Too Dark?

[Y@]

Rejected twice for being too dark, and I'm afraid if I lighten it anymore it will be too blown out. Suggestions?

See a couple posts down...

[A No.1]

http://www.RailPictures.net/members/pho ... erid=38796

Rejected twice for being too dark, and I'm afraid if I lighten it anymore it will be too blown out. Suggestions?

I suggest you post the link to the rejected photo. LoL.

[Y@]

WTF. Stupid iPod.

http://www.RailPictures.net/viewreject. ... =821221150

[CSX_CO]

The blues on the ex CEFX and Conrail unit look too dark. Those CEFX units didn't have that dark of a blue color, and most Conrail units aren't that dark blue anymore.

Practice Safe CSX

[A No.1]

This is where you have to get good with Masking. Brighten up the train and the buildings but not the sky or the snow.

[Y@]

This is where you have to get good with Masking. Brighten up the train and the buildings but not the sky or the snow.

Aaron what's your email man? I'll let you take a crack at it...I'm not the best editor out there.

[A No.1]

Sending you a PM

[A No.1]

BTW, JT IS THE MAN! But Ill see what I can help you with.

[A No.1]

WELL Y@ Let me know what you think, I dont really know what color those units are supposed to be.

[conrailmike]

Stop relying on Photoshop and learn how to properly expose a scene like this.

[MDH]

WELL Y@ Let me know what you think, I dont really know what color those units are supposed to be.

Here's a sunny daytime shot of one of those blue units to give you an idea of what they look like under full sun. As you can see, a little lighter, brighter shade of blue.

http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=331976

[A No.1]

OOOOOPS, I think Y@'s Glow in the dark now. LoL. Maybe he can tone it down a bit. He will have to post the photo here, I didn't want to put it on line for him.

[Y@]

WELL Y@ Let me know what you think, I dont really know what color those units are supposed to be.

Here's a sunny daytime shot of one of those blue units to give you an idea of what they look like under full sun. As you can see, a little lighter, brighter shade of blue.

http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=331976

Not to mention that it's the same one!

[gtwhogger]

Stop relying on Photoshop and learn how to properly expose a scene like this.

Here is a true statement that I am a firm believer in !

Aaron and I have become friends here the past couple months and him and I have talked about this very subject, I posted on RP in the past and what they used to accept then is totally out the window now on RP! I started learning how to shoot with that funny rolled up plastic looking stuff on a spool, I think they call it ? what is the word Im looking for...... oh yea film, and I started with a Kodak 828 it was half the size of 120, smaller than 35mm but it was great stuff then then I went with a Roliflex my dad gave me when I was 13 and graduated to a 35mm at 17 with a Nikon and Minolta SRT202 and I learned the expensive way and by trial and era over the years to learn exposure and lighting and MANUAL SETTINGS, with these cameras, today everyone seems to be getting Digital cameras and using high MP point and shoots or Canon Rebels, Nikon D 3000's, etc... and wind up just using the Program Priority mode (P) and get the great pictures to some extent and lo and behold instant dark rooms in the palm of your hands, but so many people have jumped on this digital band wagon and started to post photos on all the rail sites, and also in the regular photography world on those forums and sites that it has become in my opinion a "DULL and Ho Hum" world of photos that they all seem to be a cookie cutter clone of the next persons photo, and now with software available to the average shooter like Elements, everyone started to tweak there pictures and add color that don't exist in the real photo even when the units were brand new out of LaGrange/London or GE and everyone is starting to forget there roots and have completely relied on digital image enhancement!

Now with that said take a look at RP and I have look at 99% of the photos on there and I have a first hand knowledge of this because I am a professional railroader for CN(GTW) and I see these units up close everyday of my life for the past 30 years and I see some photos of people I know and from within a day or two of the photo being posted on RP or others and I will have had that consist or use it just before or after and frankly I don't remember ever going through a nuclear reactor with the power to make them glow that bright with the reds, blacks, yellows etc... and most of the units other than brand spanking new are filthy dirty and dull finish, so it has become as RP moderators have told me before on my rejected photos "Lifeless, Dull, Not Interesting etc..." because I shoot true to life photos of everyday working locomotives that haven't seen a bath in months, but I will see the same unit from some other submitter and the locomotive consist looks like it was just painted with neon paint, then I see newer books come out with 1970's photos and for example a GTW or ConRail locomotive painted in NAVY BLUE and the Brightest RED ORANGE paints you will ever see.

