longmg Loc: South Shore, MA

I'm curious as to what I could do to make this image better, the sun angle could be better but I would have lost the colors. Earlier in the morning the house wasn't very visible. If I move closer I lost the tree line and the rock islands.

(Download)

Manglesphoto Loc: 70 miles south of St.Louis

Cropping about 2" off the top

One Rude Dawg Loc: Athol, ID

longmg Loc: South Shore, MA

I'll give that a try, thank you for the response.

fredpnm Loc: Corrales, NM

I know nothing of the software you might use nor your experience and knowledge in using it, but I used Lightroom and Topaz DeNoise.

Bring out the foreground as well as the houses/buildings. Crop the sky, all that sky does not add anything to the image. Back off contrast a tad and see if doing the same with Clarity helps. A tiny up tic in Vibrance to bring out the sky...reduce highlights. I reduced some of the noise using TopazDeNoise, especially for the sky.

(Download)

imagemeister Loc: mid east Florida

.....I am a sucker for detail and would have shot this as a muli-exposure HDR.

fredpnm Loc: Corrales, NM

I agree, especially to try and reduce or eliminate burnout of the sun.

PoppieJ Loc: North Georgia

i would lighten the foreground a little also

jaymatt Loc: Alexandria, Indiana

What Frank said.

kvanhook Loc: Oriental, NC

I prefer the one fredpnm did. The foreground leading line helps the composition.

davidrb Loc: Half way there on the 45th Parallel

You tell us. What is the subject of your photo? You made it so you tell us what it is. IF you list any one of several it changes the photo drastically. You are going to get several different responses here and it will be interesting to see who favors what. Personally, the bottom of the photo is not necessary so I might show less of it. It brings nothing to the other possible subjects. But that is just one idea and I think this crowd will find others and offer their reasons.

Rick from NY Loc: Sarasota FL

I can’t tell you “what would make this picture better”, but I can tell you what I think would HAVE made this picture better. To my eye, the wildly blown out sun simply ruins the image and I know of no way to fix that after the fact. You mention that earlier in the morning, the house wasn’t visible, but I suggest that you would have had a far more impressive end product had you tripped the shutter just prior to, or a few moments after the sun peeked over the horizon and shot in raw. Ideally, you would have still captured the sky colors at pre-dawn (so called “first light”) while retaining enough detail in the shadow areas to manipulate them in post. It is far easier to bring out details in shadow areas using various post processing adjustments than try to mitigate a huge, totally blown out sun that renders the rest of the image as almost invisible. Btw - the suggestion about shooting in hdr was certainly an option, but I don’t use hdr enough to know if hdr treatment could overcome that huge difference in dynamic range.

I hope you accept my rather blunt criticism of the existing shot as constructive criticism, rather than an attempt to simply trash the pic.

Bultaco Loc: Aiken, SC

Rick from NY, said it all the sun is blown out in both shots.

PhotogHobbyist Loc: Bradford, PA

I might take a little from the right side to remove the small lonely tree.

PAR4DCR Loc: A Sunny Place

Don