Sunset at Yardies homestead

[Jerry van Dijk]

We had some spectacular sunsets while staying at Yardies homestead in Exmouth, Western Australia. I had a little difficulty in finding an interesting FG (the kangaroos were hiding), but I liked the leading line of this eucalypt tree. I'm not too familiar yet with complex tonal adjustment (I still rely on Photomatix rather than luminosity masks), so any C&C is very welcome.

Nikon D7000, Nikkor 16-85 @ 16mm, handheld, ISO 800, f/16, 1/8 sec.
ACR6.7 fill light, sharpness and contrast adjustments
Photomatix Pro 3 image pseudo HDR iwth 1EV spacing
Final tweaking in ACR6.7 and CS5, WB, sharpness, clarity, desaturated the yellows, cloned over a blown white spot in the clouds.


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[Robert Amoruso]

Jerry,

I think this came out well. You used a light touch in Photmatix so the shadow detail looks natural and colors not oversaturated or local contrast too high.

Was the wind blowing? Some of the bushes in the Background and leaves in the Foreground look out-of-registration.

[Rachel Hollander]

Hi Jerry- The comp works well and you have nice color and detail in the sky but I am finding the tree in the fg and some of the bushes slightly soft. There also seems to be a slight blueish cast to the tree.

TFS,
Rachel

[Jerry van Dijk]

Thanks Robert and Rachel. There was a slight wind and with 1/8 sec that has produced some motion blur (I noticed some on the leaves of the tree). I do find that the HDR treatment in Photomatix somtimes tends to produce softer images, the original image looks quite sharp. I also had to save the jpeg at only 72% quality, which hasn't helped either. I already applied some quite aggresive sharpening and additional clarity on the FG and wouldn't want to push it further.
The blueish cast also appeared due to the HDR treatment. I adjusted the WB, but the grass started to look unnatural when I adjusted it so that the blue cast on the tree was gone.
I'll see if I can fix some of these problems.

[Jerry van Dijk]

Here's a completely reworked version, based on your comments. I went back to the original image before the HDR treatment to get rid of the blue cast by adjusting the WB. I also applied extra sharpening and clarity. I then saved an exposure series of the same file, but now used 5 images for the HDR. Some tweaking after the HDR treatment to get a bit more pop in the sky and desaturate the oranges, which were a bit over the top.
What I found out is that Photomatix does not handle DNG files very well. Some of the adjustments made in ACR were not recognized in Photomatix (lens correction for instance). I have the feeling that the sharpness was also lost. I did the rework with tiffs exported from ACR, which worked much better. I had to save at 70% quality, the original is quite a bit sharper.

[Don Lacy]

Jerry, I prefer the colors in second image and the extra sharpness, I really like the concept of the tree in the image but as presented I find the tree to prominent in the image and competing with the sky for my attention. Here's a cropped with the tree less prominent and the sky more of the focul point of the image to better illustrate what I am talking about.

[Jerry van Dijk]

Hi Don, that is a great cropping suggestion! Both putting the bright lights in the sky on the ROT hotspot and removing part of the tree did the trick. Thanks!

[Morkel Erasmus]

It's always tough working on landscape images in these kinds of areas - I live in an area that looks pretty similar with large flat open grasslands and some isolated trees (mostly eucalyptus which is an invader species rurally in South Africa despite being farmed with in plantations). You did well in using the tree as a very strong element, and the sky was nice (my home valley also provides amazing big sky sunsets).

Your repost looks better to me, although a tad underexposed on the whole IMHO. It also looks less "Photomatix" than the OP, which I picked up on being processed in this software before you even mentioned it. :w3

[Andrew Aveley]

Great scene and composition.....not a great HDR fan but this one is quite pleasant :) TFS

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Jerry,
Tough situation that you handled very well and I like Don's crop direction as it does lead the eye through the scene a bit more. Nicely done!