If you want to post what you're describing, feel free, Neil.

That kind of landscape takes on a co-ordinated look at this time of year, and the colour of the boat (if not the floats) seems to fit in fine. Thanks for looking, Rathyatra.

Yes, those floats are rather eye-catching, aren't they. But they're such a natural part of that environment, I was happy to leave them in. Thanks for commenting, Delderby.

Thank you Snap Shot. When I saw this scene I knew I had to get things lined up and leading the eye to that lit-up glen across the loch.

I can see why you like the view from the other side. It has its merits. My shots are very similar to yours but zoomed in a bit. Unfortunately my skies are very flat because it was very cloudy and misty when I took those shots, but that composition does give the chance to have the castle outlined against the sky. If my skies had been better it may well have been my preferred composition.

Realistically, Dan, there are very few of us who could even come close to filling those shoes, and I certainly don't see myself in the same league. If it is indeed a permanent loss, we will all be diminished by it. Hopefully it's temporary.

One thing Searcher would have been careful to point out is that doing the above will result in a loss of resolution, and if a large print was the intended final product, it wouldn't be advisable. But for the purposes of further editing it should be fine, especially if it's only going to be viewed on a monitor (where the long edge is typically 1920 pixels).

I think you're right. Some further PP is in order - maybe cloning seaweed over the pebbles on the shore...

This might be old hat to some, but I've just found out how to shrink a file as a DNG export in Lightroom.

My merge of bracketed shots was producing DNG files of 83MB or thereabouts and I needed something smaller (for uploading to UHH for fellow Hoggers to edit). Using lossy compression didn't seem to be working on the merged file (size stayed at 83MB), and previously my answer was to export as jpg, but to avoid the resulting loss of quality I wanted to keep the export as a DNG and shrink it down to something more uploadable.

In the Image Sizing section of the exporter in Lightroom I checked the Resize to Fit box and after experimenting I specified a value of 2300 pixels for the long edge. The resulting file size was 19.5MB - perfect for uploading to UHH.

This might seem obvious to some but it wasn't immediately obvious to me, and it'll be a common problem due to the widespread use of upload limits.

I like the orange/blue mix of #3.

Yes, he does look terrible in shorts, doesn't he :lol: .

Better that than having the muses desert you....

This is a merge of bracketed shots of Loch Scavaig with the Cuillins in the background. Feel free to edit to your liking. There is a link to a DNG version under the JPG.

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JPG.

(Download)

Link to DNG file.
Attached file:
(Download)

When I saw this with the naked eye I didn't foresee the problem because the gable was easily distinguishable. I deliberately avoided having the gable partly backdropped by the shore and partly by the sky. I wanted a consistent background for it, and to get the shot as shown I ended up perching precariously on a steep slippery slope. It might be worth pushing the PP a bit more because I have a natural restraint that needs to be shelved sometimes.

It sounds like you're not in danger of running out of ideas :thumbup: .

Thank you Frank. I think the problem is the gable's too similar to the background, and anything that I did to differentiate it would make it look unnatural.