Valley of Fire

[gh6539]

Submitted for you enjoyment, my first attempt at animated moving clouds.

The photos were take in July 2009 at the Valley of Fire state park, about 60 miles from Las Vegas, Nevada.

Download

Regards,

[Barry Beckham]

I made an attempt to watch it on Youtube, but found it too small and too painful to wait for the download to catch up, why not post it in all its glorious exe quality via mediafire or Beachbrook

You do need to make a correction, you have a spelling mistake on your opening title. Its easy done, I once made a small show of a place in Yorkshire and never spotted I left the K out of yourshire:blink:.

[gh6539]

I made an attempt to watch it on Youtube, but found it too small and too painful to wait for the download to catch up, why not post it in all its glorious exe quality via mediafire or Beachbrook

You do need to make a correction, you have a spelling mistake on your opening title. Its easy done, I once made a small show of a place in Yorkshire and never spotted I left the K out of yourshire:blink:.

Thanks for your input.

I was not sure how well YouTube would work.

Changed post to download from mediafire.

Regards,

[Barry Beckham]

That was much better seeing it as an executable file. Moving clouds are one of the few natural occurrences that I think are convincing in a slide show, but the animation must be slow and I think yours was just marginally too fast in places.

This technique involves making a number of cutouts so the clouds can be animated behind the foreground rocks. The problem is that when we do this we are drawing attention to where the clouds meet the rocks and the cutout needs to be good. It looks like you have used an automatic or semi automatic technique to select the clouds and you have missed a clean edge in a number of areas. Once spotted they draw the eye and the only way (generally) to get good enough cutouts is to either do it manually or finish the cutout off manually. You need to take off those liitle areas still clinging to the rocks that shouldn't be there.

If your familiar with layer masks use one of those and a soft edged brush. Alternatively the eraser with a soft edged brush. The rock edges will then look clean and natural.

Do you think a sequence like this may look better in a wider format? The shape of 16:10, 16:9 or 3:2 may enhance the skies and the animation.

[Ken Cox]

George

seems cramped in the format you chose

-- you are from the States so you are familiar with Montana's "big sky country"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montana

'tho your sky is not a Montana sky you should enhance it to make it "big sky" by filling the screen

transitions could also be slowed down

ken

[dpletts]

George,

Excellent scenic pics, but I felt that the clouds were a bit too large in scale for the long-shots. Good idea, though.

David P

[gh6539]

George

seems cramped in the format you chose

-- you are from the States so you are familiar with Montana's "big sky country"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montana

'tho your sky is not a Montana sky you should enhance it to make it "big sky" by filling the screen

transitions could also be slowed down

ken

Ken,

Thanks for the suggestions. I think you are saying to use an aspect ration of 16:9.

I will work on this and post when completed.

Many thanks,

[gh6539]

George,

Excellent scenic pics, but I felt that the clouds were a bit too large in scale for the long-shots. Good idea, though.

David P

David,

Thanks for the input. I will as Ken suggested redo with a wide screen format (16:9)

Regards,

[gh6539]

That was much better seeing it as an executable file. Moving clouds are one of the few natural occurrences that I think are convincing in a slide show, but the animation must be slow and I think yours was just marginally too fast in places.

This technique involves making a number of cutouts so the clouds can be animated behind the foreground rocks. The problem is that when we do this we are drawing attention to where the clouds meet the rocks and the cutout needs to be good. It looks like you have used an automatic or semi automatic technique to select the clouds and you have missed a clean edge in a number of areas. Once spotted they draw the eye and the only way (generally) to get good enough cutouts is to either do it manually or finish the cutout off manually. You need to take off those liitle areas still clinging to the rocks that shouldn't be there.

If your familiar with layer masks use one of those and a soft edged brush. Alternatively the eraser with a soft edged brush. The rock edges will then look clean and natural.

Do you think a sequence like this may look better in a wider format? The shape of 16:10, 16:9 or 3:2 may enhance the skies and the animation.

When removing the sky from the I was using Photoshop Elements 8 "Magic Extractor". To say the least my Photoshop expertise is limited.

I am going to redo this project using all the suggestions I received.

Many thanks to all who have shared their suggestions.

[Ken Cox]

George

make the pte in several forms and see which looks best -- save as under different names to differentiate

you have most of the work done

then post the best - in your eyes

ken

[gh6539]

George

make the pte in several forms and see which looks best -- save as under different names to differentiate

you have most of the work done

then post the best - in your eyes

ken

Ken,

Thanks again for your suggestions. Hope to be able to work on it today.

Regards,