Grampians from The Pinnacle

Original - A 180 degree view indicative of the geology and landscapes of the eastern side of the Grampians National Park, 3 hours west of Melbourne. The primary accomodation and services town of the Grampians, Halls Gap, is visible in the valley on the left side of the image.

Edit 1 - Reprocessed from scratch. Takes into account feedback by Debivort, Fir0002 and Janke. Main changes include slightly more saturation, slightly warmer colour balance, corrected overexposure of clouds in far left sky, slightly de-saturated blue colour cast on shadows, corrected variation in luminance of bushland in centre (assumed it was due to HDR exposure blending) and fixed stitching error. Phew!

Reason

Very high resolution exposure blended panoramic image of the geology of the Grampians National Park in Victoria, Australia. Please be aware that the panorama is essentially horizontal with no significant tilt (see horizon for confirmation of this). I know that the image appears a little tilted but this is an optical illusion caused by the perspective and the landscape of the right hand side.

Articles this image appears in

Grampians National Park

Creator

User:Diliff

• Support as nominator -- Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 09:26, 7 December 2008 (UTC) reply
• Oppose for now Can you do something about the washed-out colors of the vegetation and the blue tint of the shadows? I know it's most probably due to light and haze, but it looks unnatural. -- Janke | Talk 14:23, 7 December 2008 (UTC) reply
  • I'm not sure that's a fair criticism IMO. The blue tint of the shadows is because the image is white balanced for the sunlight. Shadows are inherently more blue than sunlight on a clear day because the light they receive is scattered. The reason why we don't usually pay much attention to this fact is that usually shadows look much darker because a camera usually doesn't have the dynamic range to exposure 'in the middle' for both highlights and shadows. The main reason why it's more obvious here is because exposure blending was used and the shadows were lifted a bit. I know this isn't to everyone's tastes but it does allow you to see shadow detail clearly without sacrificing the rest of the scene. Also, I don't think the vegetation is really washed out. This is pretty typical for gum trees during the dry summer months in Australia. Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 15:12, 7 December 2008 (UTC) reply

• Support Per nom and explanation above, another great pano.-- HereToHelp ^{( talk to me)} 16:01, 7 December 2008 (UTC) reply

• Support edit 1 Per all the photography jargon, it simply looks better.-- HereToHelp ^{( talk to me)} 00:17, 9 December 2008 (UTC) reply

• SupportSupport Edit1 It looks some of the blueing effect is atmospheric. Even ignoring the shadows, it seemed to me as if the image was bluer to the left - putting an eyedropper on the the sunlit rocks on the left confirms more blue channel than those 180 degrees to right. I'd say it's a completely normal effect given the 180 degree FOV - if it turns out to be objectionable and it wasn't visible to the naked eye, a left-right graduated LBA warming filter in PS makes it go away completely. Mfield ( talk) 17:22, 7 December 2008 (UTC) reply
  • Good point, it could well be partially atmospheric, as the backlit clouds on the left side of the frame would probably have some effect on the shadows on the right side. Whatever it is, I don't believe it was introduced in post-processing, anyway, since they were all identically (and fairly accurately, IMO) white balanced from RAW files. I couldn't tell you if it was visible with the naked eye or not, but obviously our eyes are pretty good at ignoring slight differences in white balance. I don't personally find it objectionable, but we'll see what others think. Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 17:42, 7 December 2008 (UTC) reply

