What to do with this ?

[BananaRepublic]

I'd lift the shadows, noise reduce, probably bump up the vibrance slightly and colour grade it. I think other people are less concerned with straight horizons than photographers are.

Thanks, I agree with the horizon comment from feedback Id get from operators and such.

 

[BananaRepublic]

Ive done some edits, small perhaps, and this time there two alternate routes, kind off. Ive upped that saturation slightly

That's more along the lines of what I was talking about. When composing an image, it's easy to forget that color and contrast can be used as a simple yet powerful element in composition.

I don't remember which software you're using but in Lr, go to the HSL panel, click on saturation tab, click on targeted adjustment tab, hover the hand over the deepest orange above the black, click, hold and push up to raise the saturation of the Orange. You may have to do the same with the luminosity tab. In PS it can be done with either a curves or a levels adjustment layer by going to tge color channels.

I use affinity photo so the darker version for example what I did was raise saturation by around 10% and vibrance by 60%. I dont have a LR or equivalent at the moment. I havent edit things now for a few months so Im relearning now again.

 

[bulldurham]

The problems I encountered when trying to keep the silhouette was that there wasn't enough detail in the combine to tell it was really a combine. There are some elements there but to a non farm oriented viewer, it's "something" in the middle of a field. I did all my editing in channels for this image. It is, unfortunately, an image that begs a do over.

 

[BananaRepublic]

The problems I encountered when trying to keep the silhouette was that there wasn't enough detail in the combine to tell it was really a combine. There are some elements there but to a non farm oriented viewer, it's "something" in the middle of a field. I did all my editing in channels for this image. It is, unfortunately, an image that begs a do over.

Well there will be more chances I think for similar images this year so I’ve taken you’re points on board.

 

[smoke665]

I use affinity photo so the darker version for example what I did was raise saturation by around 10% and vibrance by 60%. I dont have a LR or equivalent at the moment. I havent edit things now for a few months so Im relearning now again.

The adjustments you made are "global" meaning it affects all parts of the image. What you need are targeted adjustments. I've not worked with Affinity but I believe you might be able to do something similar with a color mask or selective color layer.

After reading @bulldurham post it made me think, my experiences are such that I'd have no trouble recognizing the silhouette as a combine, but to the ordinary viewer I could see his point. I still believe the strongest element in the composition is the color and a strong silhouette could still work, but with a few edits to accentuate the color, and spotting some little details to bring out some context of the machine, it could also make a strong image.

If you do shoot this again, I think I'd try get the sun out from behind the combine, more to the left so that the highlight on the side matches the direction of the light.

 

[BananaRepublic]

Ive posted a set related to this in the general gallery. In the end I went with a version of the original image that was closer to the real life situation but Idid get some valuable tips from you guys, thanks.

Some Green Machines

 

[sleist]

Being able to curate your own work in an important skill. I would not consider this a keeper worth any time in post processing - but that's just me. Consider it a learning experience and go back and re-shoot, making changes to technique such as using bracketing, HDR, flash, graduated ND filters etc.

The only exception would be if it was the only shot of something meaningful.

If you're looking for PP help regardless, you should post a link to the raw file.

 

[BananaRepublic]

Being able to curate your own work in an important skill. I would not consider this a keeper worth any time in post processing - but that's just me. Consider it a learning experience and go back and re-shoot, making changes to technique such as using bracketing, HDR, flash, graduated ND filters etc.

The only exception would be if it was the only shot of something meaningful.

If you're looking for PP help regardless, you should post a link to the raw file.

Right