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View Full Version : Sunrise In The Woods Today



Bill Foxworthy
08-14-2008, 01:39 PM
Canon 40D, 100-400 @100mm
1/2500, f/5.6, ISO 800 Handheld

Robert Amoruso
08-14-2008, 07:18 PM
Bill,

Good looking sunrise - nice patterns in the clouds and well-saturated golden light. For the FG trees I would bring them right down to either a silhouette or open them up to reveal more detail. I vote for silhouette. To do it use a curves adjustment, place anchor at curve midpoint and pull down and right. ISince this affects the whole image, I used the blending options of the layer style (double click on the right part of the curves layer) to limit the affect to the shadows.

Below is the repost of the image and below that the layer style and blending options. Look at the bottom for the area I highlighted in yellow. These allow you to restrict the affect to the shadows. In both the sliders, I clicked on the right side icon (looks like a house) holding down the alternate key. That breaks the house into two halves. Grab the left side of the 1/2 house white icon and slide left.

If my description is not too clear, use the PS help system and search on "Specify a tonal range for blending layers " for more info.

I also cropped the bottom off, perhaps a bit too much - you can add more, but the idea is to accentuate the sky more.

The tree on the right would have been better if placed w/o clipping the edge. A Rule of Thirds placement with it in the right 1/3 vertical would have strengthened the image composition.

Robert Amoruso
08-14-2008, 07:19 PM
Curves Adjustment Layer Blending If options for the above repost.

Roman Kurywczak
08-14-2008, 08:36 PM
Hi Bill,
I agree with Robert that this should be a silhouette. I might give a hair more room at the base.....but not much. I may also take some off the right (middle of the bush/shrub). I think the colors and contrast that Robert brought out are very nice and IMO your capture of the texture and pattern of the clouds is very nice. Hey! It's Florida........you did very well with what was presented to you.
PS Great tutorial Robert.

Paul Marcellini
08-14-2008, 09:42 PM
Wow, i was gonna say, darken to a silhouette and crop up. And then I scroll down and Robert's got a whole tutorial. So another vote for that. And maybe just a tad more on the bottom than he left.

Bill Foxworthy
08-15-2008, 09:29 AM
Thanks for the re-work and contributions. This image was originally a Silhouette and I brought out the foreground a little. I also thought about cropping to the center of the tree to help some. I appreciate your help and suggestions :)

Matthew Kuchta
08-16-2008, 11:11 AM
The silhouette provides a more graphic feel and an interesting contrast to the tonal variations in the sky. There's not much for the eye to do without tonality in the foliage, so I also like Robert's crop suggestion. Nice color palate and a loose composition that holds together, but doesn't force the viewer to stay in one spot.

Noel Carboni
08-16-2008, 01:15 PM
The feeling I get from this is "calm". Very nice.

I don't think I'd take off quite as much as in Robert's example.

-Noel