mikeroetex Loc: Lafayette, LA

I have done some processing, cropped, sharpened, lifted shadows, warmed, a little dodging and burning. But still, this photo lacks something when I stare at it. The actual moment was much more dramatic and I can't seem to bring it to my eye's recollection.

Any ideas or additional edits welcomed!

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jaymatt Loc: Alexandria, Indiana

Don’t know--looks good to me. I think one had to be there to answer your question.

Linda From Maine Loc: Yakima, Washington

The sailboat is a little lost in the frame. On close inspection it appears you've done quite a bit of cloning in that area, resulting in several broken rigging lines and other issues.

Regarding the overall impact, I wonder if reducing the saturated color of the rocks would direct our attention more to the sky? Also, less sharpening of foreground - perhaps even a slight blur?

Would you be willing to post an unedited, uncropped copy for us to play with?

FreddB Loc: PA - Delaware County

I think Linda nailed the main problem - my eye keeps going back to the rocks.

mikeroetex Loc: Lafayette, LA

Linda, you're so right, I had not even noticed the rigging. I focus stacked 3 images and didn't even think about wave action moving the boats!
Someone else mentioned the rocks, maybe that's what is throwing off my eye.
When I get home tonight, I'll post an unstacked image, 1 of the 3. Should I just export a RAW to jpg to work on? Or try to dropbox the raw image.

R.G. Loc: Scotland

You could upload a TIFF or DNG at reduced resolution - about 2300 on the long edge should give you something in the region of 20-22MB. That way you still have enough resolution for a good edit and you keep the colour and luminosity data losslessly. Post the cropped version to avoid the need to crop the uploaded version.

Linda From Maine Loc: Yakima, Washington

R.G. gave you a suggestion for upload. However, if you have a dropbox account, giving us a link would be much appreciated. As would providing the uncropped file. I, for one, am curious to see what you cut out

mikeroetex Loc: Lafayette, LA

I'll do both tonight!

mikeroetex Loc: Lafayette, LA

Here is the tiff and a link to RAW photos

Original RAW files
https://www.dropbox.com/t/VbK32BPWytpyKaNn
https://www.dropbox.com/t/mPabAs8JuoAi36KI

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SalvageDiver Loc: Huntington Beach CA

Hi Mike,

It looks like you took two bracket shots one for the highlights and one for the shadows. But they were taken about 1 minute apart. I would set the camera up to take 3 bracket rather than trying to take them seperately. This way the images are taken very close in the with just the shutter speed changing.

However after checking both your images I found in OshaFla-117 neither the highlights nor the shadows were clipped. All the information you need is fully contained in -117, the -114 image wasn't needed.

Looking at your image, I assume the beautiful sunset is the subject of this image so thats where the emphasis should be.

First , I clipped the bottom of you image just a little to remove some of the foreground rocks but left enough to establish where the image was taken from, I cloned out some of the bright spots which I felt were distracting.

When you look into a bright sky, the surrounding area will appear dark to the eye. So next I darkened the overall image down a bit including the bright foreground rocks.

As the last step, I worked to bring out the color and details in the sky. I used the basic panel in ACR to bring out the orange in the sky. Reducing highlights, increasing denoise and a little clarity using the brush tool brings out the sky's rich colors. Using a curves adjustment layer, I increased the image contrast a bit. I also pulled down the blue channel curve to bring out a little more yellow, adding a little more warmth to the image.

I edited this image using PS, but you could have also just used LR to do the same thing.

Hope this helps
Mike

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mikeroetex Loc: Lafayette, LA

Thanks very much, this is closer to my experience in person. I can add 115 & 116, would they help? But I believe they were all at similar exposures. LR is very slow loading up since the last update, gotta look into that. I use LR for 95% of my stuff as I am still learning PS. Thanks again!

Linda From Maine Loc: Yakima, Washington

Would you believe my PS Elements 2018 can't open the raw? I've had my editing computer offline for nearly 3 years, so no updates for newer cameras. The tif provided has the "ghost" issues of combined images where there was movement.

Not to worry; I slapped a Nik "nostalgic" filter onto SalvageDiver's edit, along with a tiny bit of dodging, and now we're in Miami, circa 1985 😀

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mikeroetex Loc: Lafayette, LA

I love it! Really brings out the sunlight on the water. Beautiful!

camerapapi Loc: Miami, Fl.

Let me repeat what I say here often, we are all different and we have different approaches to make an image.

I like your composition. I see a very good balance between the sailboat and the building on the right. The horizon line is very well placed on the upper part of the frame to allow the ocean and rocks to make a better contribution to the image. Colors are lovely and pastel like.
The only thing I did was to dodge the bright areas to add some brightness and burn-in the dark areas of the image to add some contrast, which included the rocks in the foreground. Darkening the foreground leads the eye to the background where actually action is taking place with the sailboat moving in the right direction. That is what I would have done to my image.

It is a beautiful and very nice shot.

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SalvageDiver Loc: Huntington Beach CA

I noticed that you had EC set to +1.4 on your second image. So I tried using both images in Aurora HDR and let the program deal with the deghosting. It did a good job of both blending and deghosting. Cropped and polished in LR. So, I'm not sure that the additional images would add much to your image. For this image, I think the two images were fine, but that's my opinion, others may vary.

Hope that the different edits provide you with good ideas to finish your image. I agree with others that this is a nice composition and will make an excellent print.

Good luck
Mike

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