Bill Foy  


Catching a Last Smoke by Bill Foy

September 2020 - Catching a Last Smoke

About the Image(s)

This image was made a couple of years ago at Stazione Milano Centrale in Milan, Italy. I saw these man in the doorway light a cigarette and immediately pulled out my phone and focused the camera on them. Processing done in Photoshop, crop, conversion to monochrome, adjustment of colors to get a better blend of black/white. Samsung S9, f/2.4, 1/120, ISO-125.


This round’s discussion is now closed!
14 comments posted




Bev Caine   Bev Caine
(Groups 24 & 48 & 58)
Nice shot Bill. I don't have any suggestions for improvement. I do like the monochrome. I think it works very well with the subject.   Posted: 09/03/2020 20:09:17
 
Thanks, Bev.   Posted: 09/23/2020 08:27:10



Carol Sheppard   Carol Sheppard
(Group 95)
Great street shot, clean and balanced with a story and good connection between the individuals. Nothing I would change!   Posted: 09/04/2020 04:24:55
 
Thanks, Carol.   Posted: 09/23/2020 08:27:57



 
I agree with the others. This is a nice, classic street shot. I wouldn't change anything about it.   Posted: 09/04/2020 10:56:23
 
Thanks, Jim.   Posted: 09/23/2020 08:30:15



 
I think the relaxed postures of the two gentlemen shows us a bit about their character, the the man on the right does not appear too happy about being photographed. It is nice that he is looking straight at the camera. I also like that the person sitting inside the train is looking out the window straight at the camera, giving the image a bit of mystery.

I think that the image is well composed, getting all three figures in. The image works well in black and white.

For me, the sharpening halos detract from the image. It appears to me that they could have been introduced in an early version, then became quite wide when the image was enlarged and cropped. If not introduced earlier, then you have an opportunity to go back and reduce the sharpening width and intensity.

I tried removing some of the halos from this image to see how it would look.   Posted: 09/08/2020 16:54:46
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Thanks for the comments, Victor. Regarding the "sharpening halos, I didn't sharpen the image. I'm adding the original to this post so you can see that there were there in the original phone image. I'm curious about your process to remove halos, since that something I've never looked for/tried to correct.   Posted: 09/23/2020 08:33:47
 
Forgot the image - mea culpa!   Posted: 09/23/2020 08:35:41
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Hi Bill:

I have noticed that phone cameras often apply unsharp-masking sharpening to the images, resulting in halos. Zoomed in cell phone images are just a heavy crop of what the sensor sees. Phones manufacture pixels to fill in to make the image pixil dimensions equal to what the sensor is capable of. The sharpening halos can thereby become quite wide. I don't use the zoom function on my phone much, I prefer to crop in post processing where I have control over how the extra pixels are filled. When I have time, I will shoot in RAW mode on the phone. RAW mode does not allow zooming at all.

I remove halos using the clone stamp in photoshop. So thatI do not have to be extremely careful when painting over the areas I want to fix, I set the brush mode to darken when removing light halos, or to lighten when removing dark halos. I clone from the area right next to the halo I am fixing. When using the brush set to darken to remove light halos, I do not need to worry about impacting the dark area that caused the halo because the near by material will always lighter than the dark area and therefore will not show when painting over the dark area. I can work very fast and sloppily this way with good result. I usually only fix areas where the halos are quite apparent.   Posted: 09/23/2020 20:42:36



 
Great shot. Other than what Victor said about the highlights, I would not change anything.   Posted: 09/10/2020 12:30:03
 
Thanks, Karen.   Posted: 09/23/2020 08:34:09



Dr Isaac Vaisman   Dr Isaac Vaisman
(Groups 4 & 15 & 58 & 59 & 72)
Bill, my only suggestion was to make he verticals straight   Posted: 09/23/2020 06:55:47
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Thanks, Isaac. I think that does improve the image.   Posted: 09/23/2020 08:34:46