Crazy sunset... C&C please

PureRumble · Aug 21, 2007

The sunset has not been tampered with. It was really that crazy! So what do you think? Sharpness, Contrast, Colors, etc.. Hit them all & Hit them hard!

Also please give cropping-suggestions as this is my next big problem...

IanRB · Aug 21, 2007

I like this shot but if it were me and this is just my opinion i probably would crop a little off the bottom and try to bring out the colors more. This sunset has great colors but i'd like to see more of this color.

PureRumble · Aug 21, 2007

Thx. It's the technical issues that I have a problem with. How do you suggest I can bring out the colors more? Are you talking of "color saturation", or is it something else?

THX!

IanRB · Aug 21, 2007

hahaha well i'm pretty new to photoshopping and that kind of stuff so im not the best person to ask when it actualy comes to doing it, but it just seemed like a sunset that great could use more color. you can just try messing around with saturation and different things, thats what i usualy do. Right now i'm actualy trying to figure out the ends and outs of cs3 that my uncle let me borrow for the summer, so hopefully ill be able to adjust things while knowing what im doing.

D-50 · Aug 21, 2007

The photo overall lacks depth and contrast, the grey forground and muted trees don't really do anything. Also The sky could use a good bump in contrast. The composition asa whole I dont feel really works, the tree line is more or less in the middle of the shot,and there is no point of interest. Remember when shooting sunset especially there needs to be something to it, a shot of a pretty sky, never matches up to the real thing, try to find something of interest in the foreground. I always ask myself when shooting landscapes what is the subject of this photo, if the answere is "the sky" nine times out of ten I delete it.

PureRumble · Aug 21, 2007

Thx. For your C&C. Well you make it to sound like that there is no good point with this pic, and that might very well be correct. But I'm still to damn proud over it, so I have to ask you how you think I can save what's left of it

I've created the picture with Photomatix Pro, so yeah it is a tonemapped HDR. You are mentioning contrast several times. Is this something that I can fixh with tonemapping, or do you suggest I try to resolve this in photoshop/gimp?

And what do you think I can do about the colors?

THX!

simonkit · Aug 21, 2007

Hi,

I like the sky colours - I'd go with a crop of the foreground, specifically crop from the bottom until the tree-line on the left appears around 1/3 from the bottom.

A little "S" curve in PS curves would help too

simon

D-50 · Aug 22, 2007

The photo is not useless at all it just needs some work. As I have recently learned PHotomatix is just a starting point, you'll need to take the picture from that and bring it to Photoshop to enhance the contrast and mabye do a curves adjustment. With some work imsure it will be great, if you dont mind I could do a quick once over to it and let you know the steps I used.

PureRumble · Aug 22, 2007

D-50 said:
The photo is not useless at all it just needs some work. As I have recently learned PHotomatix is just a starting point, you'll need to take the picture from that and bring it to Photoshop to enhance the contrast and mabye do a curves adjustment. With some work imsure it will be great, if you dont mind I could do a quick once over to it and let you know the steps I used.

Improving my picture, and not only that... learning me what steps you used to do that? Are you seriously asking me for permission? I am begging you!!! :-|

1shot · Aug 22, 2007

Here is what I did to it:

And here is what I did to it:

Let me know what you think.

1shot-1still

TCimages · Aug 22, 2007

I think you have a good photo here, but it needs some boost. Here is my take:

I used Paintshop Pro Smart Photo Fix.

Alex_B · Aug 22, 2007

I like what has been done to the foreground in the first edit, but I prefer the sky in the second edit or the original

TCimages · Aug 22, 2007

Alex_B said:
I like what has been done to the foreground in the first edit, but I prefer the sky in the second edit or the original

That's funny, I had the same thought when I saw the first edit.

robert. rannebarger · Aug 22, 2007

Overall very good quality, however, I think you need a better camera to really bring out that sunset. Plus its a little cloudy out there!!:scratch: In Billings we usually head up to the Kimberly Hills mobile home park and stand on f^%$#$n insurance's roof to get our sunset and sunrise shots.:shock: Can you believe that my quota is so high this month?

uke-rig: Anyways I'm sure any of you that are familiar with my body of work know that I have a passion for taking shots of magnificent sunsets, and here we call it big sky country!!:cheer: It seems like there is a sunset pretty much every day!!! Anyways here is an example of the Nokia 5300 Lilac in action. (note: pixels may be slightly distorted due to conversion from standard to metric then back to standard) For what it's worth I think I am ready to make the jump to professional photographer!!! My rap career isn't taking off yet but be ready for be ready my souljaz!!! Tekneek will take flight December of '07. Anyways here is a sunset 59102 style!!!! :gun:

PureRumble · Aug 28, 2007

THX all for your ideas and comments. Here comes my suggestion. The edits have been entirely in Lightroom. So non area-specific edits that you can do in Photoshop. C&C Please! Love it or Hate it, now!