Brunswick pilings

[Bob Smith]

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These pilings on the south point of the mouth of the south arm of the Fraser R. are all that remains of a salmon cannery and fishing camp that was one of many that worked on the river.. The sunsets and the lighting and the clouds and the water conditions here vary endlessly and it is a never ending source of images for me. D600,70-300mm,ISO 800, -0.5 EV, f/11,1/350,lens at 145mm, Ap. priority

[Diane Miller]

Lovely! This looks like a target-rich environment. I like the darks and subtle colors. I think it could be nice with a crop off the top to closer to those three clouds. Not much is happening above them. And the horizon is just a tiny bit crooked.

Is it possible to get down the slope past the OOF weeds in the foreground? They provide a foreground anchor but that might move the pilings up a little against the hills for a different take.

[Don Railton]

Hi Bob.. Beautiful evening you have captured here... I love sunsets, and I like this one too. I think this one would improve with either a little less of the dark FG lower LHC or a little more detail in that corner. It's just a bit 'heavy' on the eye in that corner for me, but there is a hint of detail there that I want to see more off... there is a dust bunny or two top LHC.

regards

DON

[Don Railton]

HUh, Diane and I were typing at the same time.. and we have different views...

[Diane Miller]

Not different! If he could get down the slope further it would remove some of the FG...

[Bob Smith]

Thank you both for the comments and helpful advice. The levelling and dust bunnies were the easiest and of course I shouldn't have missed them in the 1st place--I think I get too caught up in the trickier PP stuff. In trying to open up the darkness in the LLC I found , for some reason, it was easier to accomplish in the previous image, which had the added advantage of having the snow geese in it . I cropped out some of the upper sky and dark LLC, as suggested. It's just marsh and muddy rock so it's not much but I was surprised at how much came out of the original blackness by boosting exposure and shadows ( which aren't quite as visible and revealed as in the altered image I exported----another hmmmmm) Fiddling a bit with curves brought back some of the dark shades of the sky (maybe a bit too much ? ). Next time I take this pic I'll get down at water level Dianne.147268

[Diane Miller]

I like it! And what an impressive herd of geese. Tonal adjustments brought out a halo on the top of the mountains -- I hate it when that happens to me.

Would love to see the next version, from down the rocks, but don't fall in! I keep meaning to put a lightweight climbing rope in my camera bag...

[Bob Smith]

Wow, you see so much detail.I didn't see that halo! How do I get rid of it?

[Diane Miller]

I assumed it was from some tonal changes in the raw processing but it may be from sharpening. Is it in the raw file, or the PS file? If it's just in the JPEG, it would be from the resize and sharpening step. How are you doing that?

[Bob Smith]

I'm resizing using the Preview part of my iMac but the halo shows in the RAW file in Aperture.Just to be sure we are talking about the same thing is this halo a thin bright line along the top edge of the mountains?

[Don Lacy]

Hi Bob, I like the composition of the second image but you pulled the shadows to much as they are full of noise and the detail is muddied I would rather they be black creating a more graphic image.

[Diane Miller]

Yes, that's the halo. Is it in the raw before any tonal adjustments? It would have been there, but could have been brought out more, maybe by darkening highlights. I don't know Aperture, but I'm guessing it's similar to LR -- tonal adjustments are basically the same anywhere.

I didn't know you could resize with Preview but I wouldn't trust it's quality -- can you export a JPEG from AP? Or use PS if you have it.

Did you know AP is no longer being supported? Lots of info on the web.

[Bob Smith]

OK--I've gone with Don's suggestion and kept the dark LLC dark--there really is nothing of note worth seeing anyway. Exporting direct from Ap didn't work too well so it's still a Preview resize. I didn't boost the pink sky in curves and that seemed to be the factor most influencing the halo. I almost feel like that halo is something of an optical illusion b/c it's there when I look at that skyline as a whole on the 1st image but if I focus in on just one spot on the skyline I don't see the halo-----hmmmm. 147292

[Diane Miller]

When you say you don't see it when you focus on one spot, do you mean by zooming in? Going to a 100% view is the most accurate view, where 1 px in he image is mapped to 1 px on the screen, Going to fractional magnifications, the image has to be interpolated and that can lead to the same artifacts as sharpening. To some extent, we just have to accept halos.

Your repost is moody, but I think you could experiment with lightening the lighter tones while holding the darks down. Here's an idea with a simple Curve just pulled up in the middle (same a using the middle slider in Levels) and a Hue-Sat adjustment layer, pulling up the Master slider but pulling the Blues back down a little.

This one has boosted contrast over you posts -- the histogram is your best guide for that. Most photographs are best presented with a good range of tones from dark to light.

[Andrew McLachlan]

Hi Bob, I am looking forward to the reshoot of this scene. For me the foreground is too distracting...had you positioned yourself at the water's edge you would have been able to achieve a clean bottom edge which would greatly improve the overall scene. I like the sky color in pane #6 best and the tone of the mountains in pane #1. Look forward to more of your landscapes.