Ric’s journey without direction

ric alexander said:
I followed this mainly but i did mute the colour down and do a touch of painting with light due to the scene

It was easy to follow on ipad affinity
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It looks a bit like adding HDR toning to an image, but slightly subtler. the only trouble with this level of retouching is it becomes so far removed from a photograph that it should really be classed as digital art.
 
sinnerjohn said:
Ok I see, I'd say the actual Dragan effect is more what we would call HDR now rather than painterly, but your edit is rather good :thumbs:
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Hmmm, sort of but it does bring out images a little different. Theres lots of ways to do it depending on software but i did compare hdr and tonemapping to this method with the extra steps and it wasnt quite the same.

Doing dragan style in lightroom though is very much just hdr without controlling light. Maybe its the extra brushwork i like doing that makes the difference i dont know
 
WOTANICUS said:
It looks a bit like adding HDR toning to an image, but slightly subtler. the only trouble with this level of retouching is it becomes so far removed from a photograph that it should really be classed as digital art.
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I’m going to refrain from starting a debate on how far something goes before it becomes digital art ( god knows the time I’ve spent debating with old school photographers at a camera club on it).but I’m happy with all my work being labelled as that. Everything I’ve shared can be classed as such as the photo has been modified in one way or another. I suspect most photos or images posted on mobitog fall Into the same category. I only go by whether I’m truly happy with the image, not what it is classed as.
does that mean I’m not a photographer? I don’t really care, I just enjoy doing what I’m doing. I merely (unsuccessfully most of the time) try to put something into the photo that means more than just what my eye sees at a particular time.
 
Just done a version of the above image WITHOUT using tonemapping. Interesting to see how close it is considering. Is it better? Worse? Opinions appreciated. i purposely only used techniques that would have been available to film users in the darkroom.

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ric alexander said:
Just done a version of the above image WITHOUT using tonemapping. Interesting to see how close it is considering. Is it better? Worse? Opinions appreciated. i purposely only used techniques that would have been available to film users in the darkroom.

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I prefer the first one, except for the tonemapping on her face which is too extreme for me. (That's my reaction to most faces in Dragan-style images.) And yet in the second one, her face strikes me as a bit too bland to fit the rest of the image. Ideal for me would be the first image with the effect on the face dialed back a bit.
 
terse said:
I prefer the first one, except for the tonemapping on her face which is too extreme for me. (That's my reaction to most faces in Dragan-style images.) And yet in the second one, her face strikes me as a bit too bland to fit the rest of the image. Ideal for me would be the first image with the effect on the face dialed back a bit.
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Thank you for the feedback Ted. It’s just experimenting. I did seem to blast her face with an exposure layer in the second one.
 
ric alexander said:
Just done a version of the above image WITHOUT using tonemapping. Interesting to see how close it is considering. Is it better? Worse? Opinions appreciated. i purposely only used techniques that would have been available to film users in the darkroom.

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The first one for me, and I love the face. It’s more impactful.
 
ric alexander said:
I’m going to refrain from starting a debate on how far something goes before it becomes digital art ( god knows the time I’ve spent debating with old school photographers at a camera club on it).but I’m happy with all my work being labelled as that. Everything I’ve shared can be classed as such as the photo has been modified in one way or another. I suspect most photos or images posted on mobitog fall Into the same category. I only go by whether I’m truly happy with the image, not what it is classed as.
does that mean I’m not a photographer? I don’t really care, I just enjoy doing what I’m doing. I merely (unsuccessfully most of the time) try to put something into the photo that means more than just what my eye sees at a particular time.
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Ahh don't interpret my comment as criticism Ric. Its directed at the technique, rather than the artist. As you say its all about enjoying the process and is an acutely personal journey. Just keep doing what your doing, the results are terriffic.
 
ric alexander said:
Just done a version of the above image WITHOUT using tonemapping. Interesting to see how close it is considering. Is it better? Worse? Opinions appreciated. i purposely only used techniques that would have been available to film users in the darkroom.

