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does this have potential?

this is a photo i took at the ocean back in 2005. i'd gone to get some photos of the sunset, but when i got there, i saw the most amazing golden light illuminating the mist from the surf. the tide was out, the sun was almost on the horizon, and the low angle light through the mist turned it an amazing goldish color. i snapped this photo trying to capture the unique look, but the sky is badly blown and the rest of it seems lacking. i think something could be done with this, but i'd like some ideas... what would you folks suggest to fix this image? feel free to edit and repost with a brief description of what you did...

the photo was shot with a Panasonic FZ20, 1/80 @ f2.8. the FZ20 has amazing optics (12x Leica lens equivalent to 36-432mm in a full-frame body, f2.8 throughout the zoom range), but like most compact digicams, it doesn't shoot RAW, so this was taken in JPEG format...

Rubysunsetoriginal.jpg
 
Hi Winston,

Here's my take. It was cropped, with levels adjustments applied (sliding the black point to the end of the histogram, moving the midtone slider to around 0.8, and moving the white point 10 or so), and a bump in saturation. To my eye anyway, it brings out the natural strengths in this image.

Winston.jpg
 

StuartRae

New member
Hi Winston,

Here's my attempt to get the sky back, using Light Machine in PSE3.

Increased the red channel in Shadow colour and increased the blue channel in Highlight colour.
Unfortunately the 8-bit data can't quite take it, and it's beginning to pixelate in the pale sky on the left.

Rubysunset-LM.jpg


Regards,

Stuart
 

Jörgen Nyberg

New member
Winston, I tried going for what I thought it looked like IRL.

Edit in PS CS3 beta, Camera Raw: Increased the blue a little in Highlights, changed the colours a bit in Camera Profile (Red -Hue +Saturation, Green -Hue +Saturation, Blue +Hue -Saturation) and increased the Shadows +5:

Rubysunsetfix.jpg


Cheer's Jörgen
 
Don - the gold color between the rocks is great, but it'd be nice if the sky had some color... anything to do about that?

Stuart - that's kinda what i was looking for, but too much red and purple... i'd like to see the sky get some color without turning the rocks in the BG wierd colors, or causing color-banding and pixelization...

Jorgen - getting there, but too green. the real scene was gold, with no green hue to it at all...

i'll give you all a bit longer, then post my PP'd version for comparison.
 

StuartRae

New member
Stuart - that's kinda what i was looking for, but too much red and purple... i'd like to see the sky get some color without turning the rocks in the BG wierd colors, or causing color-banding and pixelization...

Try this one. LM parameters adjusted slightly.

Rubysunset-LM-2.jpg


Regards,

Stuart
 
Stuart - the rock in the BG still has a bit too much purple, but this edit is definitely much better!

Jorgen - i like it, but it seems a bit light, not as much contrast and color as Stuart's effort. needs a bit more "pop"...

here's my edit... i didn't have Photoshop at the time i did this, so i used Irfanview and Picasa2. in Irfanview, gamma slider to ~ -.65, contrast to ~ +15. in Picasa2, selected graduated tint, picked a deep blue to match evening sky, and moved the locus to the upper right corner (deepens color there, lightens on the upper left) and feathered to produce smooth color gradations. oh, and i cloned out the lady and her dog...

rubysunsetsm_filtered.jpg
 
oh, and i cloned out the lady and her dog...

I have mixed feelings about this; one part of me feels like it adds a nice touch to this image.

I like the sky in your version. I didn't address it in mine, as I normally don't like to make major color shifts (other than white balance) like that, unless I knew what the original scene contained. Not knowing that, I left it alone. But as you've got it there, I think it strengthens the image.

As for cropping, I think I still prefer the tighter crop along the lines of my attempt. The contents of both lower, upper and left-hand parts that I cropped out don't, to my eye, add anything, and tend to dilute the impact of the strengths of the image. YMMV!

Thanks for a great exercise!
 
Don,

you may be right about the crop... in comparing your crop with mine (which is full frame), i think yours does seem a bit more pleasing in proportion.

by the way... what's "YMMV"?

Rocky
 

Jörgen Nyberg

New member
Winston Rockwell said:
Jorgen - i like it, but it seems a bit light, not as much contrast and color as Stuart's effort. needs a bit more "pop"...

Yes I agree, but I wanted too show that the Photo Filters in Ps, can actually be usefull sometimes.
 
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