Martyn Smoothy wrote:
> OK - your version is an improvement...
> I just took the pic straight from the scanner & cropped it at 100% with
> a little sharpening
I thought so! There is a modest sharpening halo, especially around the
large tree on the left. I tamed it with a bit of burning in, as it
became much more obvious with the Levels adjustment.
Also, sharpening sharpens the grain edges to a greater or lesser extent,
depending on settings and the nature of the grain. You generally get
better results by applying NR before sharpening, LCE, Highlight/Shadow,
etc. Here, there is a crunchy quality to the turned soil that I thought
also looked like sharpening.
I personally don't much like grain in pinhole images. I think it makes
the smooth, soft focus and contrast graduations edgy, counter to the
purpose of using a pinhole in the first place. This might be less true
with a large print where the grain is visible, but not sharp edged and
small relative to image size.
> - don't suppose there's any reason not to give it a "proper" work over just
> because it's a pinhole image.
>
I agree, but I think "proper" is different with pinhole. I feel that
sharpening and LCE tend to detract from the pinhole characteristics. I
tend to use at least a little LCE on almost everything, but wouldn't on
this image.
> Have to say there were very few highlights when it was taken on a cold, damp,
> grey day on the Essex coast at the end of December.
>
That's rather what it looked like, and I tried to retain that look while
using more of the whole, rather limited, tonal range available in an 8
bit JPEG. As usual, I converted to 16-bit before making any tonal
adjustments, then back to save.
Thanks for the image to play with. I'm not a big pinhole fan, in
general, but I really like this one.
Moose
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