Sunset over Olympic mountains

[Indranil Sircar]

I took this shot in April while visiting Edmonds, WA. This is composite of two shots. Does the trees distract? Higher ground probably would have been nicer. The settings were -

40D, Canon 17-40mm F4L @ 28mm
1/50 sec, f/4, ISO 200

Hope you like it.

~ Indranil

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hi Indranil,
Your self assesment of the higher angle was the right one as it would have put the tree tops in the water and not intersecting the mountain range. That said it still has a very nice look to it and flow and my only other recommendation is to darken/burn in the object in the FG .....about 1/2 of the way in from the left.
Thats it! Very nice sky and for me the trees make a nice base although, like you, I too would have preferred you a bit higher but that's not always possible.

[Mark Fuge]

I like the image. Agree with the trees, but otherwise it is nice.

If I were to change it, beyond the tree issue, I would crop out the left side to eliminate the two tall trees on that side. I would also crop just above your © signature. I would move the signature ;) up. Don't want you not to get the credit! :D See attached cropped example.

I feel that would draw your eye better into the lighted area. Now the dark area to the left seems too large an expanse.

Your choice, but would suggest you consider those changes.

You could also clone down (shorten) or out (delete) the offending trees, if you are so inclined.

[Arthur Morris]

Yes to Higher Meyer as noted above by Roman. I too like the feel and the mood.

[Indranil Sircar]

Roman, Mark, Artie, thanks for the feedback.

Mark, I like the new crop. Also, thought to cloning out the trees and that is something I will try.

Also, forgot to mention in the base note that I used .6 graduated soft ND for the sky and the mountains.

[Indranil Sircar]

repost without the tall trees -

[Dave Mills]

Great job Indranil...I like the repost!

[Dave Phillips]

I like the repost too....this has a very warm/cool serene feeling, like choose what suits one at the moment!

I did a bad thing and flipped the rt half over to the left and cropped....playing!
http://i40.tinypic.com/14908i8.jpg

[Mark Fuge]

Indranil,

Like your repost. Of course! ;)

Another version of your image. This is from your original version. If you want to see more of these go to the OOTB site and look at this weeks "miniworld" theme entries. You may want to join the gang there to have some fun.

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hi Indranil,
I really like the re-post clean up. Dave did gie me an idea.....so I tried it. Lasso tool above the mountain range and selected about 1/2 the sky. Added a brightness contrast layer of +5 on brightness and +25 on contrast. Blurred mask with Gausian blur 19. merged layers and added a LCE using unsharp mask (Robert has a sticky in the top of the forum) of 20/29/0. Really brought up the colors especially on the LH side. Let me know your thoughts.

[Indranil Sircar]

Hi Roman, I think you got this very well. I like the way the colors have come out I will apply to the larger version and see how it prints out. Thanks for the feedback and showing how to do this.

[Jay Gould]

repost without the tall trees -

I would have bet the farm that one of the magicians would have done this repost! Indranil, quite lovely!! Cheers,