The Cellar Series: fungi/lichen/moss

[Cem_Usakligil]

Fungus: a spore-producing, single-celled or multicellular organism without chlorophyll that reproduces by spores and lives by absorbing nutrients from organic matter. Fungi include mildews, molds, mushrooms, rusts, smuts, and yeasts.

Lichen: organism growing on rocks, consisting of fungi and algae growing together in symbiosis that often appears as gray, green, or yellow patches on rocks, trees, and other surfaces.

Moss: a simple nonflowering plant bryophyte that has short stems with small leaves arranged in spirals and resembling scales, and inhabits moist shady sites.

Cheers,

 

[nicolas claris]

Hi Cem
Very nice images, colors and composition!
I like the tenderness of the leaves in the 2nd shot.
Can you give us some gear and settings details?
On the lats one, one can guess some bottles… would that be in a wine cellar?

 

[Cem_Usakligil]

Hi Cem
Very nice images, colors and composition!
I like the tenderness of the leaves in the 2nd shot.
Can you give us some gear and settings details?
On the lats one, one can guess some bottles… would that be in a wine cellar?

Thanks Nicolas.
All pictures are taken with a Canon 5DII, EF 70-200L f2.8 IS lens @ ISO3200. All handheld. All @f4. Exposure times between 1/50-1/200. Raw conversion via LR 2.3 to CS4. Sharpen and curves in CS4. And then gaussian blur -> downsize to 800 px -> output sharpen for web.

This was in a wine cellar indeed ;-).

 

[Asher Kelman]

Thanks Nicolas.
All pictures are taken with a Canon 5DII, EF 70-200L f2.8 IS lens @ ISO3200. All handheld. All @f4. Exposure times between 1/50-1/200. Raw conversion via LR 2.3 to CS4. Sharpen and curves in CS4. And then gaussian blur -> downsize to 800 px -> output sharpen for web.

This was in a wine cellar indeed ;-).

Cem,

I love these images. Excellent colors and interesting compositions. When you blur, what's your guide as to the number of pixels and do you relate this to the pixel width in the output sharpening?

Asher

 

[Cem_Usakligil]

Cem,

I love these images. Excellent colors and interesting compositions. When you blur, what's your guide as to the number of pixels and do you relate this to the pixel width in the output sharpening?

Asher

Hi Asher,

Blurring before downsizing is done to prevent the introduction of artifacts. I use the formula I have learned from Bart (see this thread), namely 0.3 times the reduction ratio. So for instance, if I want to reduce the size of the image by a factor of 5, I blur using 1.5 pixels in the Gaussian Blur filter. Bart has a really good explanation in this web page. After the blur, I downsize using regular bicubic resampling. And finally, I create a new layer with luminosity blending mode and blend-if for preserving shadows and highlights in the underlying layer (see here). Finally, I sharpen that layer using either Focus Magic or Smart Sharpen. All thanks to Bart for sharing this precious know-how with us


HTH.

 

[fahim mohammed]

Cem a very nice and colorful composition. I would have passed it by if not for the word ' cellar '. expected
to quench my thirst! well you can't win em all.

 

[Rachel Foster]

These don't work for me, and I've been trying to figure out why. I suspect it's something very idiosyncratic and unrelated to the actual image. I suspected it was just a gut-level reaction to the colors so I took the liberty of downloading it and rendering it in black and white. (I immediately deleted it, by the way.) I liked it much better in black and white.

This raises the question of how much we respond to "emotive factors." Michael Stone just wrote a great article on viewer anxiety on perception of photos. I'm intrigued by this idea and I think I'm going to do some reading on other factors that influence perception.

 

[Asher Kelman]

Fungus: a spore-producing, single-celled or multicellular organism without chlorophyll that reproduces by spores and lives by absorbing nutrients from organic matter. Fungi include mildews, molds, mushrooms, rusts, smuts, and yeasts.

​

Cem,

I liked these pictures from the outset. Still I have struggled with my reaction to them. Here I single out this one in that it should be more important to me than it is. I know the essentially stuff is here but I wonder if somehow the presentation might be harsher and more contrasty than optimal. So I would love to see the original image with only minimal intervention.

Asher