Tonalities of an Arch

[Andres Bonilla]

I took this photo in Nevada and I had in mind a B/W photo. I struggle a bit with the arch, I had it as a complete silhouette and several versions of the arch with the shadows more opened. My NEC monitor is very bright and I need to recalibrate it because I noticed that the photos looks darker in my office computer.
What do you think of the play between shadows and highlights? Any suggestions?

Thanks,

Andres

[Tim Gray]

How does it look in print?  I think it would be a bit much with the arch completely silhouette - on my monitor I'm thinking the shadows could be opened up even a bit more.   In any event I think there's good promise here.

[Andres Bonilla]

Thanks Tim, you are always very helpful. I have not printed this file, the reason being is that I think that I need to understand much better profiles and soft printing. Right now there is a huge difference between my monitor and my printer, actually between my monitor and a lot of other people's monitors. My NEC is extremely bright, I am at my office now and some of the details in the shadows look solid black. I bought a colormiter that would profile my scanner, my monitor and my printer. When I come back from vaction I will profile my system.

Thansk again,

Andres

[Lisa Nikodym]

I like it.  However, I'd like it more if the dark arch and foreground rock were made a little brighter, so one can see more of the interesting texture in them.  The way it is now, one has to really search to see it, and I think it's worth emphasizing it more.  Other than those parts, it works well for me.

Lisa

[pobrien3]

I love it - beautiful textures in the rock counterpointing the bright clouds and light rays.  The arch is perhaps lacking in texture a little too much, and the large areas at the bottom look blocked up and could probably be cropped away - I find they draw the eye away from the main subject.  I'd also crop the left side away a little to remove the distraction on the upper left edge.  There also appears to be an area of deep shadow in the bottom right corner that may not pull out without noise becoming apparent.  I've tried a very slight shadow lift and re-crop to maintain your original ratio, though I think it would look better in a more square format with more aggressive cropping of the blocked blacks at the bottom.  Nice job though - good to see a different take on an old standard!

[Andres Bonilla]

I like it.  However, I'd like it more if the dark arch and foreground rock were made a little brighter, so one can see more of the interesting texture in them.  The way it is now, one has to really search to see it, and I think it's worth emphasizing it more.  Other than those parts, it works well for me.

Lisa
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Thanks Lisa, I still struggle converting from my original Adobe RGB file to the sRGB jpeg I posted. I am back at my office and yes the shadows look deeper than at home. I used to shoot film and my scanner was sRGB and my crt monitor wasn't as bright, now that I went digital and have a new monitor, there are differences between what I see at home and what I see on different monitors. The left side of the photo is quite dark in this monitor. Some of the subtle detail in the arch is gone. I am reading about profiling now, hopefully I'll be able to understand something

[Andres Bonilla]

I love it - beautiful textures in the rock counterpointing the bright clouds and light rays.  The arch is perhaps lacking in texture a little too much, and the large areas at the bottom look blocked up and could probably be cropped away - I find they draw the eye away from the main subject.  I'd also crop the left side away a little to remove the distraction on the upper left edge.  There also appears to be an area of deep shadow in the bottom right corner that may not pull out without noise becoming apparent.  I've tried a very slight shadow lift and re-crop to maintain your original ratio, though I think it would look better in a more square format with more aggressive cropping of the blocked blacks at the bottom.  Nice job though - good to see a different take on an old standard!
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Thanks Probrien, my other question was going to be about cropping but you already gave a great alternative, this is the full  frame shot. You are right about the right corner when I try to open the shadows ugly noise creeped in right away, I liked the shadows better anyway. Thanks for the input!

Andres