Rejections - Too much or too little contrast

[xiphias]

Hi,

I just processed a whole bunch of images and uploaded them, in the last batch I had a bunch rejected for "Too much or too little contrast".

Images are converted from RAW to JPEG with CaptureOne. In photoshop they were cropped a little bit, 5 - 15% saturation, -5 - 5 brightness and 3 - 9 contrast. Flattend and then smart sharpend in Lab mode on the lightness channel 100 - 150% and 1 pixel. Then resized to 1200x800 and a little more smart sharpening done on lightness channel, 50 - 75%, 0,5 - 0,7 pixels.

The rejected images:
http://www.jetphotos.net/viewreject_b.php?id=1143248
http://www.jetphotos.net/viewreject_b.php?id=1148329
http://www.jetphotos.net/viewreject_b.php?id=1148348
http://www.jetphotos.net/viewreject_b.php?id=1148361
http://www.jetphotos.net/viewreject_b.php?id=1148501

The other 23 were accepted with no problems and still a few in the queue.
http://www.jetphotos.net/showphotos.php?userid=5345

Any suggestions on how I would be able to improve them?

Thanks in advance,




Michael

[Mark Ralph]

Hi Michael,

Most of the above shots seem to have a slight grey haze indicating too little contrast. The Transavia looks a little over to me. Did you do any processing in Capture One?

The other thing you mentioned smart sharpen in PS, I have found this not to be a great tool and tend to stick with USM instead.

[xiphias]

Thanks Mark. Weird though, I see no haze and I've just recalibrated my monitor. I'll try what some extra contrast does on them. In C1 I've the WB, a little exposure compensation and when needed adjusted the curve a bit to make the sungalre spots not 100% white.

As for USM, just can't work with it. Since I sharpen on the Lightness channel in Lab I prefer the smart sharpen, I'll have to try USM on Lab one of these days.

Thanks again for your info.

Michael

[kukkudrill]

No 1 looks too bright to me, and it may also have a bit of a blue colour cast.

Nos 2 and 3 are too dark.

Nos 4 and 5 look like they are also marginally too dark, though I would have thought these could pass.

Nice shots though.

Charles

[Mark Ralph]

Hopefully this helps to identify the hazy grey look



the greyer bands are the original the brighter bands increased contrast. I increased it by 12 but this may me a little too much, the bands didn't show up as well

[xiphias]

Nice shots though.

Thanks.

Hopefully this helps to identify the hazy grey look

The image has been removes so I can't see it.

Friendly regards,



Michael

[jid]

Hi Micheal, I have taken the MD11 and added contrast, via the RGB Curve function and overlaid your original image to give you an idea of the difference.


Cheers .. Jid

[wwshack]

If I was to venture an opinion, looking at your first image, I would expect the underside to be dark unless it was lit by a massive reflector below. It's unnatural.
One thing that I have learned is the Shadow/Highlights tool is something that needs to be used sparingly.

Keep things simple. RAW conversion - adjust your exposure, white temp and black and white points and leave it like that. I've tried many conversion programs and ended up with Canon's DPP, nice and simple. It may be worth using batch processing, giving all your photos, taken on the same, day with the same light the same settings.