Ok looking for a " grade " on my pixs....

hey gang,
 Ok, if you can PLEASE be a little kind  . I have a NikonD40 and a new editing program and here are the results. I hope you enjoy....

PLL

They looked good for what I could see,    .but unfortunately I don't have a 42" monitor. 

Yeah Stoney I just resized them... sorry

PLL

I will give you an " A " John.

I'll make it an A+. There was one that's not there now that I liked. It was green plants framing a door that had a greenish tint to it and I think the shingles were wood shakes with a bit of moss.   

hey Stoney,
 I think this is the one you were asking about....



 I guess I forgot to add that one before, here's another one I liked



and one last one....Vallecito Stage Station



Thankx for looking
PLL

 

Truly beautiful PLL...I love the subjects you used for the photos of course and they look like staged shots they are so well put together.  Thanks so much for sharing them with us! 

I must say my favorite one is the second one. they are ALL very well done. you certainly have an eye for composition and structure. I am an amateur and i try hard to compose the rite picture. i dont use an expensive camera so its a bit harder but im always on the lookout for the right shot in the right moment in time. i love the effects you use, it gives to the image something that you cant see buy yet is right in front of you. Great job and thanks for sharing A++
check my profile and look at some of my humble attempts at photography.

On the second one, maybe get in ahead of the tree, but use a much wider lens to still capture it all.   Everything else was great.

Great pics! Enjoy your D40... It's a very nice camera. 

Dear Pegleglooker;
Absolutely wonderful shots, my friend. I prefer for my B&W shots have a more street shot feel to them but your pics are excellent! Kepp up the wonderful work!
Your friend;
LAMAR

 You guys are GREAT!!!! Thx for all the feedback..

PLL

very very very very very very good! wonderful eye. impressive. keep up the good work!

Yes, yes yes Peg...very nice, But still, as a fellow shooter, I would like to ask if you can get back to the subject and take another shot of the third photo.   Get in closer, without the tree-frame, but open up real wide if you have a lens that can do it.   I would love to see the results.

Very nice....A+ very creative..

Remember when you'd use a Nikormat or other 35mm camera loaded with B/W film and the look you could get in the darkroom using soft or hard papers, or dodging, or flash-lighting the paper in the trays to reverse the silvered images...

Not sure that a photographer can obtain the same results with todays camera images and photoshop...

Overall I absolutley love the composition and manipulation of your pics.

I'd like to see them sharper, that would be my only complaint.
I'd give a grade of 93/100.
Play around with the camera settings a little and you'll be "right there" in no time. IMHO.

Some are edited too heavily for my taste, but some look pretty good. How about mine?

http://www.bigdphoto.com/Art/HDR-Hi...ange/11956002_sw8G2#847021297_wxUsL

Look good overall.  I would just watch your exposure carefully (whether in the raw image or in editing), as there are a few areas where your whites tend to wash out a little.  Even if you are going for a high key look, make sure you dont "lose" the white color by overexposing and end up with "empty" space.  If you see any pixelation in your whites(and not in your other colors), you have lost the actual image color. 
Brad

I'm still stuck on that third photo, which was great, but get rid of the tree frame.  Then use a wider lens...     I would think that it would then be the best photo I've ever seen!!!!

Hay PLL They look good, And that's coming from a pro! I do fine art photography sometimes referred to as GICLEE images. I use Elements6 and Painter 9.5. Did you do the vignetting or was that a tight filter ring? What softwear do you use. Some of the filters look like Photoshop Elements. The house looks like a comfortable hideaway.

OK I personally think that most of these would've looked better in sepia or b&w. The old stuff looks better in sepia to me. The train was lacking color. Now I am a professional wildlife photographer and don't do a lot of buildings but when I have what you  have I do them in sepia, just remember that is just my opinion.

Looks like you are having a good time with your new editing program. Which one is it? Some of those images would look good in sepia toning. That is a brown toning.  I do fine art photography and sepia is selling now. It is also great for seans of old places in mags.       Have fun, Frank

Hi Gang,
 If you would like to see some GREAT pixs check out this link http://dezertmagazine.com/current-issue click on the picture and check out the magazine.....

Thx
PLL

No matter what I click on, I get the same 4 picture slide show!

I am far from an expert on photo-editing. I do spend a lot of time with old family pictures, repairing serious damage, photos as far back as 1890.  I use Gimp, a free editor, different from Photoshop but powerful enough that it is sometimes used in professional shops, available for Windows and Linux.

I know nothing about Photoshop. Linux has some good plugins. My favorite is RESTORE.  The color change of kodak prints over time and exposure to light is known. The plugin lets you set the degree of color fade, and then automatically adjusts the appropriate colors to compensate for that degree of fade.  For a klutz like me it's a God send.

In the US, vignettes I am told are usually black, here in Mexico they prefer white vignettes.  Also, Mexican women are gaga over sepia portraits, though GIMP has its own shade of sepia, which you will see below.

The following photo was a badly damaged picture postcard of a small Mexican mountain town in 1908.  I am a newbie, so this fix took me all day and into the night. I am retired, so it is a labor of love, so to speak, a donation to the community.  But, the local cultural director was very pleased.  I told her it was a fraud. The missing body parts at the left, I copied and pasted from other men. She said it wasn't a fraud because she couldn't tell. I told her, no, it's just a good fraud. I gave it to her 10X15 for display at cultural presentations.

I made it sepia because I don't know how to fix those washed out areas which are a totally different color, and sepia tends to minimize the differences.  Any ideas?

An additional thought from a klutz to OP.

Yes, you can do all sorts of effects on photos with these new editors.  You did a great job on them.

The next step, which I also need to learn, if I am even capable of learning it, is to develop a sense for when those effects are artistically appropriate.  In some venues and with some photos,some effects are appropriate; in others, not. But, I think you are correct in learning those effects early.

I am reminded what an excellent lady told me years ago about perfume. She said most women use far too much. Perfume should be almost subconscious to others, not choking. A drop on a finger and tap it on one breast; another drop on a finger and tap it on an ear lobe, and that's it.  Men will not even notice the perfume. They will just get a feeling as it were of something nice about her which is the goal of perfume, not to knock a man down. 

Pegleg, I really really really like pics 2,4,6,and 8.. I like the post processing .. very nice stuff, seems like your doing really good with that D40!