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Requesting C & C: Tank on the road


B

Bosch232

Well-Known Member
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Hi all. I'm requesting a critique of an exercise I did yesterday using one of my child's toy tanks. Please scrutinize it. It won't hurt my feelings. I have no attachment to the work, I simply did it to see how close to 'real' I could make it, and I'm posting it here for suggestions on improving it.

Also, feel free to take a shot at color grading it, and please share your results and how you achieved it.



Tanknocolor_zps1ce999c8.jpg
 
Looks pretty good. There are a couple of things I would suggest. One would be adding a blue tone to the shadow it's casting, if you look at the shadows in the photo, they are quite blue. The other thing would be to paint in some grunge or texture onto the tank so it looks more like metal than plastic.
 
Agreed with the comments above, also maybe desaturated the tank colors a bit... The green pops too much and kinds takes it out of the scene. Maybe add a cool color filter to the tank

Great job btw!! Looks really cool!
 
HomePhotoshoppingNetwork said:
Looks pretty good. There are a couple of things I would suggest. One would be adding a blue tone to the shadow it's casting, if you look at the shadows in the photo, they are quite blue. The other thing would be to paint in some grunge or texture onto the tank so it looks more like metal than plastic.
Click to expand...

The shadows on the snow appear to have a tint of blue, but I'm not sure if the shadow on the road would have the same tint...

It's good, love the idea lol.
 
Very cool, when I enlarged on sceen I Noticed between antennas you missed the cut out No big deal I just noticed
 
That's a very cool pic. I think you did a great job of integrating it into your scene.

I downloaded the trial version of topaz filters and started playing around to see what type of effects I could come up with. It's a neat filter set, but it has about a million and two settings so I can't even begin to tell you what sliders and settings I used.

tank01.jpg

tank02.jpg
 
Yeah topaz is top notch I'm my book it has so many options it seems endless in ideas
 
When doing a composite, proper lighting, color and comparative pixel resolution are what's going to make or break your image.
This is damn near flawless, congrats! The only small nitpick I would make is that I believe the puddle at the end of the driveway
would pick up the reflection of the tank. That's all I could point out.
Spectacular image!!
 
@Fatboy,

That's a great critique. I don't think I would have thought of the reflection in the puddle. In fact, I didn't.
 
Thank you for the comments, keep them coming. I have some feedback and questions to the posts already made, and I'll post my source photos so you can see what they were.

But I'd like to give it till then end of the day so that more people can review it first. Thank you for looking, keep the comments coming.
 
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Inkz said:
The shadows on the snow appear to have a tint of blue, but I'm not sure if the shadow on the road would have the same tint...

It's good, love the idea lol.
Click to expand...

The shadows on the pavement at the bottom right have a decidedly blue cast…

ShadowColor.jpg

Here is a comparison of the shadow color at the bottom versus the shadow being cast by the tank…

CoolVSWarmShadows.jpg

This book by James Gurney is an excellent resource about the incredible complexity of color and light. :)

http://jamesgurney.com/site/213/color-and-light-a-guide-for-the-realist-painter
 
HomePhotoshoppingNetwork said:
The shadows on the pavement at the bottom right have a decidedly blue cast…

View attachment 28575

Here is a comparison of the shadow color at the bottom versus the shadow being cast by the tank…

View attachment 28576

This book by James Gurney is an excellent resource about the incredible complexity of color and light. :)

http://jamesgurney.com/site/213/color-and-light-a-guide-for-the-realist-painter
Click to expand...


The shadow on the pavement being pointed out is bluish because of the ice/snow casting the shadow. The tank would not cast a bluish shadow because of:

1. The warm light being cast.
2. The tank being a solid(warm) green object would cast a slight green shadow, not blue.
3 The pavement that the shadow is being cast on is warm in tone as well.

All three of these factors contribute to the tank shadow not being the same tone as the shadow cast by the ice/snow
 
That looks pretty damn good to me! :) Dont really have much complaints about the shadow color since thats essentially defined by the ambient light thats there in the scene and overall there doesnt seem to be a dominant blue so looks good to me.. Great job!
 
In my opinion, snow shading/shadows tend to lean toward the violet side of the spectrum and not blue. This is due to the prismatic effect of light being reflected through the crystalline structure. Inkz and fatboy73 are more correct when they state that the shadow being cast by the tank would not take on the same characteristics as the shadows of the snow. The puddle leans toward blue because it's reflecting the sky above and not the ambient light.
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow

During the daytime, a shadow cast by an opaque object illuminated by sunlight has a bluish tinge. This happens because of Rayleigh scattering, the same property that causes the sky to appear blue. The opaque object is able to block the light of the sun, but not the ambient light of the sky which is blue as the atmosphere molecules scatter blue light more effectively. As a result, the shadow appears bluish.
Click to expand...
 
Wow, you guys can really scrutinize! :)

The shadows you're discussing in the foreground were not modified, what you see is what the camera shot. I did modify the snow-melt near the tank to emulate a reflection, but I still need to upload the source images to show you what I did so I can get some more input.

And I do think I'm catching on to what you're saying about the color of the shadow. It's observations like that which make me glad for the input. More on this tomorrow, I'm tired now.. :)
 
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OK, so here's the results taken from your suggestions...
  • Grunge brush, added black dirt, brown dirt, and rust runs on the tank.
  • Desaturated the tank.
  • Attempted to add blue to the tank shadow, although I'm not sure how close I got.
  • Overall color temp brought down & desaturated.
I appreciate the suggestions, I learned some things from you guys. :thumbsup:


TankGrunge_zpsfd99a4ed.jpg






Also, I'm posting the source photos (lower res) for you to see.
Again, all input and suggestions welcome.

CleanPllowres_zps5584bc84.jpg


Tanklowres_zps78d7dcbd.jpg
 
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