Shadow on nose rejection
 

https://www.railpictures.net/viewrej...34&key=8122305

I like this favorite from 2019 as is even if shot down for not enough nose light. Sorry to revisit this again, but it does seem that any shadow on the nose of a locomotive is a no-no. Yet RP will accept shots of trains with good nose light yet whole side of train is in shade. Other photos rejected like this are equally as popular as full nose light shots posted on my flickr. The last time I had such a rejection a very minor tweak saw the shot accepted by RP and it again was as popular as other shots of the train with arguably better nose light. I wonder if it really matters to most folks. Obviously it matters to RP. And it seems to matter more than it did. I've seen comments here that many photos in the database from years ago would likely suffer the same fate as mine if submitted today. To get back to the photo in question, I would be interested in techniques that can be effective for this situation. I shoot RAW and edit in DPP and PS Elements 11.

If the rejected image is no longer available here is the same image on my flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/158239...posted-public/

Another example (which is back-lit so no hope) - rejected a few days ago by RP https://www.railpictures.net/viewrej...88&key=7640544 but one of the most popular on my flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/158239...posted-public/

It is very frustrating and catches me off guard sometimes how it is applied and of course truly backlit photos are accepted. It does not make sense to me, the only thing I think of an artifact of the olden days in the US anyway when you took roster shots and there could be no shadows and should be sunny, 3/4 and with a 50mm lens.

However, that is the way it is, like you I have found other places for these shots and move on.

Bob

As I type this, among today's accepted offerings there are (as expected) "dark nose" "high sun" "dark trucks" and "going away" shots.
Oh, well. It's a private website and not a democracy.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/158239...posted-public/

RP rejection for having shadow from lights on the nose. I actually prefer this type of nose light as the headlights really being seen is a nice touch IMO. Many prefer steam trains back-lit for the steam effect and some like cloudy day shots, especially after rain, when the color of clean or freshly painted power is enhanced. I just think the rules are too rigid to even consider offering some of my photos which could spice up what I have posted so far. I tend to play it safe.

I have now updated my signature as it had link to my old flickr page.

Another one bites the dust...
 

https://www.railpictures.net/viewrej...03&key=9701750

Good enough for photogs following on my flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/158239...posted-public/

And another one:
 

Looks lit to me, although at a shallow angle. The screening queue late last night (east coast US time) was over 100, and I'm sure that whoever screened since then was making quick decisions to get through the backlog. If it was me, I would appeal, but that depends on whether you have made more than a few appeals in the past several months.

I agree on queue, in addition as I mentioned before, I am guessing without any inside info they have a target of daily accepted. Even with time on my hands I am only going to look at so many photos, even a quick look. Too many photos doesn't work for anyone????
Bob

John,

A couple things...

First, the side of this train looks like it is nicely lit. Why not take advantage of that and pull back from the tracks a bit, getting a little more side angle on the train and making the dark nose somewhat less obvious? Over the years, I've found that head-on photos of steam locomotives tend not to be very popular here. People want to see the overall configuration of the locomotive. They want to see the drivers and the running gear. From this particular angle, there's not that much to see. My advice....go wider. Stay away from the "down-the-throat" angle, if possible, PARTICULARLY if you're shooting backlit. The one possible exception is if you have an enormous exhaust plume to show off. That's not the case here.

Other things I notice on my display is that the roofs of the coaches look a bit blown out and the clouds also look a bit funky. I'm guessing that the dark nose wasn't the only issue, but the screener needed to hit a button and "backlit" was what you got.

Tops of the cars are blown out, the sky looks like it went through several botched attempts in photoshop, and the nose is somewhat darker than the rest of the scene.

I could have went with several rejections on this one.

Loyd L.

What can be done for blown out white on the cars? Yes the nose is too dark for RP. Going wider may have helped, as Kevin pointed, out but there wasn't time to do anything with the grass which would have bothered me more. Nowadays I take something to stand on. Nice website you have now by the way. I probably need to get interested in other subjects since not so much is happening here with trains now.

I'd suggest exposing for the white roofs and aiming about 1-2 stops lower then what you've been doing. In most cases it's easier to bring up the levels in the shadows then trying to bring back a blown area with no data.

Thank you! I'm happy to be out shooting nearly anything, especially since the traffic levels locally are so abysmal over the last couple years.

Loyd L.

Hi John,

I'd be curious as to what settings you have been shooting in bright sun and what your camera histograms look like? Typically, the only time I overexpose a bit is on cloudy days when the train is going to be dark. But when I say overexpose, I mean perhaps 2/3 of a stop, not 2-3 stops. :lol: A few blinkies on the LCD are fine for the actual shot, but if you are taking test shots, just make sure that darkening by a couple of clicks with the shutter or aperture will make them go away. If it doesn't, you are shooting too bright.

