too dark??

Wonka001 · 07-04-2006, 01:53 AM

Okay this one kind of baffles me, I got a reject (night picture) for being too dark, look at the picture..
http://www.railpictures.net/viewreject.php?id=263937
what we have here is a NS (black) at night.. picture would naturally be a little dark but the detail to me is striking and very much there, what's too dark about it? any ideas?

It's not that often I see NS Power in Salt Lake..

bnsf sammy · 07-04-2006, 02:03 AM

I don't think it is too dark, and I think you should appeal. I really like the blue night sky, it adds a very dramatic touch to the photo. Very nice work!

fuente1 · 07-04-2006, 03:26 AM

That is a cool picture, the sky adds a mood to it. As for the NS power, please take it all to Salt Lake! We have enough black engines around here.

Warren · 07-04-2006, 03:33 AM

Nice shot it would get one of my peoples choice votes if it were in the database. You should appeal.

hoydie17 · 07-04-2006, 04:28 AM

Looks like the reason they're saying that it's too dark has to do more with the lack of contrast. If you look closely, you really can't distinguish where the front facade of the nose ends and the short hood starts. I can't pick out the windshield on the left side.

All of these and others are just the little things that add up and make the image seem very dark overall. I think if this had been something other than a BLACK unit it would have worked alot better.

The sky does look really nifty though!

Sean

Switched out · 07-04-2006, 05:25 AM

I think you could also trim some of the dead space around the outside of the photo mainly from the bottom and a bit from each side.

Tweak the exposure a little and dial in some contrast you should come out with a nice shot.

Cheers,

Christine.

Ween · 07-04-2006, 05:38 AM

The number boards look a little blurry...but my eyes are stressed...

dodi4200 · 07-04-2006, 05:39 AM

for me the pic is great.but it need to be cropped about half the distance from right and left.also its unleveled and need to be leveled to the left.

Christopher Muller · 07-04-2006, 01:40 PM

On my laptop monitor, I can see where the hood starts, windshield is crisp. Number boards are a lot more clear than some of the day shots that have recently been added. IMO, it meets the standards of RP.net (even for night shots). The only thing I dislike is the angle and the. The other thing, the numberboards are a little bright, but with the walkway light being on, any additional exposure would have been to bright in this area. Aside from the angle, I think this photo is worthy of an appeal, at least I would appeal it.

Joe the Photog · 07-05-2006, 03:04 PM

Saying that it is a night shot of a black engine doesn't automatically mean the shot has to look this dark. It just looks underexposed. There's little difference between the engine and the surrondings. This was a legit reject. I also would have cropped this one vertically instead of horizontally.

Joe H.

Andrew Blaszczyk (2) · 07-05-2006, 04:08 PM

Like was said take this into an editing program and brighten it up a tad and keep the contrast even not to overexpose it. Did you explain to the screener that if you had left the shutter open longer the cloud formation woul dnot have come out the same? I'd fix it up and send it again. Did you take any other angles while it was sitting there?

Donna · 07-05-2006, 11:18 PM

Too funny.

Joe the Photog · 07-06-2006, 12:14 AM

How about this as a good place to start? Nothing too fancy here, just a little auto enhance and color coorection, then brightness/contrast and sharpening in Elements 2.0 Took longer to open the program than it did to work on the shot.

Compare

Contrast

Ween · 07-06-2006, 02:17 AM

Nice, but it really brings out the noise and pixelation...

Joe the Photog · 07-06-2006, 03:19 AM

It's a start. Actually, if he has the uncompressed original, we all know that would be the better version to work from. The version he uploaded was roughly 248K and after getting saved, then worked on and reloaded to the web, there was bound to be a lot of degeneration.

Mainly, I was hoping to show the difference that I saw in being dark and being too dark.

Joe

Wonka001 · 07-06-2006, 03:37 AM

I'll play around with it some more tonight, thanks for the ideas, I'll see if I can make it more better than what it is.. I know this one has potential, I did get some other angle shots but they didn't work out well because I didn't have my tripod, I set my camera on a pile of gravel sitting smack dab in front of the loco and moved rocks around to get it straight, I did check the horizon, it is level, if you look at the tall pole to the right and the short one to the left they are slightly tilted seperate ways. The train is close enough to being level I won't do much to that one.

edit:
I can't seem to get my white stripes to turn white without ruining the whole picture, I use Corel Photopaint here if anyone knows anything about it.