* Wednesday C&C "No Theme" Thread #890 / Revived #110 on 2025 05 07*

You have caught a really nice reflection there, so well spotted and composed.
The contrast between the bendy, distorted reflections of the buildings and the rigid straight lines of the building acting as a mirror are pretty extreme and delightful.

That is a lovely idea. Big pictures of beautiful landscapes in beautiful surroundings is appropriate, but there is also a slightly surreal feeling too. Cool.
The series is neat too. A scene setter, a location, the group moves on and then another location.

Great shot. You have certainly captured delightful selection of dwellings in various colours and those tree shadows. Wonderful.

Sunglasses were invented for looking at this car.
So yes, you’ve had enough sun now. Come into the shade of the garage and park next to the rusty Ford pickup.

Thank you for posting this, Minnie. When I first saw it, I was reminded that I had forgotten to buy an onion to go in our evening meal!
The patterns and textures and especially the colours make an attractive series.

There is lots of scope for making this into other objects. A face or an owl, for instance.

Those houses are lovely. They remind me of Istanbul, and with the hills and, since the red in the centre could be the Turkish flag, I’ll stick with that guess.
The houses are in the shade, but since the sunlight is creating a dappled shadow across the road, the brighter area does not distract from the main subject, and even makes the photo more interesting.

There is an object in the photo that I'm curious about- curious to see if it is recognized by anyone other than an Australian of older years. Above the closest shoulder of the girl adding icecream into the milk shake container, is a largish glass container. When I took this shot I was careful to ensure this object could be seen and I was happy to get it with the reflection. It may be that these things are /were universal or they may be an Australian speciality. I don't know. Does anyone recognize it? The associated brand is a famous British name but I don't believe the product is used in the same way in Britain. I may be wrong.

Nope, the figure wasn't created by A1, although there is some AI involved and I had noted the fingers before I posted.
Look at the camera settings and the lighting.

Thanks Pete.

But this was taken on a dark, rainy day! The poor thing is dripping with rain and is just asking to come in where it's warm and dry.

And he has such a nice smile!

😎

Rich

That’s what comes from viewing the images on a small phone whilst travelling by train. It was lovely and sunny outside my window. 🤣

I looked at this image pretty closely and I see nothing to suggest the figure in the foreground is an AI construct. I've never seen an AI construct that could emulate lens distortion and angle distortion simultaneously in a convincing way. There's nothing about her hands that suggests the usual AI problems with hands. AI people often have too many or too few fingers, but this woman has the right number in the right angle for the position she's in and the task she's doing. AI would likely have made a mess of the lettering on her clothing. The reflections in the metal cup would have been less convincing. I would suspect an AI-based noise remover/sharpener such as Topaz was utilized here, and would account for the mild oddities we see (the weird distortion of a vein in her left hand, some textural anomalies in some reflective surfaces like her glasses and the edge of the ice chest, and the unnatural smoothness of her skin). I use Topaz products sometimes and see this behavior in Topaz AI, a program which I consider equal parts blessing and curse.

Though the container is unfamiliar, the stuff in it looks like malt powder.

Thank you for looking and suggestion.

You got it. It's a Horlicks malt dispenser. Once malt added from one of these and at least one scoop of real icecream, were essential components of a good milk shake. Shakes made with soft serve "ice creams" don't have the same flavour and texture.

Yes, this is Noise reduction. The light levels over the serve area were low, atmospheric and amber coloured. I wanted plenty of dof to get the length of the counter and the reflections and the close up of the icecream being added. I needed the shutter speed, knew the image would be dark but figured Topaz would come to the rescue.
As you say- part blessing, part curse.

Ah, this weeks opening image hits the eye instantly and is then hard to shake off. Great stuff. The colored areas with their lines of different trees are like eye candy.
Then, at a second look I wondered if it is a little to much? I tried another version:

What do you think? A layer or two are shaved off but it's easier for me this way. On the other hand... I'm not sure.
Use of image: Maybe on the front cover of a photo-book about traveling the Manderscheid area?
(I would recommend f/4 or f/5.6 if the lens is OK. f/10 is a recipe for fuzziness.)

it's an interesting image with a lot going on in it. It took a few seconds for me to understand the room layout. EDIT: I forgot to mention I really like this kind of images showing people at every day activities. This image is basically good and I gave it a long look. /EDIT

Then my eye landed, of course, on the foremost lady and her left hand. Hmm.
This is strange. The woman does partly look AI generated but the light and her place suggest she is a normal human. Than again there are so many shady details and scrolling around I was fascinated by a some of them:
The rim of the glasses maybe goes straight into the ear canal.
The eyebrows are otherworldly.
The eyelashes have become one long black thing made of something not looking like hair.
The first joint of the left little finger is further out from the hand than the first joint of the ring finger.
On her right index finger, she has a ring that sits between the first and second joints instead of before the first joint.
The left index finger is deformed.
All fingertips of the right hand are strange.

Then I also started to wonder why she works that steel cup upon a surface of glass and also without holding the cup. At that point I felt I was getting paranoid.
All that happened yesterday. Today I read this is a result from noise treatment.
May I suggest letting ISO1600 images be a bit noisy, it can't be that bad in reasonably sized images. At least not as frightening as the poor young woman.

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