The Red rock Crab ecosystem...

[Michel Pilon]

Hello all,

Here is the ecosystem were live the Red rock Crabs in Venezuela (Margarita island).

It represents the west extremity of our beach (fantastic island with different ecosystems).

EXIF: Panasonic FZ20; ISO100; 1/400s; f4.0; hand held without flash.

Any comments?

Cheers,

Michel Pilon

http://parcours.pilonm.org/pictures/panoramas/ocean1.jpg

[Robert Amoruso]

Good composition Michael and nice saturation of the greens. In the FG I would try; if possible; to leave a clean line of sand along the bottom. If not possible, cut the covered rocks more at mid-length and not along edges. Recovering detail in the sky would help to liven in up. If the original conversion result in too high tonality in the sky, try converting it again and lowering the exposure (like levels adjustment) to tame the sky. In Photoshop you can combine the two layers and mask out everything except the sky in one (the top layer) to blend the two exposures. If you are using ACR, try using the recovery slider to recover the sky's tones.

Love those greens!

[Bruce Murden]

Lovely place to photograph! I enjoy the colors, shapes, and textures on the rocks. I too would like the crop the sand out of the bottom to really emphasize the greens, and bring back some of the sky detail. It also looks like a little bit of straightening (rotate CCW slightly) would help. The curved horizon may be a result of a wide angle lens, but with the rocks on the left cutting off that part of the horizon, it looks like the image is tilted.

Can't wait to see more from this lovely island!

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hi Michel,
A bit of darkening of the sky would definitely improve this. In the field the grad ND filter would have worked well........as is.......there is little center of interest but the different colored lines do seem to work. I tried cropping the entire sky out......and it gives a pretty interesting composition.

[Arthur Morris]

All excellent comments above though I would not get into cutting off the larger boulders... Needs some CCW rotation. There are lots of ways to darken the sky. Love the colors and patterns.

[Michel Pilon]

Hello all and thank you for all your great and pertinent comments...

Here is a repost where I applied some of your recommendations:

a) Apply 1 degree rotation left (CCW);
b) Add a clean line of sand at the bottom;
c) Lower the exposition on the sky

Any comments?

http://parcours.pilonm.org/pictures/panoramas/ocean1-1.jpg

Thank you again!

Michel

[Arthur Morris]

It is now great as far as the improvements. It looks as if you have lost some sharpness and detail in the seaweed on the rocks--not sure if it is my imagination or not... In these cases it is best to go back and make the changes on your optimized master file. If you work on the JPEG and save it a few times you can lose a bunch--this is not recommended....

[Michel Pilon]

Hello Artie,

Thank you very much for having replied to my later post. It is really appreciated :-)

You are completly right and I did the beginner mistake of having work using the JPEG! Shame on me ;-) In fact this is the first time I realize how many informations I'm losing working that way!!!

I redo the work from my "negative" and here the new picture update. I think it is a lot better.

Any comments?

http://parcours.pilonm.org/pictures/panoramas/ocean1-2.jpg

Thank you once again for your great help :-)

Michel Pilon
Quebec, Canada

[Arthur Morris]

YAW again, and on a landscape no less!

[Kaushik Balakumar]

Lovely image Michel. Liked ur final re-post. Looks much better...