artistic direction / guidance requested!

[echoyjeff2221]

hey all,

this is another sunrise shot that I got of rays passing into the valley ... I feel that I can do a lot more with this shot, but I am a bit stuck at the moment. Here's a preliminary shot -- I didn't do much at all. I darkened the foreground and lightened the background, did the basic contrast and warmed it up a tad. But, I really feel like I could do a lot more with this. Any ideas/thoughts would be appreciated!!!

I'm mostly wondering about the foreground. Should I crop things around? Should I keep it dark or lighten it a bit?

test by .Jeffrey L., on Flickr

 

[LimePanda]

Have you got the raw file so I can have a play around and see what I think?
I totally understand if you don't want to share it

 

[paigew]

I would lighten the foreground. Do you have any without a blown sky?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[echoyjeff2221]

@paigew By foreground are you referring to the first layer of rocks or the first and second. If both, should I keep a gradient of sorts? Actually I like your idea overall because then I can get some more contrast overall ... since the first two layers are right now are sort of dull and similar.

@LimePanda yeah sure, I can give you the raw file -- how should I send it over?

 

[CameraClicker]

Any chance of recovering the sky? I would try lightening the foreground to see the effect, sometimes it works, sometimes not.

 

[LimePanda]

@paigew By foreground are you referring to the first layer of rocks or the first and second. If both, should I keep a gradient of sorts? Actually I like your idea overall because then I can get some more contrast overall ... since the first two layers are right now are sort of dull and similar.

@LimePanda yeah sure, I can give you the raw file -- how should I send it over?

A dropbox would probably work