Hidden Gems

This is so beautiful, and quite amazing that you recovered all that color from the original. Just love it. Quite a reminder to keep looking since it was the only one that came out this way.

Reminds me of stained glass Tony. Beautiful. Love the kaleidoscope of color. BTW - first post for me.

While I like what you did with this (It does look like Hopi or Navaho Jewelry), I like the RAW image better.
I like the subtle silver and muted color a lot.
Nice eye for this....

yes, reminds me of the stained glass.

Great job bring out those colours in such a beautiful manner.

I really like your version of this tree. Wonderful colours.

D&L

Nice capture, Tony. It will be no surprise to you that I find the saturation a bit too heavy for my tastes. Beyond believable? Well, yeah.

I think the raw file with a nice S curve would yield some stunning results, too.

Just want to be clear that the colors here are not highly saturated. Saturation adjustments were used to bring out the colors, but the overall color saturation is still quite low. The saturation map (above) of the final image (where a fully saturated color would be white) shows only dark grays and almost black.

And maybe I should clarify "believable." It doesn't mean that you believe you could actually see this were you standing there. I already said this is not what I saw, but what the camera saw. "Believable" is used in the sense that these colors are natural in this setting. The greens are reflected from the surrounding forest, the blues are reflected from the open sky, and the reds and yellows are inherent in the deeper, unburned wood. By bringing out natural colors I feel there is a believability in the results that would be missing were the colors transformed into something like purple and pink . . . or over-saturated.

I prefer the first image Tony but also like the second. The colors and patterns of colors and shapes in the first remind me of Georges Braque's Cubist paintings.

I don't know what "believable" means in this context. How believable is any two dimensional electronic representation of a four dimensional human experience? (smile) When I saw the image, I immediately recognized it as an image of a charred tree trunk. It's certainly believable in that sense. It's also believable to me in the same sense that my favorite black and white images are believable.

I like the first image a lot and I also like the second because of the comp and textures. If I had a choice as to which one to frame and hang on my wall for daily viewing, it would certainly be the first though.

pat

Tony: As an admitted and unrepentant color junkie I really like what you did with the posted version. I also like the RAW capture. Good vision to see this in the first place and great work on the processing. >=))>

Tony, be assured that I very much respect your work and your techniques. Our differences lie merely in our personal tastes and what works for us individually, in this case our very personal tastes on saturation.

I also have a difference in the way I define believable. To me, believable means that I stand a reasonable chance of seeing those colors when I am out in the field. It does not mean to ME that traces of those colors are picked up by film or a sensor and then saturated to make them very visible. To me, your image is not believable by my definition, but that has no bearing on its artistic merits.

I don't always go with believable in my own work. As Pat points out, B&W is not a representation of reality (or therefore believable), but I still shoot B&W film and convert color files to B&W.

I consider our differences in opinions to be healthy. It means we present very different artistic interpretations in the presentation of our work. Neither of us are interested in literal views of scenes we photograph. We just take our images in different directions.

So hopefully I have not offended you, but if I did, my apologies.

Cheers,

Harley

I think this is really cool as originally posted, Tony. I have zero interest in the debate concerning the amount of latitude an artist decides in the presentation of an image. What is the most important thing in my mind is how good is it and this is very good. Kudos' on your interpretation, Love it.

Tony, I really like the way this looks. I think the larger this one is the better and better it would get. The colors are wonderful and the shapes and textures look great to me. Very cool image.

Nick Bristol
Lone Rock, WI

Most certainly not offended, Harley. Your comments made it possible for me to add some additional information, and I appreciate that opportunity. Also forces me to think about what I say and how I say it, which is always a good exercise.

Beautiful job bringing out all that wonderful color. The original is an interesting image but your processing really makes it sing.

Grat textures and detail and I also love the colors. This is simply gorgeous

I realize the color in the OP is an artistic choice, Tony, but for myself, I think something between the OP and the RAW file would work well, too.

I have photographed a lot of char, and like you I can see the color of the surrounding environment reflected in the sheen when I'm in the field. However, I prefer a more understated look. I do like the composition of your image.

--P

A very graphic look at an ordinary piece of charcoal wood or log here, Tony. I like the outcome overall.......

This is simply beautiful, Tony. Color saturation is so often used for wow factor to get an image noticed but in this instance I think you have drawn the line perfectly. The first thing I noticed is none of the colors seemed to be clipped and your sat map shows this to be true. The colors may be largely hidden from our perception but that is an evolutionary condition particular to humans. We are all biased by the way our individual brains interpret the reflection of light from objects, but for my brain this image sings.

Natural looking or not, I think this is a excellent pic and would look great on a wall.

Wow, Tony, a stained glass tree! Very cool. The colors and pattern are great here and there a fine sense of movement from the strong diagonals.

This image is amazing for many purposes Tony.

1.) It is visually stunning to take in with the array of colors and lines.

2.)This is sparks healthy ideas and discussion on what photography is to the individual artist, and I think that it is wonderful to discuss different points of view, and understand where the other is coming from.

3.) This image shows what is possible in a world of light, and thank you for your vision Tony!!

i'm not averse to your interpretation although there are some things that i might have done differently! for example, I might have reduced the saturation of the reds and oranges in the some of the areas; I might have reduced saturation and burning to the left edge. personal tweaks. still, good vision to this and i have always wondered about the colours that one could pull from such a scene.