Does this work? or too dark?

[Ernicus]

I'm still finding myself drifting towards dark. and I'm not emo. lol. I tried to lighten up without being too bright, while keeping darkness.

Thoughts?

 

[Ernicus]

noob. forgot image again. lolz

 

[Kerbouchard]

Darkening an image generally adds some saturation. In some cases, that is a good thing. In others, it may be a good idea to bring the saturation down just a bit after you darken them/raise the black slider.

For me, this is one of those cases where I think the saturation should have been brought down a bit.

Other than that, it's a cool scene. Nice use of the tree to add a border and a very dramatic looking sky plus reflection. Nice.

 

[michael_cell]

It all definately depends on your personal taste,
I do commend you on your framing, and use of reflection. (I sound like an echo to Kerbouchard)

 

[Ernicus]

Thanks for the comments. You made me smile noticing the framing, I actually worked hard on that. lol. Well hard for me.

after I posted this, working on another image, I noticed that I could separate the darkening and saturation, instead of how I was doing it before...in letting it saturate when darkening.

all good points. thank you.

back to the original file to see what I can do differently, lol

 

[Ernicus]

This better? I redid it, lowered saturation created from the darkening, didnt like that the blue was not as blue so I added a blue filter to it around 15% ish so it didnt take too much away from the reds. Not as much overpowering reds and oranges. I also raised the white slider just a hair to lighten the sky back up a tad.

 

[Ernicus]

hrm, I dunno, I feel it lost some "pow".

 

[Kerbouchard]

I think I would say something in between the two. If you work on layers, instead of adding another effect to cancel out an unwanted effect, try using the opacity slider or the blend modes before trying to fix things that were messed up by an adjustment.

Also, there are several ways to make an adjustment. Perhaps a different method will get you the effects you want without the detriment of any unwanted effects.

I am a fan of duplicating the layer, converting the blend mode to Overlay and then adjusting the Opacity to taste. Might want to give it a try on the original. If Overlay doesn't work, softlight, or pinlight might.

Just play around.

Obviously, this is assuming you are using photoshop.

 

[Ernicus]

Yes, I use ps.

I have recently started adding new layers to achieve the effects i want, or try to. lol.

I forgot to adjust shadows/highlights, that brought back out the detail and darks in the clouds I like.

 

[Ernicus]

try using the opacity slider or the blend modes before trying to fix things that were messed up by an adjustment.

Haven't tried this. Thanks for the tip.