Photo manipulation has gone to the extent to were it is not a photo anymore rather a Graphic Artist interpretation of advertisement ads or something for a Hollywood production on a $40,000,000 Cartoon from PIXAR? and to have a Moderator tell me that a photo is to dark or underexposed because someone chose to photoshop the same photo and blow all the exposure over then turn around and remask the photo with other bits of another exposure to bring it back into perspective but making the buildings in the background glow in the dark more brilliant than it's true color or what available light sheds on the structures or subject with out added flash or extra lighting to make the shot happen is in my opinion NOT PHOTOGRAPHY! don't get me wrong I have to hand to people who can manipulate there photos like that but when is enough, enough? I am not pointing fingers at anyone and belittle them, heck I never spent the time to do the manipulation but in my book it's not photography and I choose to try to make it happen with proper exposure and use some light assisting with flash or flood lights and I use this knowledge over the years that I learned to make a photo happen in a more true to life rendering than a Artsie Fartsie lets go enter this photo in the New York Pop culture world and see how much some Lawyer will pay for it and hang it up in there flat?

I get turned down all the time by RP and I get angry for there reasons because I have been shooting photos since I was 5 and I am 56 now and I do shoot portraits and weddings and never had to render a photo for my clients to look like a glowing neon billboard, but with the digital age yes I do sharpen a little bit but when I used film I did the same in the darkroom with cleaning up soft looking photos but never had to deepen the Contrast to a point that all the detail in the dark ares that was visible to the naked eye and on the original photo has now become lost in so much contrast and Vibrancy adjustments, or the shot is so much over sharpened that if you did want to enlarge the photo above RP's requirement of nothing larger than 1024 pixels that you would see so much distortion from it being over sharpened that the photo is useless.

This reply is not intended to hurt anyones feelings or to tell anyone here that they are not a photographer but in my opinion is that the whole RP site has made standards completely out of reach to a true photograph and what the photo may hold to the best and most close to exact copy of the subject it was captured as, so the signal has been lost as far as what has been to what is now to what will be in the further of "What is a true photograph"?

So part of my self anger is not that RP has turned me down but why and it is a site that doesn't care to preserve history but to show off your skills in rendering a photo to be pleasing to the eye and what the eye sees on an electronic screen that enhances a photo even more brilliantly than what the human eye can see, I calibrate my Monitor, Scanner, Printer and Cameras all together using true color palettes to be able to reproduce the colors as close to as possible what the human being can see, so anyone who uses RP to use as a bench mark for there future photo skills is being steered into a world of make believe and not the true sense of what the real world is like?

OK I have probably put everyone to sleep now so I will stop my rant.

Stan

[gtwhogger]

BTW way sorry if anyone has the stamina to read my post above that I am not the best at grammar, or punctuation, so some of my sentences may be a bit difficult to read, sorry.

[J T]

Stan, I agree with a lot of what you are saying, however we must all remember that a camera's sensor can not capture the same dynamic range of light that the human eye sees, no matter how perfect the exposure is. Therefore, boosting shadows and muting highlights is often necessary to bring an image as close to what WE see with our own eyes. Unfortunately, some (well, a lot) of people tend to overdo it, boosting the saturation, shadows and highlights to levels that make the image look more like a painting.

Regardless of how perfect one thinks they have the exposure on a shot, the current technology in digital cameras will NOT accurately reproduce what the human eye sees. Hence, SOME sort of processing often necessary...but moderation is definitely the key.

[MDH]

Not to mention that it's the same one!

That's hilarious! I hadn't even noticed - go figure. Guess NS likes using that one 'round here!

I think I already said it but nice job on those Y@. A little under-exposed (that weather's hard to work with!) but probably 'saveable'.

Michael

[gtwhogger]

Stan, I agree with a lot of what you are saying, however we must all remember that a camera's sensor can not capture the same dynamic range of light that the human eye sees, no matter how perfect the exposure is. Therefore, boosting shadows and muting highlights is often necessary to bring an image as close to what WE see with our own eyes. Unfortunately, some (well, a lot) of people tend to overdo it, boosting the saturation, shadows and highlights to levels that make the image look more like a painting.

Regardless of how perfect one thinks they have the exposure on a shot, the current technology in digital cameras will NOT accurately reproduce what the human eye sees. Hence, SOME sort of processing often necessary...but moderation is definitely the key.

