Gateway to the Underworld

Gateway to the Underworld, originally uploaded by Scottish Zoe.

This is some of the way I want to go. Monochrome feels right to me. This one is pushed to the limit, nothing subtle, in your face Goth style.Lots of detail and atmosphere.

Evening Light 2

Evening Light_edited-1, originally uploaded by Scottish Zoe.

Black/white version - in some ways I like this better, although it does seem an odd thing to do to a sunset. I have now printed 2 copies - one on Oyster and 1 on Artist Classic, initially I thought I liked the pearlised effect - but on further consideration I prefer the painting effect of the artists paper.

Evening Light

Evening Light, originally uploaded by Scottish Zoe.

This is unashamedly a composition - the better sunset with the added bird (from a few photos later - but the sky was not so stunning). Printed out well on Permajet Oyster

Flower 3

Untitled-3_edited-1, originally uploaded by Scottish Zoe.

Again put to B/W in LR3, high pass filter and some dodge and burn work. The original print has a whiter border and the stem doesn't show - which leaves the flower floating in space - OK but not what I was after. Reprinted after some work on the stem to bring up the contrast on full A3 - much more effective. Printed on Permajet Oyster.

Flowers 1

untitled-3624_edited-1, originally uploaded by Scottish Zoe.

B/W in LR then sharpened with the high pass filter. This was very pretty as colour - but I think more stunning in monochrome. Printed out on Permajet Oyster and the slightly pearlised suyrface worked very well.

Experimentation

untitled-1100476, originally uploaded by Scottish Zoe.

This was a rather dull photo taken in the snow in our local park, processed RAW in LR3 (which markedly improved the light) and then worked over via the fractalius plug-in. I then printed it at A3 on Permajet Oyster paper and framed it in a bluish wood-effect frame.

The post-processing enhances the snow and ice effectively, almost monochrome - but not quite.

The Lonely Bustop

Tonights exercise was working on printing. After much looking around the web I eventually found out that to get into the Canon Easy Photoprint Pro and to use paper profiles you need to print from elements editor not organiser. So far I have had a greater success with B/W than with colour. The colour has been far too dark - not altogether sure whether this is a setup problem or an effect of my screen settings. Clearly needs a lot more experimentation. For instance - the above photo showed pretty much as black snow! My A3 paper also arrived today so will try out, should be interesting

Today's Challenge

Today's challenge has been working with the new printer to get a good output, semi-successfully.

Problems:
1/ fine art paper seems to print very small with a lot of surround and I haven't managed to work this out properly - I think the trick is going to be in saving the file to the max size that can be printed and then trying from there
- possible other solution - I think the dpi is set high (350) so my pictures saved at 300 will print smaller (this needs checked)
2/ prints so far are too dark (just slightly) - so need to allow for this. Have recalibrated screen, but poor light in room - so this may be part of the issue.

Positives:
The quality seems excellent, clear, crisp and loads of detail
No problem at all using museum etching or other thick papers - front loading tray works easily.