Opinion please
Feb 8, 2023 12:30:20 #
Retired CPO wrote:
If you are anything like me, you will be sorely disappointed! I graduated from High School in Flagstaff, a short drive north of Sedona, in 1972. It's ruined now!! 
You are so right. It is so overcrowded now you can hardly drive through town. And they want to bring more tourists there. It's amazing what greed will do.
Feb 8, 2023 13:12:10 #
dmagett wrote:
This is a composite. Foreground shot many years ago with a Canon S70. Moonshot taken recently with Canon SX60. Sky replacement (moon) done with Luminar. I am looking for opinions. BTW my camera club did not like it at all.
Shadows are too crisp and in the wrong direction.
Feb 8, 2023 14:28:31 #
Here's my opinion on your composite. If this was a competition, then I can understand their response. However, if it was just a showing, then they should have pointed out how and where your image could have been improved.
First, let me say that it WAS definitely worth the effort. Everyone has to start somewhere and I can say that this composite is much better the my early tries. But the more you try and get good feedback, the better you get. You might try and find a mentor at your camera club that can be a source of honest feedback. The UHH will give you mostly honest feedback but not necessarily in the kindest or most positive way.
1) I think that the composition is almost fine, but lacks a key element. As others pointed out, there is a problem with the light source. There appears to be a light source low and to the right. That light source should be included in your composition to help explain the discrepant shadows. Additionally, you need to add the moon shadows to your foreground.
2) Perspective would be a deal-breaker if you were trying to create a realistic composite. Otherwise it just makes for an interesting, somewhat sci-fi scene. Your foreground was captured with a wide-angle lens while the size of the moon indicates and extremely long lens. If you're going for the realistic look, then you want all you composite elements to be taken with or scaled to a similar FOV.
3) Without artificial lighting, color saturation decreases at night while contrast generally increases. As it gets darker, the light spectra decreases and your eyes start shifting from using cones (color detectors) to rods (luminance detectors). Including an artificial light source in your scene would be one way of explaining the bright colors in the foreground.
4) DOF is fine and pixel density appears to be fine. Avoid the mistakes of having a sharp foreground, blurred mid-ground and then a sharp background. Even for a fantasy shot, this sends the brain into spasms. Not good. Sometimes, you can't match pixel-density, so what I've done is to save the final image at a slightly lower resolution that the elements in the composition.
5) Watch for noise. If you gave a high noise background and a low noise foreground (or vise-a-versa), it will become obvious it's a poor composite. Either reduce the high noise or add noise to the low noise elements. Once they're close to matching, then you can add a little noise uniformity over the entire image. This hides a lot of little defects.
If you want more information about compositing, there are plenty of books on the subject. If you want a quick start, I would recommend three you-tubbers that do a lot of composite tutorials.
The first is "Glyn Dewis" , the second is "Unmesh Dinda" of PixImperfect and third is "Jesus Ramirez" of the Photoshop Traning Channel.
Hope this info helps in your next composite post.
Mike
First, let me say that it WAS definitely worth the effort. Everyone has to start somewhere and I can say that this composite is much better the my early tries. But the more you try and get good feedback, the better you get. You might try and find a mentor at your camera club that can be a source of honest feedback. The UHH will give you mostly honest feedback but not necessarily in the kindest or most positive way.
1) I think that the composition is almost fine, but lacks a key element. As others pointed out, there is a problem with the light source. There appears to be a light source low and to the right. That light source should be included in your composition to help explain the discrepant shadows. Additionally, you need to add the moon shadows to your foreground.
2) Perspective would be a deal-breaker if you were trying to create a realistic composite. Otherwise it just makes for an interesting, somewhat sci-fi scene. Your foreground was captured with a wide-angle lens while the size of the moon indicates and extremely long lens. If you're going for the realistic look, then you want all you composite elements to be taken with or scaled to a similar FOV.
3) Without artificial lighting, color saturation decreases at night while contrast generally increases. As it gets darker, the light spectra decreases and your eyes start shifting from using cones (color detectors) to rods (luminance detectors). Including an artificial light source in your scene would be one way of explaining the bright colors in the foreground.
4) DOF is fine and pixel density appears to be fine. Avoid the mistakes of having a sharp foreground, blurred mid-ground and then a sharp background. Even for a fantasy shot, this sends the brain into spasms. Not good. Sometimes, you can't match pixel-density, so what I've done is to save the final image at a slightly lower resolution that the elements in the composition.
5) Watch for noise. If you gave a high noise background and a low noise foreground (or vise-a-versa), it will become obvious it's a poor composite. Either reduce the high noise or add noise to the low noise elements. Once they're close to matching, then you can add a little noise uniformity over the entire image. This hides a lot of little defects.
If you want more information about compositing, there are plenty of books on the subject. If you want a quick start, I would recommend three you-tubbers that do a lot of composite tutorials.
The first is "Glyn Dewis" , the second is "Unmesh Dinda" of PixImperfect and third is "Jesus Ramirez" of the Photoshop Traning Channel.
Hope this info helps in your next composite post.
Mike
Feb 8, 2023 15:46:32 #
Feb 8, 2023 16:05:37 #
I always enjoy seeing the creativity that people come up with in photo manipulations. The only thing that detracts from this is the landscape image itself. For example, the shadows of the rocks are going the wrong way. If the moon was behind, the shadows should fall in front. Maybe with some other landscape photo this would have a more captivating appeal. Don't give up!
Best wishes!
Best wishes!
Feb 8, 2023 16:49:15 #
davyboy
Loc: Anoka Mn.
CHG_CANON wrote:
Other than just being unrealistic, the composite i... (show quote)
Who cares about the shadows, it’s a fantasy photo I didn’t even notice
Feb 8, 2023 16:52:02 #
davyboy wrote:
Who cares about the shadows, it’s a fantasy photo I didn’t even notice
Feb 8, 2023 16:52:29 #
Longshadow wrote:
Interesting, I perceived the shadow from the rocks as from the sun setting on the right.
Which I thought was quite obvious.
Which I thought was quite obvious.
Feb 8, 2023 17:43:23 #
dmagett wrote:
This is a composite. Foreground shot many years ago with a Canon S70. Moonshot taken recently with Canon SX60. Sky replacement (moon) done with Luminar. I am looking for opinions. BTW my camera club did not like it at all.
I agree with some of the comments that is certainly not realistic. Regardless I like what you have done. The only thing I would do is crop the bottom up until you eliminate the partial rock and it's shadow on the lower left. Of course you could easily clone it out also.
Feb 8, 2023 20:56:38 #
Feb 8, 2023 21:39:47 #
ELNikkor wrote:
non-photographers might love it
Guess I be a non-photo-grapher.
Maybe moreover the less persnickety?
Feb 9, 2023 17:27:37 #
Feb 9, 2023 17:36:57 #
dmagett wrote:
This is a composite. Foreground shot many years ago with a Canon S70. Moonshot taken recently with Canon SX60. Sky replacement (moon) done with Luminar. I am looking for opinions. BTW my camera club did not like it at all.
I do like it!
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