The Bell Hotel, Winslow

Superb capture! Stay well!

Admired in: www.ipernity.com/group/tolerance

Thanks for posting your wonderful picture to

www.ipernity.com/group/buildings

Odd lighting. Is this your 'tonemapping' gadget?

Odd as it may appear, that WAS the lighting, and it is realistically reproduced here.

I'll believe it when it happens.

Just take my word for it that it did happen. It was a clear and frosty morning and the sun was low and bright. Apart from the standard eyesore removals, the only digital enhancements here were a slight lightening of the hanging sign and pub front (right) which were in deep shade.

Winslow, which I happened to drive through, wasn't on my itinerary, but because the lighting at the time was so unusual I made an unscheduled stop there.

So I was right in my initial impression that it didn't happen like this.

?

You're maintaining that this WAS the lighting, whilst at the same time admitting that you've altered it. Is this a form of gaslighting?

No. That WAS the lighting, and the only alteration was to lighten the areas in deep shade, so that both the sunlit and shadow areas look more as they did to the eye. Human retinas are able to resolve a greater brightness range at any one time than a screen can display, and with photographs like this where the dynamic range is high, in order for the lightest parts not to be overexposed while allowing detail in the areas in shade to be visible on screen, the shadow areas need to be lightened slightly. This is neither falsification nor gaslighting.

I'm not suggesting you were falsifying anything, just that you were gaslighting me by trying to make out this is as it was when it wasn't, as you've since admitted.

Gordon Bennett! As I keep saying, this IS as it was.

You've already admitted that you've altered the lighting. So why keep telling me it's as it was, when it isn't? Even Gordon Bennett can see that.

Turning up the brightness in the shadow area slightly isn't "altering the lighting".

Whatever word you choose.

Would you alter the brightness on this one, which you will doubtless find very diarr.
www.ipernity.com/doc/isisbridge/51227746

No I wouldn't, because the interest is in the highlight areas, and it's fine as it is. To lighten the shadow areas there would reduce the dramatic effect. In my picture, what's in the shadow areas is important.

Important as it may be, the unrealistic lightening creates a mismatch that is instantly noticeable, to me at least. I often find myself wondering why so many of your pictures look slightly odd, and I'm never quite sure if it's a sky replacement, tweeked colours/contrasts, or a special effect.

Once again, the lighting here (and the colours and the contrasts and the sky) were the real thing, and my lightening the shadow area slightly did not materially alter any of them.

Sorry, but it does materially alter the picture. Whether it's an improvement or not is a matter of opinion, but the alteration is a fact. So let's see the original.

The only way in which the original could have been seen is by your standing in that spot at that time.

This is the .jpg produced by my camera, in the same way that your camera produces them. (It is the RAW files produced by my camera alongside the .jpg files that I use; the latter are discarded).

No type of image file, camera, or software can reproduce a scene exactly how it looks to the eye - it's physically impossible. But since you regard the camera-produced .jpg images which you use as the benchmark of reality, here is what my camera considered as "real". If you prefer it to, and think it better captures the scene than the RAW-derived image, then fair enough, but I do not.

Thank you. This goes a long way to explaining the 'oddness' of a lot of your pictures. If you feel that your interference with the coloour/brightness/lightness/whatever improves them, that is entirely up to you, but please don't gaslight me by trying to make out that they're 'as was' when they clearly aren't.

My own view is:

1. The composition looks better in landscape, with the extra bit of frontage on the pub.

2. The colours of the pub are more distinct in the lower version.

3. The lefthand buildings don't show that marvellous warmth from the low winter sun and could maybe tolerate some slight brightening, but not as much as you have done.

4. The sky needs to be left alone, as you have a jarring mismatch in the upper version.

5. Agree that it does look better without the aerials and yellow lines.

Once again I ask what your point of reference is. Interference with the colour, brightness etc. OF WHAT? If your measure of "what was" stubbornly remains the .jpg images produced by the camera then I accept that my images may not be exactly "as was", though in this example the final image and the .jpg one are similar. My point of comparison for realism is the original scene as it appeared to the eye.

Your view expressed in points 1 to 4 is a matter of artistic judgement only, and ours happen to differ.

My point of comparison for realism is the original scene as it appeared to the eye.

I'm glad to have brought you to that point.

You haven't. I've always been at that point.

But you've come to realise that that point and what you use as a yardstick (the .jpg images produced by your camera) are not the same.

Good.

I haven't come to realise anything of the sort, as I've never used that yardstick.

In which case, when you say that I've altered the lighting, I wish to know FROM WHAT I've allegedly altered it.

You've altered it from a realistic scene as it appears to the eye.

You weren't there, so how do you know how it appeared to the eye? And even if you had been, whose eye?

I've been on this earth long enough to know that scenes do not appear in this way.

Appear in this way TO YOU. Fair enough. But this is how this scene appeared to ME.

To your sense of artistry maybe, but I do not believe this is what you actually saw.

I, at least, have one.