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Silver Rdza
Participating Frequently
June 15, 2021
Answered

What technical issues are in this photo?

  • June 15, 2021
  • 4 replies
  • 1223 views

Hello colleagues, I'm just looking to improve my photos and understand why this one might have been rejected with Technical Issues. On some other stock website was rejected as "main subject is out of focus or is not in focus due to camera shake, motion blur, overuse of noise reduction, or technical limitations of the equipment used".  I did use little bit of noise reduction and sharpening in Lightroom, I also used dehaze since there was lot of gray light due to clouds luminosity, dehazing made the sky look more blue and clouds nice white, color of the mountains poped up lil better, then increased vibrace and saturation a little bit.  I can't find where the OUT OF FOCUS is, I'm zooming in to see the edges in detail and all look IN FOCUS, and of course is a LANDSCAPE at long distnace, so there is no main subject to focus here, other than the whole landscape. Rebel T5i, 18-55mm lens at 18mm F16 1/125 sec. to have deep depth of field, and focused approximately in the middle of the landscape which  is around the green mountain in the middle.  At first sight to me it looks sharp and in focus and can't find any Technical Issues, perhaps I'm not that expert, since I'm just a hobbiest not a professional. Feel free to advice on better settings, technique or focus strategies to make this kind of landscape photos better. I'm thinking I might have gone to F22 (which might require a tripod due to slower shutter) and target the focus little closer to the foreground instead of focusing to the middle mountain, but I'm not sure if this will fix it,  also carring a tripod to a 7 hours climb to mountain does not seem like practical. 

 

Adobe rejected it with Technical Issues but didn't specify exactly what,  if you can help me add some color about what is wrong on this photo, please share your comments I will be glad to learn more.

By the way, this was a hike I did to one of the highest peaks in New England, Mount Washington, so I had to walk as light as possible, didn't carry my tripod, so I took the photo with camera in hand, however I can't see anything wrong and I thought the photo was beautiful.

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Correct answer Jill_C

In general, the laptop monitor is not the best choice for editing photos. Depending on what angle you choose to view the images, the amount of light that falls on the monitor can make the image look drastically different. It's best to attach an external monitor. Google "best monitor for photo editing" and you will find many recommendations varying from $250 to $2,000. I have a Dell UltraSharp U2418 that is perfectly satisfactory. No one else can tell you what settings to use for your monitor, because it is highly dependent on your environment, in particular the amount of light that falls on your monitor. For optimum results and consistency, a monitor calibrator is recommended. I use a Spyder 5 Pro. Before I purchased it I rented a monitor calibrator from BorrowLenses.com a couple of times.

4 replies

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Silver RdzaAuthor
Participating Frequently
June 16, 2021

Dear colleages, I found one fundamental issue that might also be contributing to rejection,  this photo of the mountain, looks much more saturated and bluer in the internal monitor of my laptop, which has a much higher resolution than my 2 external monitors, even thou the external monitors are using my NVIDIA last generation graphic card. Do you know what kind of monitors the Adobe moderators might be having?  As a matter of fact I realized that my 2 external monitors are not up to the game. I will editing my photos using my laptop monitor only and not the external monitors from now on. Somehow the photo looked good and does not look with exaggerated colors in my external monitors, but if I move it to the laptop monitor, is very ugly oversaturated, and it even looked out of focus due to over-reducing the texture, and overuse of noise reduction. I will correct this issues in my laptop monitor and try to resubmit the photo and see if that helps, and if it is not that, then I think there is nothing else I can do with this photo, I will just discard it as no usable for stock, but this was a nice realization I had today, need to change this monitors for better ones, or somehow modify its settings to make them look more than my laptop monitor. 

 

What kind of monitor is recommended?  Does anybody know what kind of monitor the Adobe moderators use? I want to make sure they see what I see, since it could be very subjective, type of monitor, setting preferences are very personal, so hard to match what they are seeing,  is there any perhaps NEUTRAL settings they recommend to use?

 

Thanks,

Silver.

 

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Silver RdzaAuthor
Participating Frequently
June 16, 2021

Bye the way, I found the out of focus issue due to having different monitor resolutions and settings, because I was editing other photos of a party I went last Sunday,  when I accidentally moved the Lightroom app to the laptop internal monitor, the persons faces in the photos looked akwardly way out of focus,  which was corrected by adding back texture that I had removed before given the wrong impression my external monitors were giving me. This also might resolve some confusion I had with other stock website that rejected some of my photos with OUT OF FOCUS,  so it is a relieave the photos FOCUS might be ok, but the problem seems to be my monitor is not appropiate,  let's see if is that once I resubmit some photos. 

