What to Do, That Is the Question

[Comments have been added.]

Here's our day yesterday. My address is 740 East Lake Road, and the addresses here are the mileages from the town line—so I'm 7.4 miles south of the southern border of the hamlet of Penn Yan, up at the top of the Lake.

Curiously, we get different weather than they do. Snow squalls spill over the massif of the bluff and descend on us—once I got to watch a little one come at me, and I saw it all the way, which was thrilling—but they sometimes hit us and leave Penn Yan alone. Yesterday I was coming from town, and the weather up there and for about the first four miles was fine. No snow and clear roads. Down here it was a different story. We got two or three inches in an hour or two.

It's not the first time I've observed this. Weather is very local in these parts. 

Question: When should you not zap up a digital picture with Dehaze and Clarity and so forth? Answer, when you're trying to show a heavy atmosphere. If I kick up the contrast and clarity of the truck in this, I can make it almost look like it was a nice day.

OoP (Out-of-camera. Or should it be OoP?)

Improved? Not sure about that. You be the judge.

As you can see, I opted for something in the middle. When editing digital images, as in darkroom printing, the how is always the easy part. You can master that relatively easily. What to do—judgement, as I call it—is always the tougher question.

Futbol
Just as a followup, it was quite a weekend in the NFL. To quote Ben Shpigel of the New York Times, "I’m not prone to hyperbole, but THAT WAS THE BEST WEEKEND OF FOOTBALL IN THE HISTORY OF EVER. In case you weren’t watching—and if you weren’t, why not?—all four divisional-round games ended on the final play: three field goals and an overtime touchdown."

The Divisional Round is the quarterfinals, in case you don't know. The remaining four teams will meet in the championship games, to determine the AFC (American Football Conference) and NFC (National Football Conference) champions. The two champions square off in the Superbowl—which is typically a pretty snoozy game.

One little tiny flaw in the picture is that our local team, the poor Bills, from the City of Eternal Football Heartache, fell just short again. They were ahead with 13 seconds left. Unless you've hardened your heart against enjoying any sport ever as a matter of principle or of crankiness, you really should watch the ending to that game. Even if you're not a fan of American football—or of sports at all—you'll get it. Remarkable.

I was rooting for Green Bay, Buffalo, and Tampa Bay, in that order, so all of my teams are out of it, knocked down like bowling pins. I guess I'll root for Cincinnati now. (That means they'll lose. I'm a Jonah, I guess.)

Pool this morning! So I need to get breakfast. At least I often win at that. As my friends put it, I cheat: I practice.  :-)

Mike

Book o' the Week
Eye and Brain by Richard Gregory, Fifth Edition. "As far as I know nothing in the past 50 years is a better explanation of how humans see." —Hugh Crawford

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Mark Sampson: "I've spent thousands of hours driving through the murk your photo so accurately describes. That picture makes me recall the mingling of accomplishment and relief I would feel upon reaching my destination, after a long journey in those conditions. Your 'improved?' version merely looks like it was taken an hour later, towards dusk. And Mike, nothing you can do to that image will make it look like a nice day."

Bill Bresler: "When it comes to image adjustments in Photoshop or whatever, I'm reminded of the Cajun Chef who, regarding spicing food, declared, 'A little too much is just enough.' I agree with the chef when I'm cooking. But when I'm editing photos, I tend to stop just short of what looks good on the screen. Sometimes I'll change my mind later, but as long as I still have the raw file, it doesn't matter."

Comments

[Albert Smith]

"In case you weren’t watching—and if you weren’t, why not?"

I never gave a uh, I'll say hoot to be polite here for any team sport. You couldn't pay me to watch 5 minutes of any game, and I resent when the games go long and intrude into serious things, like "60 Minutes" which almost never starts on-time.

It would be great if the most obese country's population would get up from the couch and DO something athletic instead of spending hours letting the junk food they eat accumilate around their waist and arteries, while watching a half a day's hours worth of whiney millionaires do physical exertion.