• Comment I'd like to see something with this color balance - more pleasing to the eye, and hopefully not too far from the real-life scene... Can you do something like that, maybe not quite as strong? -- Janke | Talk 19:41, 7 December 2008 (UTC) reply
  • Possibly, although I would agree with you that it shouldn't be that strong. Australian bushland does not have as much green as european forests do. Given Fir0002 also has some reservations, I'll go back to the RAW files and see if I can reach a compromise on exposure/colour somewhere. Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 07:39, 8 December 2008 (UTC) reply
• Comment - there are some stitching errors on the ridge on the right, about a third of the way up. de Bivort 20:19, 7 December 2008 (UTC) reply
• Support edit 1 I couldn't spot the stitching error(s) (but would want them fixed if they exist). I think the white balance is fine frankly, and the colour of the vegetation etc is realistic. What was the non exposure blended left side like? You could selectively burn it just to make it more realistic but keep some detail. Noodle snacks ( talk) 01:51, 8 December 2008 (UTC) reply
  • I found one minor stitching error where the foreground meets the background on the right hand side (will correct this) but I suspect what Debivort could have been refering to is the slight movement of the tops of the trees in the foreground (it was pretty windy up there, dispite looking tranquil in photos). The movement was captured between the 3 exposure shots, and ends up looking a bit similar to how some stitching software deals with gaps or parallax faults (it duplicates detail over the seam line - poorly). One particularly bad example is this, although I've never seen a stitcher make such a hash out of the bottom of the image like that, so it may actually be a dodgy photoshop job (especially considering he feels the need to claim there is no photoshopping in the image and considering the obvious and similar photoshopping of his other images). ;-) Anyway, unlike a stitching fault, this is far more difficult to fix and is somewhat analogous to motion blur during a long exposure, I suppose. In any case, I think it is pretty minor fault and difficult to notice without pixel peeping. Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 03:04, 8 December 2008 (UTC) reply
    • Sorry, mistated where I saw it. A third from the top, not the bottom. I also misspelled your name in the temp file (sorry!). de Bivort 09:08, 8 December 2008 (UTC) reply

• • • Yeah, complaining about the tree thing would be nitpicking imo. Noodle snacks ( talk) 05:18, 8 December 2008 (UTC) reply

• Comment I'm also a bit uncomfortable with the blue shadows, and in fact the whole image seems a little washed out. Also given this is a HDR is there any chance of recovering the blown clouds on the LHS? I've also put up an edit - see what people think before I upload a full res one -- Fir0002 07:12, 8 December 2008 (UTC) reply
  • Support edit 1 Yeah that's better -- Fir0002 06:04, 9 December 2008 (UTC) reply
  • As I said to Janke above, I'll reprocess the RAW files and see what I can do to address your concerns, although I think my explanation above regarding the colour of the shadows is completely reasonable. We don't see it with our eyes because we unconciously adjust to local white balance differences and we don't usually see it in photos because they're far more underexposed and colour is harder to distinguish when dark. That said, if it 'looks wrong' (even if it is fundamentally accurate), I suppose it can be adjusted. Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 07:39, 8 December 2008 (UTC) reply
• Support edit 1. Re your comment above: Explanation reasonable - yes. But the image is definitely more pleasing to the eye with that blue cast removed. -- Janke | Talk 17:19, 8 December 2008 (UTC) reply
• Support edit 1. Looks just as I remember it - better now it's regrown after the fires a few years ago. I do note that there is a soft patch on the rocks about 6800 pix in from the left (440 in from the top)...is this a stitching software issue ? - Peripitus (Talk) 04:22, 9 December 2008 (UTC) reply
• Support edit 1 looks good to me now. de Bivort 05:42, 9 December 2008 (UTC) reply
• Support edit 1 nice panorama with a view! Bidgee ( talk) 10:37, 10 December 2008 (UTC) reply

Promoted Image:Grampians Panorama from Pinnacle Edit 1 - Nov 2008.jpg -- Fir0002 07:45, 15 December 2008 (UTC) reply

• • Are you supposed to close stuff you vote on these days? Noodle snacks ( talk) 07:47, 15 December 2008 (UTC) reply
    • It doesn't really matter when the consensus is so clear as in this case and someone had to do it because shock horror it's already a day overdue! -- Fir0002 08:12, 15 December 2008 (UTC) reply
      • Oh god no! Noodle snacks ( talk) 11:37, 15 December 2008 (UTC) reply