Thanks for the kind words on my images! I'll give you a run down on how I handle these issues, some of which has already been touched on.
First off, I'm not really seeing pixelation here, more just minor noise and maybe minor banding from what I can tell. I'll cover these issues a bit further down here but I'd like to run through my thought process on this particular scene start to finish.
If I were standing there viewing this scene, I would first develop what I'd like to see as a result. For me, with rippled water like this I'd want to smooth it out for that foggy/smokey effect. To do this I'd use an ND filter to slow my shutter speed down. Next I'd set my aperture for the depth of field I wanted, which in this case I'd probably take it to the f/20 or higher range (This also allows for slower shutter speeds there again for the effect I'm going for on the water). Next, I would decide how much of a sunburst I want to create. For a pinpoint sunburst, I would start my exposure at a fast enough shutter speed to expose for a small pinpoint of the sun itself. Then, keeping everything locked and steady on the tripod, I would work my way down 1 stop at a time until my foreground areas are all properly exposed and a stop or two beyond. If all was done properly, my exposures which light the water will all be pretty silky smooth.
In processing I often times use anywhere from 9-14 exposures. More exposures tends reduce the amount of noise. I'll work an image pretty heavily in Photomatix. There is not a single photomatix package preset I use, but I do have a large bank of my own that can be useful as a starting point or to see how different approaches effect that particular image in a general sense. For example, I may process a batch of landscapes from a cloudy day with good visibility under the clouds and save the setting used under "cloudy day-good visibility". A week or two later I may shoot in incredibly similar situations so I may try this present I saved to see where it starts me. Sometimes it's a great starting point, sometimes not. If it isn't, I'll save a new preset once I reach my goal with the new images and name it something like "cloudy day-good visibility 2" and so on. To help keep noise at bay, work your smoothing controls (main, highlight and micro smoothing being more important usually than shadow smoothing) together to achieve a balance of lower noise, and definition in the highlights wanted (And no haloing of course!).
Once finalized in Pmatix, I take my images into photoshop. I usually sharpen a little, and try out some noise reduction. I use noiseware for noise reduction, and it is important to note that there are many instances where removal of the noise in a pastel or highly gradient sky can reveal major banding. I work in 16 bit TIFF's and believe me, this is still an issue. I'll use an independent layer for my noise reduction application so that it can be removed or blended easily as I work through the image. Using noise reduction, then using the banding reduction method linked in the forum post here that you read typically just gives the same results and not using noise reduction in the first place.
While I am not going to run through all the different options of editing in Photoshop, one that I do use often is selective color to apply color correction when needed. When shooting into the sun, I often times find the greens will get that 'electric neon' look. Going into the YELLOW spectrum and reducing the yellow and raising the cyan to find a good balance. Sometimes though further more in depth tactics are needed to resolve color correction, but often the above does just fine.
Hope that helps some!
![[No title]](/data/xfmg/thumbnail/39/39480-e4e26ffe5c6148262ac81eff975a5c0e.jpg?1734173580)
![[No title]](/data/xfmg/thumbnail/36/36658-525087f40e1bdbfe8b995ce4296ef4a6.jpg?1734169171)