But I'm not bitter.😀

[You don't sound bitter.😀 --Mike

[James]

I have been a Packers fan for the 27 years I have lived in Wisconsin, so you can imagine how I felt Saturday evening!
But the Buffalo/KC game last night made up for that.
Best game I have seen all season, and I watch ALL the games televised.
My wife wanted KC to win and I was kinda sneakily rooting for Buffalo.

[JimK]

Greatest weekend of football in the history of forever! But yeah, my two teams (Packers, Bills) bowed out. Crazy entertaining tho--what fun!

[Daniel]

On why not watching football games?
Tried the online 5 minute NBC free view. Got to see 2 1/2 plays and a ton of commercials. WHY would I pay to watch something already being paid for by advertisors?
We don't get broadcast TV. 90 miles from a station. I won't pay for it, not online either. Not much I would want to watch.
Story lines in the shows don't change. Dialog is pretty easy to call before they say it. Then they expect me to pay for the broadcast?
The Public Library is loaded with books and my personal collection has what I want to keep - and to add some each year.
Radio broadcast of games is OK, though spotty after sundown. Fewer commercials and I don't get charged to listen. I can listen while processing film and printing in the darkroom.

Pay to watch commercials? No Way.

[Stan]

I often win at breakfast, too!

[Jeff]

‘Judgement’ vs ‘judgment’… very British of you. But the point you made is one that I continually stress to others struggling with picture rendering, or with photography in general. I refer to it as ‘using the tools between the ears’, Bioware, not software. It applies to all aspects of photography, which is primarily about selection and decision making. Anyone can learn how to use the tools and techniques; knowing when, where and to what degree to apply them is the hard and most important part.

[Jim Henry]

Your post today (first half) seems like it was written to me.
When I looked at your barn picture (previous day) I liked it immediately (I'm always in for landscapes and barns) - but I thought - why is it so light and low-contrast? Does he want it that way?
So I did something I've never done before - from TOP anyway - and downloaded it and opened it in Photoshop and did a few simple things - brought the highlights down and the shadows up...
And it turned out nice, I think, but maybe lost some of the original atmosphere.
I almost sent it to you but then thought, no, he must understand all of this anyway. So I would have kept quiet except for your opening today.

I guess the caption on your second version is my question, too.

[Patrick Perez]

Mike wrote: 'all four divisional-round games ended on the final play'.

I'm no sportfan, but don't all games end on the final play? Sort of like the missingthing you were looking for was always in the last place you looked?

Patrick

[That's not what I wrote, it's what Ben Shpigel wrote. I think he meant DECIDED on the final play, rather than ended. --Mike]

[Kenneth Tanaka]

"Question: When should you not zap up a digital picture with Dehaze and Clarity and so forth?"

Rule of My Thumb: Treat your image as you would written text. That is, consider tonal adjustments as modifiers. Does the image already say what you want it to say? Would different adjectives or adverbs say it better? When in doubt, leave it alone. That's especially true for iPhone images which have already undergone scores of adjustments by the time they appear on your screen.

And, most importantly, don't touch it for at least a few days if at all possible.

[c.de.mbrey]

Hi Mike. Check-out https://www.wunderground.com/weather/us/ny/penn-yan for your local weather. They use farmer's weather stations, etc.

Ribeye steak (medium rare), home fries, sourdough toast with real butter. Paul's Coffee Shop, Fountain Valley, CA.
Shot with iPhone, and available light.

[JOHN B GILLOOLY]

I think the OOP image looks much better in this case. I don't know if it's the increased contrast of the second one that is the problem or just that the truck and overall scene are just too dark now?

[Not THAT Ross Cameron]

My thanks to Kenneth for his literary rule of thumb. It was one of those penny dropping moments. I’m sure there are many ways to make the same point.
My job involves lots of writing - I still use a dictionary and thesaurus at times when I’m looking for le mot juste. So it struck home.
I understand it, now comes the hard part of putting it into practice ;~)

[Stephen Scharf]

I agree with Ken Tanaka.

I prefer the top photo, but I would likely do a subtle contrast move in an Adjustments layer, again in line with Ken's sensibilities.