 

Thanks,

Silver.

jacquelingphoto2017
Community Expert
jacquelingphoto2017Community Expert
Community Expert
June 15, 2021

Hi @Silver Rdza ,

You've applied too much positive dehaze. The background mountain is too blue. Your image should be looking as close to natural as possible. You do not see blue in the atmosphere. There is also the purple incorporating in the blue and also as color fringes at the top of the mountain in the forefront and at other edges. I am not seeing an out of focus issue..

Depth of field is important for landscape shots. Also landscape shots is not fifty fifty, but one third two thirds. With a high number depth of field you need to increase ISO to compensate for shutter speed and exposure. Some cameras have settings to reduce noise with high ISO. Check if yours has. I take a few landscapes with camera handheld, but prefer doing so with tripod. I also prefer to take landscape images with the average or high shutter-speed so as to freeze moving subject. 

 

Check to see if your camera has the feature to reduce the effect of handshake. Learn how to hold your camera so as to reduce handshake. If it's windy you might need to anchor yourself on something fixed if you are making a shot with the camera handheld. There is no sweet F-stop. F-stop is set to achieve the result you want depending on what you're shooting. 

 

 

Best wishes

JG

Photographer and Nutrition Author

 

 

 

    J E L
    Community Expert
    J E LCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    June 15, 2021

    @Silver Rdza Keep in mind the reasons given for rejection have to cover a lot of technicalities and because of sheer volume, it's impossible to give each photo and contributor specifics as to what is going on. That's why you come to the Community here so you can get some further insights from those of us who have a bit more experience! The colors in this image are very unappealing to my eye. You've got a beautiful landscape that you are tyring to force into looking better with computer tweaks instead of getting to the location at the right time of year and the right time of day. Now, knowing that is not always realistic to do, thankfully we have tools such as Lightroom for non-destructive RAW processing to improve sensor readings and recover detail but the fundamentals have to be there to begin with and you can only push so far. Without a tripod, you have missed professional results for capturing a sweeping landscape! Keep shooting and learning every chance you get.

      S
      Silver RdzaAuthor
      Participating Frequently
      June 15, 2021

      Thank you for your feedback Jain. Yes, unfortunately for this kind of landscape, it is hard to be there at the right time of Golden Hours unless some kind of camping in the  mountain near the site is done, and I don't think there is a time of year for the best photo here any season will work, but so realistically we have to work with the light we have when we get to the objective point. But I do agree a tripod is necessary, but again is hard and non-practical to carry that weight during 6 hours of climbing, and the time to set it is also a factor when the time to do an out and back hike is limited, I guess if I like this kind of mountain photos I will need to train myself on carrying more weight on my backpack or find a lighter tripod. For the white balance,  I might have used some CPL filter to get better sky colors and reduce some light reflections due to the hints of fog, that made the original photo to look pale colors more gray and withes that I can only correct in Lightroom by dehazing the photo a lil bit to make the colors pop up.

       

      I think the main issue is not using  a tripod to have better sharpness and more freedom of using a deeper depth of field, suggestion from jill to use a better lens think is also a factor, and perhaps using a CPL or With Balance adjustments will improve colors with out needing to munch post-prod corrections

       

      Thanks for your time and feedback it is appreciated!.

        Jill_C
        Community Expert
        Jill_CCommunity Expert
        Community Expert
        June 15, 2021

        The White Balance seems to be off - there is a purplish tone in the sky. The mountains are underexposed. When I zoom in, I struggle to find anything at all in focus. F16 is definitely not the "sweet spot" on that kit lens. My photography improved immediately when I dumped that kit lens and upgraded. A tripod, and using the built-in timer, might have improved the focus, even at 1/125 by reducing camera shake. Shooting bracketed images which you can blend in LR or PS (using the HDR function) will help balance the light between the mountains and sky.

        Jill C., Forum Volunteer
          S
          Silver RdzaAuthor
          Participating Frequently
          June 15, 2021

          Thank you for the quick turnaround and advice, yes I knew that F16 is pushing a lot on the kit lens otherwise I might have gone to 22 or higher. What lens you think would be best for this kind of photo? I reall don't wanna go to the primes at this time, just a good enough lens will do for me I guess. The bracketed images I only using when low light conditions with a bright background or similar situations, I haven't considered brackets for this kind of landscape with harsh light, but I will definitively try it next time. About the tripod, is hard to carry one when doing this kind of long and physically demanding hikes, but it seems I might have to improve my physical condition to carry the tripod weight or find a carbon fiber one.  This are all excelent suggestions, thanks for your time. If I may do one more question,   in this kind of scenario, to get more in focus landscape, (of course tripod to avoid camera shake, but asuming that was correct), where will you set your focus point in this landscape? I was using SINGLE SHOT automatic focus, and I set it to focus in the middle mountain (the green one in the middle), approximately in the middle of the landscape, following some suggestions from landscape photographers, to focus on the middle of the photo with a deep depth of field to have everything in sharp focus BACKGROUND and FOREGROUND, but perhaps that was not the best option in this case. 

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