Typically, on a sunny day, I am anywhere from 1/640th at f/8 to 1/1000th at f/8 at ISO 200. Lately, I have been tending to shoot right in the middle of that range at 1/800th. I like a fast shutter, because my hands aren't the steadiest. Also, when I am shooting long telephoto (or close-up super wide-angle), I will jack the ISO to 400 most of the time to get a shutter speed of 1/1000th or greater. With most newer cameras, there's really no compromise in doing that.

Of course, all of this assumes you are shooting raw. Overexposure is fixable up to a couple of stops in raw, although I don't recommend pushing it too much. Overexposure on a JPEG relegates the image to the bit-bucket.

John is mining his old stuff and reaching down into second tier images? One of several:

[photoid=446971]

He already has the wider this and the other type so he went for the head-on submission. If we are going to judge exposure I think need to see original before talking exposure. If the original was clearly poorly exposed then not good candidate. Steam overall is not my thing and not an expert but this image we are basically going from 000 to 256 and this is going to be a problem no matter what we do?? The you add in the phobia of RP's dark nose and you have a big hill to climb.

My criterion for photos is first how interesting by subject, second how interesting the photo is by technique then how all bits 0's and 1' fall and lastly by arbitrary rules.

Bob

In processing (photoshop, in my case), I'll create a layer copy for processing the blown out sections. Then, using the shadow/highlights tool, tone down the highlights to retain some detail. After that, I'll create another layer copy and move that above the layer that I just used the highlights tool on. Next step is to create a layer mask, select the brush tool, and then remove the blown out sections of that layer with the one below it using the brush. Quite often I'll set the opacity of that brush around 20-30% and then brush it several times until I achieve the look I want. Then simply combine the two layers.

In Lightroom, you'd just create an Adjustment Brush and paint the area with the exposure issue. Then, you can adjust the parameters for that brush until the adjusted area looks right. With the brush, basically all parameters that you can mess with in Adobe Camera Raw are available.....plus a few more. It's a lot less work than layers in PS, and doesn't make the file huge. Not saying it is better.....just a different way of doing things.

I've had LR on my computer for several years but have never used it. Seeme a bit too complicated for my pea brain. :lol: That's why I prefer photoshop. :smile:

Quote:

In processing (photoshop, in my case), I'll create a layer copy for processing the blown out sections. Then, using the shadow/highlights tool, tone down the highlights to retain some detail. After that, I'll create another layer copy and move that above the layer that I just used the highlights tool on. Next step is to create a layer mask, select the brush tool, and then remove the blown out sections of that layer with the one below it using the brush. Quite often I'll set the opacity of that brush around 20-30% and then brush it several times until I achieve the look I want. Then simply combine the two layers.

Well Jim if LightRoom is more difficult there's no hope for me. I couldn't even get my head around PS Elements to learn layers. And no hope for this photo either it would seem; I saw that rejection as a killer. A hill too hard to climb as Rob says. I figure that if RP wanted it they wouldn't have rejected it for a dark nose. The car tops don't bother me at all so I won't play with it more. The substitute submission with frontal nose light was rejected for high sun despite taken 16:30 - light maybe too frontal. Perhaps I stick to diesel shots!

I've found lightroom to be a lot easier than photoshop, what you just explained using layers seems a lot more complicated. The file management and plugins available for posting in LR are also super useful. But that's just what works for me.

Amen to that! I think Lightroom is far more intuitive than Photoshop. And, as noted, the resulting files are a lot smaller in size. They both have their strengths and weaknesses, but on balance, I think Lightroom gives the photographer better tools to more quickly take the images from a photo shoot and get them fully processed. To me, the beauty of Lightroom is never having to SAVE anything. You can always quit and come back to an image later, and back out anything you previously did. The entire history of changes is there for you to see. No change is ever permanent until you export it to another format.

My 2 cents, I learned at JC on Bridge and PS and didn't see big advantage to learn LR.

Most editing of digital I do in Camera Raw which is same as Lightroom. PS is for finishing touches for basic photography
End result file should not be any size difference in PS or LR unless you maintain layers.??? Tiffs are always large, a 1600 jpg is a 1600 jpg, layers are eliminated.

Layers add to file size but are there as the non-destructive part and the "going back feature". Most people I assume when they reach a result flatten their image. However an image can be saved in PS format and the layers are preserved "forever" allowing one to go back even years later.

For me it not a better, never used LR so can''t judge.

Bob

Layers and masks are the easiest part of using photoshop (other than selecting auto features). I've been using photoshop for 15+ years and don't really have to think about what I'm going to do when processing an image. I know Lightroom has it's advantages, but it would be hard for me to give up the features in photoshop that I either don't exist or aren't as user friendly in LR.

The best thing I've found with lightroom is you don't have to give up those PS features up, it's all integrated. You can take advantage of the photo management features and do some editing in lightroom, but a simple right click and "edit in photoshop" will open up PS with the photo. You don't even have to save from there, when you close photoshop it will automatically save it back into lightroom right in the same location as the original.