Also, if you've not started using luminosity masking yet, well... you should. Not for the photo above necessarily, but as a key part of your editing toolkit. So, I really recommend getting familiar with using luminosity masking. Greg Benz has an excellent plug-in for PS called Lumenzia, and excellent tutorials on using luminosity masking.

Cheers.

[Allan Ostling]

You live in a nice house. According to Zillow it was built in 1890. That is considered ancient, in Phoenix where I live.

[I've never seen 1890, but I've seen 1880 and 1888. So around in there somewhere.

It was purchased by two realtors, a married couple, in 2011. They lived in it for 4 years while doing a thorough restoration.

I just love it here. Really appreciate the house and the beautiful surroundings. I know I probably shouldn't grow old here, but I'm enjoying every day I get to stay here. --Mike]

[Greg]

In the middle 1970s attended RIT, approximately just northwest of you. Snow off the lake could drop more than a foot of snow north of Rochester, but then only a dusting south of Rochester. I never trusted the weather reports. If snow was predicted, I just assumed that I'd be driving through a lot of it. Drove a VW Beetle at the time. With snow tires on the back, I could even still keep on driving when the front bumper was pushing light snow ahead of it. Many times when visiting and hiking up frozen up gorges around your area, I would hike out in the morning with clear blue skies, but then return to my Beetle in the afternoon covered with a foot of snow.

[Kenneth Voigt]

interesting how you and Tuck both like pool in the morning

[Bear.]

On my summer holidays here in Melbourne - with special meaning after 226 days of lockdowns last year too - and as an extra bonus, the American Futball is being shown live on free to air TV here with the time zones differences resulting in the games being mid- morning to mid-afternoon. I watched 3 out of 4 games, pretty much in full. The only bit I had to miss was the end of the KC / Bills game - I had to go with the BIlls just having scored to be 3 points ahead and 13 seconds on the clock. … I’m a KC fan (childhood in Lawrence, KS) but didn’t realise they’d won in OT until I saw your post…. Made my day.

[Patrick D Perez]

I sit corrected re: the source of my quoted text. I was reveling in my win at breakfast. I literally am a card-carrying breakfast lover. I got the card from the website mrbreakfast.com

Patrick

[David]

Greetings from Australia.
It’s been a puzzle of mine, to work out where you live (you probably would have told us if we asked).
Every so often you drop another clue (text or photo). Or as you did today, the address! Turns out, I had already found your house.

PS Great advice from Kenneth

[Terry Letton]

My answer on editing the snow plow is none of the above. If anything clarity should be negative, but overall the picture is too bright. It was taken during a storm when the sun is obscured and although you do have a very efficient reflector(the snow) the overall light levels are lowered.
One of my pet peeves are nighttime digital images that are exposed so that they look like they were shot in daylight. Tone them down please but don’t use to heavy a hand on the sliders, a little goes a long way.

[Tom Burke]

OOP images: yes, I have a similar problem. On a sunny day the iPhone - well, several of them in recent years - will produce images that are every bit as zingy as I remember the scene. No to much need to mess about with them. But on grey, cloudy days the phone can produce an image that's even greyer and flatter than I remember the actuality; but can I tweak it just that little bit? No I cannot. It's best to leave it alone.

(Does your phone produce flare? Mine does, in a lot of images.)

"Final play deciders" - sounds like the end of the 1999 Champion's League final in Europe. Played at the Camp Nou stadium in Barcelona between Manchester United and Bayern Munich. At the end off 90 minutes (normal time) the score was 1-0 to Bayern. But the officials added on 3 minutes "for stoppages during the game" (the clock isn't stopped if the game halts, but the officials make an assessment of the time lost and can add it on at the end). At the end of that 3 minutes, the score was Manchester United 2 Bayern Munich 1. Cue bedlam.... It's up there with the Black Ball Final (snooker) as one the most remembered recent sporting events in the UK.

[Luke]

that's odd... it looks like summertime in google maps satellite view

[Ade]

Recent editing revelation (from a YouTube tutorial): you can use negative values in the Dehaze module to add hazing to an image. Wow - of course! Finally a way to compensate my tendency to make overly crisp and clear digital images! ;-)