J T, yes I do agree to some extent, but I also have to disagree also to the fact that it is the same for film, we could go on and on with the differences in Kodachrome 25, 64, 100, 200, etc..., then Fugi Provia 50, 100 etc..., and Original Ektachrome to the new formula and that you will see dramatic changes between all groups as well as just the ASA differences within the same group, the same holds true with the visual differences between today's digital cameras and DSLR's with just in the sensors offered by one manufacture may change from model to model as well as the same model within the same year may lose a contract or supplier of sensors and change companies supplying them, so it is impossible to get true renderings from person to person or product to product, my concern is that if you have to manipulate a file(photo) into what I'm seeing on for example RP is that these photos will never be visually correct because of there software usage when they recieve a submission is not what I see on my monitor and when it goes through there system and comes back as a rejection I see the colors have changed, backlighting is different etc..., but when I send the photo to someone else I see what I sent and this is from different computer systems my Mac to a PC, so I'm thinking something is wrong with RP?

Like I stated is that I calibrate all my gear, and as well submit to others and never had more fussy people as clients ever complain of my saleable work and been scrutinized by professionals still shrug there shoulders as to why they at RP rejects some of the shots that should have been posted, het it's there game, and I don't care, but the simple truth is that these pushed colors and contrasting is not photography to the stand point of preserving the shot, when you change the colors and lighting to make it a RP shot you have changed the photo beyond the plausable reality of a documented photo, I see tons of photos on there that just lost all it's detail and color to the point that you might as well have picked up a brush and oils and started laying colors down on a canvas, I am not telling anyone you can't do it that way but it sure isn't what photography is all about, it's to capture the moment and memory of that moment, I don't take the photo for the intent that I am on purpose going to take that photo to only work with it in Photoshop to be only accepted on a site such as RP?

And as far as my cameras go I can take my prints and compare them in a bright sunny day to the actual subject and only the subtlest of change can be detected in tones and color all without changing it Photoshop, and I never made the changes internally in the cameras to offset colors, I shoot NEF(RAW) files in 14 bit and have never been turned down by a client or challenged for oh my dress doesn't look like that color of my face looks orange what did you do?
Well sorry miss I think your eyes should pop more of a darker blue, this is not how true life is, but if that is what you like a photo to look like then go commercial arts?

Yes I also realize that RP is RailPictures.net and doesn't say RailPhotographs.net but don't tell me I have to change my photo to match someone elses version that happened to be shot in Humidity less SouthWestern United States and that no cloud was in the sky and the sun was perfectly 35-40 degrees up from horizon, this is what I'm getting at on the photograph is not going to be the same as someone elses even if the conditions are the same on a different day, it is turned into a artful representation when the color is pushed way past the actual color is, I'm sorry but when I see most war bonnet ATSF units on RP they never in a million years ever looked that good that the red or silver looked like it was painted in Emron and 30 coats of clear on it, only Hot Rods in an auto show look that good. lol

These points can be argued over and over and no one idea will be correct or opinion, it is as I stated on my first post is that this is my opinion, and I don't fault anyone to go that way with photos but for a true sence of capturing the history I'm still a firm believer in being able to control the lighting in the use of the camera and positioning the camera to take charge of how that photo is recorded and preserved .

[J T]

my concern is that if you have to manipulate a file(photo) into what I'm seeing on for example RP is that these photos will never be visually correct because of there software usage when they recieve a submission is not what I see on my monitor and when it goes through there system and comes back as a rejection I see the colors have changed, backlighting is different etc..., but when I send the photo to someone else I see what I sent and this is from different computer systems my Mac to a PC, so I'm thinking something is wrong with RP?

No, nothing is wrong with RP from that extent. My photos look exactly the same whether I upload them to RP, photobucket or the rrfan gallery.

For instance, first one uploaded to photobucket, the second one to RP:






They look identical, so I don't understand this technical issue you're having with RP.

I also don't understand how you can have an issue with RP as a whole because a handful of people who submit there choose to overprocess their images. This definitely isn't unique with RP. I'm sure a LOT of people process the hell of pics on flickr and any other photo hosting site as well. This is just the way it is in the world of photography today, and RP certainly can't be blamed for any of it.

RP is a privately owned site, and the owners of that site can run it any way they choose. NO ONE is being forced to submit photos there. If someone doesn't like the guidelines they choose to set for THEIR site, then they are free to post their pictures on countless other sites.

[A No.1]

JT, You and I have both stated in the past that the uploaded versions of our shots are less vibrant than what we see in photo shop or windows explorer.

I think we have threads about that in here someplace.