[KenCo1964]

I have added pics to my gallery, I hope you will take time to view and give your opinions please. The darker pics were deliberately taken for the silhouette effect, maybe too dark for some. Many thanks in advance.
Ken.

[Matty]

kenCo i have had a quick look through your work and i have to say that im very impressed! Excellent stuff, not all the same style, good stuff!

i like this best, dont know why

[KenCo1964]

Thank you. Learn't it all here.

[CT]

Some very thoughtful and creative stuff there Ken. God help us all if you ever get an SLR! :lol:

When you say you think some of your images may be "Too dark for some" I think you just have to be careful of shooting a silhouette which is a treatment well suited to the subject matter, as opposed to one which leaves large areas of foreground with no detail at all. (Hope that makes sense.) I think some of your shots are excellent and very impressive, I love the silhouetted trees one, but a couple of others, whilst working partly as a silhouette, don't make it for me anyway, because they leave huge blank dark foreground areas.

I think you just need to be a little more selective in your use of the silhouette technique. It's a nice easy technique to use when you can just meter for the sky, but not all shots are suited to it. Perhaps you should try shooting two exposures - one for the foreground and one for the sky, then combine the two in PS or PSP? This is a very useful technique I'm playing around with myself at the moment. There's a 'How to' in the tutorial section.

[silkstone]

I'm impressed too. If I had to criticise, I'd say that some of the macro shots look a little over-sharpened. On some you can see the sharpening artefacts - little white spots and halos. IMO it's best to leave a shot a little soft rather than over-sharpen so it looks artificial. But that's just my opinion.

I like most of the darker pics, but as CT says you have to be selective. It's like sunsets - they generally look good, but you can have too many of them! (As an aside, that's why I was so taken with Steve's and Matt's Anglesey pics last year. It would have been so easy to do those as 'silhouettes', with no detail in the foreground, but by using graduated filters they managed to create an effect I hadn't seen before.)

It's good to be experimental and to try some new (even outlandish) ideas even if the majority of people don't like it. Most people (including me) don't appreciate Damien Hirst, but it hasn't stopped him (or the Tate Modern) from becoming rich and famous. If 99% of people don't like your idea of 'art', but 1% think it's the best thing in the whole world, you have tens of millions of fans.

[Oz]

I think you've got some brilliant shots there. The butterfly ones are quite incredible, really sharp and vibrant. How did you get it to stay there so long though?

[CT]

I think that may be a Buddleia, which Ken's butterfly is on. It's better known as 'The Butterfly Bush' and for some reason they attract butterflies like nothing else. We had a couple at our last house and they were always covered in butterflies. I could be wrong of course, but they're not bad things to plant if you're interested in photographing butterflies.

[Matt]

You are right CT it is a Buddleia.

My fave of the lot is #21, the Painted lady. I would disguise the fence in the background a little though.

[KenCo1964]

Thank you all very much for the feedback, I really appreciate it.

Originally Posted by CT

Some very thoughtful and creative stuff there Ken. God help us all if you ever get an SLR! :lol:
I think you just need to be a little more selective in your use of the silhouette technique. It's a nice easy technique to use when you can just meter for the sky, but not all shots are suited to it. Perhaps you should try shooting two exposures - one for the foreground and one for the sky, then combine the two in PS or PSP? This is a very useful technique I'm playing around with myself at the moment. There's a 'How to' in the tutorial section.

Yeh I can’t wait to get my hands on a proper camera, at least something I can have some control over. I have read the article on the two exposure and I do want to try this as I’ve found and tried to take pics of a place that really needs the two shots but I’ve never had my tripod with me. All these pics with the exception of maybe the butterfly shots were taken hand held. Also most of the silhouette shots were taken at a really wild over grown place and because of which I don’t think would have looked very nice had the exposure been correct.

Originally Posted by silkstone

I'm impressed too. If I had to criticise, I'd say that some of the macro shots look a little over-sharpened. On some you can see the sharpening artefacts - little white spots and halos. IMO it's best to leave a shot a little soft rather than over-sharpen so it looks artificial. But that's just my opinion. .

Having a play in photoshop and was trying the sharp tools, this should only be on one or two pics as I think that is all I did, I know I went over the top because I used sharp, more sharp and sharpen edges to extreme only cos I couldn’t see any effect and subsequently forgot to undo this work.

Originally Posted by Oz

I think you've got some brilliant shots there. The butterfly ones are quite incredible, really sharp and vibrant. How did you get it to stay there so long though?

Glue…..Sorry no, it is a buddleia, the butterfly bush and I would recommend anyone who not only wants to take pics of butterflies but who wishes to encourage wildlife into there garden to plant one. They are very quick to grow and even easier to look after, as they are the easiest plant to grow and would quite happily grown on derelict and waste ground. Just prune at the end of year for the next, that easy. The plant I have when these pics were taken was only in it’s first year and we had loads of butterflies. It’s not something a 6ft 4in and 14.5 stone bloke likes to talk of much, but hey I like horticulture and wildlife.

Originally Posted by Matt

You are right CT it is a Buddleia.

My fave of the lot is #21, the Painted lady. I would disguise the fence in the background a little though.

This is something I’m not that sure on how to do in ps. I’m hoping that it will become a thing of the past when I get my new camera. Being able to alter the Dof at the time the picture is taken.

Thank you all for taking the time to look at my gallery and leaving your opinions.
Ken

[jewel]

Hello Ken. I checked out your gallery as well and you have alot of great pics there, and you say you don't have a proper camera? My favorite is #4 and #15. I know they have been done a million times over but I like the simplicity of them. Very nice!
Jewel

[Steve]

Originally Posted by KenCo1964

Having a play in photoshop and was trying the sharp tools, this should only be on one or two pics as I think that is all I did, I know I went over the top because I used sharp, more sharp and sharpen edges to extreme only cos I couldn’t see any effect and subsequently forgot to undo this work.


Thank you all for taking the time to look at my gallery and leaving your opinions.
Ken

I find that when sharpening pictures in Photoshop to display on line (I never sharpen for printing) using USM in small amounts and then applying it three or four times will give me much better results that one large amount. This can often produce excellent results and seems not to create the grainy and haloed effects often seen.

Some nice images Ken, keep up the good work. [smilie=t:

[Arkady]

Check out my thread on use of USM in the tutorials section.