I-Phone Pictures (Cumulonimbus Clouds)

[grouseking]

Ok, this is the first time I've used a camera phone, but since I didn't have my camera with me, the camera phone did just fine.

Honest to goodness critique on how the pics came out, please. I usually hate how pictures come out with camera phones, but these were ok. But is there any way to improve them?





Thanks!

 

[kmorgan]

I made the following adjustments in Photoshop:

On both, did autolevels first, then converted to LAB mode and increased the saturation on the A and B channels 10%.

On the first I then adjusted the curve of the lightness channel by moving the light end in just a hair then bringing the center of the curve back to the middle.

On the second, I thought it looked very dramatic with a lot more contrast added and so I moved the middle of the lightness curve over to the dark side quite a bit and moved the dark end in just a little too.

Select the lightness channel and add some noise reduction, then convert back to RGB.

These were my results.

No 1:

No 2:

Nice shots,
Kevin

 

[grouseking]

Wow, I like your edit of pic 1 the best, and I wonder if cropping a chunk of the bottom on pic 2 would make it more dramatic, since I really don't like half of the picture being so dark. Really neat, thanks!

grouseking

 

[Mark Schaefer]

Excellent job observing these subjects, finding some ground elements to include for depth and interest, and capturing two very nice images. It is amazing what these cell phone cameras can do in good hands, even when you have very little if any controls on the camera.

And nice job editing and enhancing the images, Kevin. Grouseking, I agree that we could now crop the bottom of the second image as the stairway is no longer visible and there is no longer any content there. That also simplifies the image a bit, making the image entirely about the clouds.

The stairway might have been more interesting if there was a person or two climbing this "Stairway to Heaven". In that event the exposure could be adjusted to show the climbers either somewhat brightly lit or in silhouette. In either case the clouds might have been a dramatic background to the image of stair climbers. But as the stairway is empty in the current photo there is probably less reason to include it in the final image.