sunset over alaskan ocean

[TrickyRic]

I aligned the horizon and had a play with that over exposure on the sun. What can I say, I'm bored, LOL.

Not sure I like this much though. I'm no artist and I think I may have just winded up washing the colours out, but here's the idea at least. If you want to give it a shot yourself and see if you can do better, I pretty much kept making wand selections, applying 20px feathers, and fiddling the contrasts, brightnesses, and colour levels. Creating new layers with feathered blacks/yellows/oranges and fading the layer out, flattening the whole image and going through the process again until it started to look something like the original with a toned down sun. I seem to have accidentally bordered a little around that rock but I didn't intend for this to be usable, it's merely an example. Just keep your eye out there while you're fiddling the levels.

I did this in the GIMP but the process should be just the same in Photoshop, if that's your preference.

 

[optic79]

I am truly impressed TrickyRic that you played around with my photo. Since posting I have been editing this photo also, using a much older version of photoshop elements. I am new to editing software so i am tying to learn as I go.
The horizon looks much straighter after your editing, and the you did a great job of toning down the sun to a yellow color rather than it's original bright white color. The foreground rocks are not as contrasted or as red in your photo, and the darker ocean in the foreground is also not as contrasted with the area of the ocean where the sun hits.
I am finding that in this photo there is a difficult balance between preserving contrast and colors where I want them while trying to darken the sun. I have not found how to select just the sun and manipulate that particular area with much success.
I really like what you have done! It has inspired me to keep working at it!

 

[TrickyRic]

Use the wand selection to grab the sun and surrounding area, then add a feather to the selection of around 20 pixel (Works a little like a gradiant on the edges of the selection). Any changes you make now should be more smooth between the changing area and the surrounding canvas, thanks to the feather.

Personally I use GIMP, a GNU alternative to the commercial Photoshop. GIMP is free and in most cases either as intuitive or more so than Photoshop.

 

[The Empress]

Very beautiful!!!

 

[Snyder]

Im starting to notice more and more people on here from Alaska, and I agree there is no better place to take scenery photos than Alaska.

 

[optic79]

Use the wand selection to grab the sun and surrounding area, then add a feather to the selection of around 20 pixel (Works a little like a gradiant on the edges of the selection). Any changes you make now should be more smooth between the changing area and the surrounding canvas, thanks to the feather.

Personally I use GIMP, a GNU alternative to the commercial Photoshop. GIMP is free and in most cases either as intuitive or more so than Photoshop.

Not sure what you mean by feather. I can't find it on my software.

 

[TrickyRic]

Should be on the Select menu I believe. The options for that specific tool may also have a feather variable but in GIMP I find applying a feather AFTER the selection is made usually works better.