Roaming in Rome part 2

[John G]

 Hi
    I spent a little more time with the images from the city. There were many nice opportunities. The chapel was taken handheld at 24mm at a eighth of a second.

[Bent Hjarbo]

Nice pictures, is it the time of day that gives the warm colours?

[John G]

 Hi Bent
             I have processed the images working with the histogram as I deliberately underexposed many of the images I took. I noticed that when using the DxO Pro software, the colours would
              warm when I used the Smart Light and Clear view tool set to 70. The two layers merged of high pass filter in CS6 has a further effect on the richness of tones.
              Apart from that I tried to control the sky becoming to bright using the CS6 Tone Curve.
             I would say from previous experience that a JPEG conversion has a effect on the original image, especially in consolidating colours. I have not sought a way to avoid this but have accepted 
             the outcome on many images. I always keep the uncorrupted originals.   

[MFloyd]

John, the Vittoriano has a purple dominant (at least on my screen) and your sensor definitely needs a thorough clean-up: I see at least 40 spots on the right upper side. On the left upper side, there are some strange black spots which seem to have another origin. Most of the other pictures have the same problem (dust spots).

I think you pushed the cursors a little bit too far: look at the white border between the Colosseum and the sky, indicating oversharpening. 

Nice pictures, but the overall yellow/orange dominant is not my favorite.

[John G]

Hi MFloyd
              Thank you for taking the time to view the images, sharing your observations and showing my faults.
              NG over the last few weeks has really helped me in my basics to post processing, I totally agree that the
              dust issues are shoddy on my behalf.
               It is a shock they are so prominent, as I thoroughly cleaned my lens that were with me on the trip whilst 
               in a long delay waiting to board the ferry at Dover. The inside of the camera had a good blow clean to at
               the same time. I will look into having the bodies internal cleaned in a more professional method.
               What is not such a shock is that I overlooked the dust when processing.
               In the past weeks of using the NG forum I have been encouraged to look at my WB, Sharpening, and HSL
               choices and I am convinced I have used them in a very individual way, that has ended up with warm               
               colour cast tones that have been excessively sharpened. I have also been informed of dust in other
               images.
               While investigating a image for dust recently and having thought I had removed most of the spots, I had
               a look at the image in B&W and there were many more spots visible .
               I am now thinking it might be worth having a look at my images in B&W as a final check.
   
               I am looking forward to presenting more new work and re-visiting some earlier images to be presented
               with my new understandings of my past presentations. 
   

[Jakov Minić]

John, the colors of some of the images are too yellow or green on my screen.
I like the photos

[MFloyd]

....
               It is a shock they are so prominent, as I thoroughly cleaned my lens that were with me on the trip whilst 
               in a long delay waiting to board the ferry at Dover. The inside of the camera had a good blow clean to at
               the same time. I will look into having the bodies internal cleaned in a more professional method.
               What is not such a shock is that I overlooked the dust when processing.
               In the past weeks of using the NG forum I have been encouraged to look at my WB, Sharpening, and HSL
               choices and I am convinced I have used them in a very individual way, that has ended up with warm               
               colour cast tones that have been excessively sharpened. I have also been informed of dust in other
               images.
               While investigating a image for dust recently and having thought I had removed most of the spots, I had
               a look at the image in B&W and there were many more spots visible .
               I am now thinking it might be worth having a look at my images in B&W as a final check.
   
            .....
   

John, it's not a matter of dust on lenses or so; its the dirt which is on your SENSOR (or rather the anti-aliasing filter in front of the sensor).  If you are using Lightroom, for example, there is an overlay tool which helps you to visualize and remove spots. See example (all the spots in the top middle; particles as a result of déficient shutter on my D4s).

With regard to the sensor cleaning, I believe that you will need a "wet" cleaning; although you can do this quite easily by yourself, I would strongly advice to have it done, the first time, by a professional (and ask him, to show you).