Sunrise

[naiku]

Got up early the other morning to take some sunrise pictures, any tips on improving the lines of mountains in the foreground without ruining the color in the sky?

Thanks.

 

[fishing4sanity]

By improving, do you mean bringing out more detail in the foreground of the sunrise photo? Do you use Lightroom? Photo editing software might be able to bring up some detail in the shadows. I'm pretty inexperienced with filters, but a graduated neutral density filter would hold back the exposure of the sky and bring up the exposure in the mountains.

 

[DSP121]

The sunrise picture looks simply amazing to me!
Adding few filters to it would make it look greater!
Thumbs to a great one

 

[naiku]

By improving, do you mean bringing out more detail in the foreground of the sunrise photo? Do you use Lightroom? Photo editing software might be able to bring up some detail in the shadows. I'm pretty inexperienced with filters, but a graduated neutral density filter would hold back the exposure of the sky and bring up the exposure in the mountains.

Yes, I just wanted to make the outlines of the mountains a little easier to see. I do have Lightroom and am slowly learning my way around it, I may try a gradient filter in there to see if I can sharpen the mountains just slightly. I actually want to pick up a graduated neutral density filter for this kind of photo, it's on my shopping list!!

The sunrise picture looks simply amazing to me!
Adding few filters to it would make it look greater!
Thumbs to a great one

Thank you.

 

[FITBMX]

I really like the sunset, but there are a few things you can try to improve on it.
If you can't do a reshoot then I would try the gradient filter. But if you can do a reshoot, or for the next landscape like this you may try these things.
Shoot the photo at f8, (f15ish if you want more foreground in focus) shoot at as low of an ISO as you can.
Use a tripod and a 2+ second timer so at low shutter speeds it will still be sharp.
Your camera can most likely take bracketed photos (nearly all do these days) if your camera can, then bracket a stop to a stop and a half high and low (this depends on your camera, some can only bracket three, and others can do more. If you need more brackets than your camera can do, you can bracket manually) with the multiple exposures you can do exposer blending. There are lots of YouTube videos on how to do this, but you have to use PhotoShop.
For sharpening, I use a "High Pass filter" in photoshop. To do this you first blend your photos and do any cloning or other change you want to make, then "Merge" all of those layers together, then duplicate the photo by using "Ctrl 'J'". This is the layer you use the high pass filter on, set it for 2.5 to 3.5, too big and it will look graining, too small and it won't be noticeable, so play with it until you like it. You can always delete the layer and start it again, or use undo. You can then duplicate this sharpening layer to add more and use a layer mask to make it more specific in areas. You can adjust the "Opacity" on the sharpen layer if you think it is too strong.
I hope this makes sense to you, PhotoShop can be hard to explain.

 

[naiku]

Thank you, that's some great tips. I can easily go and do a reshoot, I plan to do so at some point in time. I will look into bracketing, from a quick read it sounds like I was manually bracketing as I was just playing with settings to see what the outcomes were. Of course, I also just discover that my camera does not have a bracketing function (it's a Nikon D3200). So, manual bracketing it is.

I have a new tripod on the way (1st non cheap tripod!!), so it will be a good excuse to try it out coupled with an intervalometer to not cause any camera shake while taking the shots.

Photoshop can definitely be hard to explain, but it is also fun to tinker around with settings both in there and Lightroom. Thanks again for the tips. Hopefully, in a couple weeks I can post some updated and possibly improved images.