Stormy Monument Valley (kind of)

Started by pokoy, April 23, 2014, 07:02:09 AM

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zaxxon

Pokoy, the angle of the light in the first image highlights the lower part of the mesa, and I agree that one is more effective then the other two where the upper portion of the terrain is lit more. Each one has the same bold and monumental composition, each has a sky that is one of those "oh my god look at that!" moments.  The Photo-shopped noise is not something I'm keen on, but certainly an individual choice.  As to whether one is more 'photoreal' and the others are 'painterly', you're the artist and have a vision in mind for what you want. From my view they could all be 'painterly' given the drama and contrast, or they could equally all be 'photoreal' and be 'capturing' that 'oh my god!' moment. However, Nature continues to trump my best efforts to differentiate the two  :). Here'a link to a painting by Wilson Hurley, that I think has a similar impact as your as your digital image:

http://artusa.com/product_details.php?id=9940

These are really fine images, I truly admire the artistry and hope you'll continue the theme!



DannyG

Atmo is a jaw dropper, great stuff
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choronr

A dramatic atmosphere combined with this terrain is superb. Earlier, Dune mentioned to try and attain a more irregular strata. Attached is a file created by FrankB that could break up the strata.

pokoy

#18
Thanks for the feedback, I really appreciate the vivid and friendly community here!

Zaxxon, that's a wonderful painting. Thanks for that, didn't know the painter and his work.

What I am going for, hence the term photo-real, is a believable atmosphere, and some drama of course. I don't think the image won't have the intended impact if it lacks natural (and photo-real) lighting and clouds. However, I totally agree when you say that 'photo-real' and 'natural' aren't necessarily the same thing.

I went back to the initial lighting, only need to do some tweaks on the foreground terrain, grass and rocks.

pokoy

So after tweaking (a lot) I finally found a way to make this more 'scenic', at least in my opinion. Not sure if I overdid the post production on this but it's hard to decide it's finished or too much already :)
I dismissed the idea of adding a tree and went for a dust layer instead to add a feel of a stormy atmosphere.

archonforest

Dell T5500 with Dual Hexa Xeon CPU 3Ghz, 32Gb ram, GTX 1080
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Dune

Agreed, very dramatic and powerful image.

zaxxon


inkydigit

A most excellent moody sky here, a great image!
well done!
:)
Jason

choronr


oldm4n

very dramatic and beautiful image :)

pokoy

Thank you all for the positive feedback!!

I'm not sure whether to continue polishing some minor things or to call it quits but I think I can lean back now and get back to working again ;)


Oshyan

Really great "ragged sky" effect, the latest image is all around excellent. And I much prefer it without the heavy grain. :D Btw, photographically speaking grain is usually largely monochrome. At high ISO you get more color noise, but the monochrome (luminosity channel) noise is still the majority.

- Oshyan

pokoy

'Ragged Sky' returns some interesting results when taken through a google image search - cool :)

As for the grain, as a former pre-press guy in the analog era, I really never came across a color film with monochrome grain, even those I can find on google now have all more or less colored grain. I agree however that it looks unnatural when it's too saturated. I used to desaturate grain in PS from 100% to 50%-60% but didn't on this image. What's more annoying, after having posted the image I realized my monitor desperately needs a calibration.