black and white images. Analog Efex Pro is also from the Nix suite and it is used to emulate old film, complete with flaking paper. Colour Efex Pro is another Nix tool and is used for bringing out detail.

The first pair of images is in response to a curiosity Keith had. First, I went too far in the post processing department, and then dialed it back to something that wasn’t too garish. I used both Colour Efex Pro and Lightroom. I am undecided with the result. The image gets 3 stars because it does not merit 4. Score: 1 piggy; 1 – 3 star.

In the following quartet of pairs, the adjustments included applying the landscape colour profile, changing the aspect ratio on two of them to 16 x 9, selective sharpening, and minor dehaze and clarity changes. I am pleased with all of them, and especially pleased that there is at lest one new addition to the thin line series, and possibly a second addition. Score: 1 piggy; 1 – 3 star, 4 – 4 star.

On these next two pairs my photographic and processing intents were unclear. For fun I played around with Analog Efex Pro. The results get experiment points, but because my intent was vague at best, the final images leave me neutral. There is not enough, too much, lighting isn’t flat enough, no heart. Score: 3 Piggies; 1 – 3 star; 4 – 4 star.

On these next three pairs there were a range of adjustments They included applying the landscape colour profile, selective sharpening, minor dehaze and clarity changes, and Silver Efex Pro for the black and white one. The bee hive photo from a previous Gleichen ramble now has a buddy, and that makes me smile. The black and white image nearly didn’t make it. But once the distracting red was out, the image was much better.
Score: 3 Piggies; 1 – 3 star; 7 – 4 star.

A fishing trip begins with a particular cove in mind, and I rarely get as far as the intended bay. There is also in the back of my mind a list of ongoing collections, for which I am on the lookout. Silos is one of those collections. At the time of capture, I thought the next image might be a 5. A few light touches later, my initial thought was confirmed. Score: 3 Piggies; 1 – 3 star; 7 – 4 star; 1 – 5 star (yeah me). As a general trend the number of piggies is a little high, and 5’s are just so very rare. It was a very good fishing trip.

As always I look forward to your comments
Cheers, Sean

2 Replies to “Five Four Piggies”

  1. So of course the first thing I did was go back to the original raw series to see which had been left out. Poor abandoned building, abandoned once more.

    There can be much discussion about how much editing is too much, or not enough, and I think you’ve struck the right balance here, given the subjects on the line, so to speak. I’ve sometimes found that deliberately doing too much editing gives me a sense of what will go wrong, and I can look for that in the less dramatic settings.

    Of the building photos, I think you’re right. The only possible redemption is on the square one where you crop in even further to have only the building, no background at all, and hope the trim in contrast to the textures of the wall makes it worth looking at. I’m dubious this will rescue the photo, but you never know.

    The water tower and grain elevator have become my favourites post-processing. It’s odd, but the more I look at the shaft of sunlight one, the more I’m confused. My eye can swirl around in the clouds ok, but then it descends the shaft of sunlight and does’t know what to do. There’s something just to the left of the shaft, but all I can see in this version of the shot is a whitish building. I think. My eye sort of expects to find something in the grass along the line to the shaft, but my brain knows that it would be near impossible to get something in the right place at the right apparent size. Such is life, not everything works out.

    1. As always, thank you (belated though it may be) for visiting and commenting.

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