View attachment 182425
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First one is definitely better, as it brings out the colour innthe face, table and pint. However, i'm with Ted on the face - it is a little too HDR for me
 
WOTANICUS said:
Ahh don't interpret my comment as criticism Ric. Its directed at the technique, rather than the artist. As you say its all about enjoying the process and is an acutely personal journey. Just keep doing what your doing, the results are terriffic.
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I didn’t Bill. If it looks that way I apologise. I have a problem sometimes in writing what I think. It’s been a right pain in the backside over the years. I went more in the general terms of the perception of what we create. I must admit I get bored of just going out and taking a photo and that’s it, I like to spend time editing and trying to find what I can do with images, hence the title of my thread, no direction.
It would be so boring, but, finding a style I’m truly happy with would be a welcome change
 
ric alexander said:
I’m going to refrain from starting a debate on how far something goes before it becomes digital art ( god knows the time I’ve spent debating with old school photographers at a camera club on it).but I’m happy with all my work being labelled as that. Everything I’ve shared can be classed as such as the photo has been modified in one way or another. I suspect most photos or images posted on mobitog fall Into the same category. I only go by whether I’m truly happy with the image, not what it is classed as.
does that mean I’m not a photographer? I don’t really care, I just enjoy doing what I’m doing. I merely (unsuccessfully most of the time) try to put something into the photo that means more than just what my eye sees at a particular time.
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I think it means you are an artist.
 
ric alexander said:
I didn’t Bill. If it looks that way I apologise. I have a problem sometimes in writing what I think. It’s been a right pain in the backside over the years. I went more in the general terms of the perception of what we create. I must admit I get bored of just going out and taking a photo and that’s it, I like to spend time editing and trying to find what I can do with images, hence the title of my thread, no direction.
It would be so boring, but, finding a style I’m truly happy with would be a welcome change
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Oh thats good, i can be a little blunt myself sometimes. I have to say i am seriously impressed with your street technique - I haven't got the brass cohones to do street effectively.
 
ric alexander said:
I’m going to refrain from starting a debate on how far something goes before it becomes digital art ( god knows the time I’ve spent debating with old school photographers at a camera club on it).but I’m happy with all my work being labelled as that. Everything I’ve shared can be classed as such as the photo has been modified in one way or another. I suspect most photos or images posted on mobitog fall Into the same category. I only go by whether I’m truly happy with the image, not what it is classed as.
does that mean I’m not a photographer? I don’t really care, I just enjoy doing what I’m doing. I merely (unsuccessfully most of the time) try to put something into the photo that means more than just what my eye sees at a particular time.
Click to expand...
Not adding to the debate :whistle:, I still think an image has to be a good original photo in many cases to work well as ‘digital art’ in any case particularly your style. I think we would be shocked to learn how much the professionals tweak their photos to make them what they are.
 
WOTANICUS said:
Oh thats good, i can be a little blunt myself sometimes. I have to say i am seriously impressed with your street technique - I haven't got the brass cohones to do street effectively.
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You haven’t? So how would you do street photography? If you had to point a camera in someone face while it’s in front of your face, there’s no way I could do it. all you have to do is practice shooting from the hip. set a volume button to burst mode if needed and stop, click volume button, and walk on. The skill is looking at your target and getting your hand to coordinate with your eye.
live gone to camera +2 app with action mode and bust mode both selected now. The camera then autofocuses as it’s doing a burst. It still takes vision, but no one knows your actually phographing. The bonus is, your also shooting at a much more interesting angle than just head height.
 
ImageArt said:
Not adding to the debate :whistle:, I still think an image has to be a good original photo in many cases to work well as ‘digital art’ in any case particularly your style. I think we would be shocked to learn how much the professionals tweak their photos to make them what they are.
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Oh that’s an argument I picked regularly with the old film buffs in their darkrooms at the camera club. even then, all the tweaking they did meant they’re eye and camera didn’t see what came out of the darkroom. Those were the good old days when I would be told digital will never catch on and they all laughed at me with my trusty old Nikon cool pix 900 camera with a split twist body and a might 1.3megapixel sensor.
 
Back to SuperimposeX and snapseed. I just love that Lofi type editing, if you call it that, rather than the clinical discreet type editing that photographers lean to with stuff like affinity photo. This is more dirty and messy.
anyway ( are you reading this WOTANICUS ), an Unuseable soft photo taken as I was moving as was the subject. Shot from hip but decided to embrace the blur and add a little and then throw blended layers and masking at it to create something I liked. Mono would have worked with snapseed but just wanted to see what else I could conjur up with a bad photo. A problem I still need to get rid of is getting excited when I see another photo opportunity at the same time. It seems to always end up with a bad shot.
I blame London and it’s rich pickings for that though.

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