
click photo for full-size image
photo by Donald Kinney
The skin of the deYoung Museum in San Francisco looks like a giant half-tone screen, like a printer doing photo-lithography would use.
It's just odd-ball enough to have enraged a lot of people years ago when the design of the building was going through the review and approval process.

click photo for full-size image
photo by Donald Kinney
Combine an angular building with some colorful leaves and you've got something rather arty, I think...

click photo for full-size image
photo by Donald Kinney
The oddest thing about the deYoung is that the odd nine story tower is filled with offices and not a whole lot of art, but they probably do have the world's fastest elevator. A bookstore, t-shirt and coffee-mug store, and a grand view of the City awaits.

click photo for full-size image
photo by Donald Kinney
Well, I should go back and re-Photoshop this image. I inadvertently squashed the sphere while skewing the right side of the photo.

And this photo has more faults than just a squashed sphere -- it has the dreaded blown-out whites. The sunlight on that concrete ball was glaring, but it's the job of the photographer to get some detail into the high-values and not just let them go blank.
Had I checked the Histogram I would have seen what was coming, but actually there's not too much any Photoshopper can do to rescue an image blown-out this badly. I could fiddle with the Curve, or go heavy on the Recovery slider in CameraRAW, but probably the best thing is to go back and re-shoot the scene on an overcast day.
Continuing your Histogram lesson: Notice how on the left-side of the scale the image values don't reach all the way to the left-edge. This shows there are no pure blacks in the image, which is o.k. for an image like this. Had I wanted some rich blacks I would just slide that little triangle over to the right, and in so doing I would be fitting the Scene Brightness Range to the 256 brightness steps in Photoshop.

click photo for full-size image
photo by Donald Kinney
I can't help seeing a giant aircraft or spaceship in this image.
Ready for take-off. Please put your tray tables up!...
CLICK to visit my Daily-Duo.
CLICK to visit KittyBLOG -- the daily doings of my cat.
CLICK for what I call my BIG site.
Your comments are invited and welcome.
2 comments:
Personally, I love the new De Young museum. My wife and I have a membership and we call it the "Jawa Transport". "What are you two doing on Sunday?" "Oh, we're going to the Jawa Transport. Wanna come?"
As to the highlights, I actually don't mind them in the image as you've posted it. Of course, I like a good deal of unreality in my photography but I think the highlights around the outside curve of the sphere actually work. I don't know if what you posted is your recovered photo or the original, so maybe I'm just complimenting you on your post processing skills?
Outraged? People are so strange sometimes. I like the ultra modern look. And the view from the inside? Wow!
I see that if I ever get Photoshop, I'll have to take a class on how to use it.
Post a Comment