Scotland's far north-west - final images added.

[David Paterson]

A final set of images - as well as fine landscapes and mountains, west Sutherland has a beautiful coastline with lovely sandy beaches and dramatic rocks and cliffs. Here are a few samples.

1. Rock island off Drumbeg.
2. The natural harbour at Lochinver.
3 and 4. Achmelvish Bay.
5. CLashnessie beach.
6 and 7. Bay of Stoer.
8, 9 and 10. Point of Stoer.

[Danulon]

Wonderful, David!

I keep on admiring your ability to highlight patterns and moods of light in your photos.
Always a pleasure to follow your excursions through your beautiful country.

Cheers,
Günther

[David H. Hartman]

David,

Wonderful series! Thank you.

Dave Hartman

[Andrew]

Yes, fantastic!
Looking on this pix I did find out, that I really miss Scotland...
How many years? I think over fifty...

[David Paterson]

Thank you, Gunther, David and Andrew. It's a great pleasure for me, to post images of Scotland on this forum.

Andrew - 50 years is a long time, about the same time as I have been photographing Scotland. You should come here again soon . . .

[knb]

Stunning landscapes. Still, the Clashnessie beach image caught my attention because of the composition, the colours and the minimalistic "tidyness" of the scene. I do also like the golden Bay of Stoer among others.

[Erik Lund]

Such a funny feeling,,, glancing at your images it's like having a short break while walking around in Scotland - Storytelling,,, there is just something that visually works so well in the framing and light - Thanks for sharing.

[Ann]

David:

What a feast of stunning photographs you laid before us!

You have captured the play of light and shade and the varied topography of that region masterfully.

So many really great photographs and the Stoer Coastal8 shot is just one of them.

This collection would make an outstandingly beautiful book.

[David Paterson]

Thank you all very much - Ann, Erik and Kjetil - for your kind comments.

This collection would make an outstandingly beautiful book.

Ann - I've had similar thoughts. These days I don't do "proper" books with "proper" publishers - too many false promises, too may compromises to be made, etc, etc - I just self-publish using blurb.com and use the books  as gifts for family and friends. And very occasionally sell a few. But the books can be exactly as I want them to be - none of those compromises. As well as publishing a number of books through mainstream publishers, I also ran my own little publishing company for 10 years. I used the best far-eastern printers, such as Toppan Insetsu, but the repro I get from Blurb is FAR better.

[Ann]

I also use Blurb and get excellent, reliable (and consistent!) production from them.

I use Blurb's "Pro" PDF/CMYK work flow — not the Lightroom sRGB one.

I send them an Indesign PDF (with pre-converted CMYK images) and the printed results which I receive back from them are a very close match to the way that the file looks on my monitor.

The first time that I used Blurb, I asked them to print the minimum 24 pages and I used that as a "MatchPrint" to adjust the Black Generation curve in the CMYK conversion profile because I found that their presses run a bit too heavily in the blacks. By using that adjusted CMYK conversion and their Premium stock, I get great results from Blurb.

Here in the USA, they seem to use a different plant for printing a PDF workflow.

[Mikes]

Beautiful Images, David. The colours you can wring out from the NEFs amaze me.

Great series. Numbers 1 and 9 in particular.

[John Geerts]

Super series, David.    Especially the colours and framing of Clashnessie beach are amazing.

[David Paterson]

Thank you again, Ann (you are much more thorough than I am), and also John and Mike.

Mike - nice to hear from you. I would like to have taken you up to Assynt when you were here in May, but the time was too tight. Maybe next time?

[Akira]

David, you know how to tease the viewers!  The sets are increasingly enjoyable as the thread grows!  I love the various lighting captured in the latest set!

[David Paterson]

Thanks, Akira - it was natural, I think, to try and build to some sort of crescendo. But actually, few of these jpegs are from finished "masters files" and nearly all still require a few final tweaks, mainly tonal - especially the last set.