Photo for printing-colour or B&W

Wailin

I'm going to get the below photo printed and wall mounted in a frame. Before I do I would like opinions on whether to go with colour or B&W. Also, would you be happy with the framing or should I crop it (take out more of the beach?) and make it more landscape? Any other points to improve before printing would be appreciated.

Glendalough by Tony, on Flickr
Glendalough by Tony, on Flickr

Cheers folks.

toe_knee

It would have to be colour for me

Whammy!

I would go with colour, but my own personal preference is different to yours so I would change a few things.

Things that jump out to me are;
Contrast looks a bit to harsh for the delicate vibe of the photo.
The mountains in the background lack definition. I know they are in mist but it is possible to give them more definition without taking away from the mist look.
Over all the colour balance isn't very synergetic. I would adjust the hues slightly to complement the girls top. Make if feel like she is apart of the scene.
The whole photo just needs to be more airy and softer for the delicate vibe it is portraying.
Also the sharpening could be improved a little bit. It's good, but could be a little bit better. It will make the difference if you are printing out big.

Some of what I said probably doesn't make much sense and I probably over think things :pac:
If you want I can put my wording into practice and show you the changes I would make before print?

Oh yeah, framing looks good to me

Wailin

Whammy! wrote: »

I would go with colour, but my own personal preference is different to yours so I would change a few things.

Things that jump out to me are;
Contrast looks a bit to harsh for the delicate vibe of the photo.
The mountains in the background lack definition. I know they are in mist but it is possible to give them more definition without taking away from the mist look.
Over all the colour balance isn't very synergetic. I would adjust the hues slightly to complement the girls top. Make if feel like she is apart of the scene.
The whole photo just needs to be more airy and softer for the delicate vibe it is portraying.
Also the sharpening could be improved a little bit. It's good, but could be a little bit better. It will make the difference if you are printing out big.

Some of what I said probably doesn't make much sense and I probably over think things :pac:
If you want I can put my wording into practice and show you the changes I would make before print?

Oh yeah, framing looks good to me

Excellent Whammy, the type of input I was looking for. I could send you a link to a tiff file of the photo on dropbox or something?

Whammy!

I can just grab if off your flickr

Wailin

Whammy! wrote: »

I can just grab if off your flickr

Go ahead! :pac:

Whammy!

It may not be to your taste, but this is what I meant by airy/soft

Wailin

Whammy! wrote: »

It may not be to your taste, but this is what I meant by airy/soft

Cheers Whammy, i do like the enhancements in the background scenery and the light beams stand out a lot more. Maybe just a little too much of a green hue for my taste but a big improvement. So what did you do?!

Whammy!

Wailin wrote: »

Cheers Whammy, i do like the enhancements in the background scenery and the light beams stand out a lot more. Maybe just a little too much of a green hue for my taste but a big improvement. So what did you do?!

Well I won't go into the colour enhancements :P but the main steps I did that brought out some clarity was as follows...

I gave the tone curve a S curve which usually results in high contrast. But the over all highs are pulled down and lows pushed up.
This helps to retain details in those areas, but gives a softer look compared to a standard S curve.
I also pulled down the Contrast slider to help with keeping subtle details.



As for Sharpening (using Lightroom) I had the Radius set to 1,6 and Detail at 75.
Then depending on the photo I adjust the amount to taste. I tend to be a little aggressive with it.
I shy away from using the Masking tool unless it brings up unwanted noise. The photo was at 100 iso so there was no such issue.

How big are you going to print the photo?

Wailin

Whammy! wrote: »

Well I won't go into the colour enhancements :P but the main steps I did that brought out some clarity was as follows...

I gave the tone curve a S curve which usually results in high contrast. But the over all highs are pulled down and lows pushed up.
This helps to retain details in those areas, but gives a softer look compared to a standard S curve.
I also pulled down the Contrast slider to help with keeping subtle details.



As for Sharpening (using Lightroom) I had the Radius set to 1,6 and Detail at 75.
Then depending on the photo I adjust the amount to taste. I tend to be a little aggressive with it.
I shy away from using the Masking tool unless it brings up unwanted noise. The photo was at 100 iso so there was no such issue.

How big are you going to print the photo?

Thanks Whammy. I have some other prints on the wall at 450mm by 300mm so it will probably be roughly the same size, possibly smaller but not bigger. So not too big that it will be noisy or over sharpened unless I go ballistic!

CabanSail

This is my take on this image. I quite liked the original colours but felt the sky was too pale and the sand too bright and distracting. Unfortunately working from a jpeg there is banding in the sky.

Wailin

Thanks Cabansail. I found it hard to get colour in the sky due to the gradient of the light, your edit shows it can be done. I'll give it a go again and see how it turns out.