Dunescape with storm clouds,colour version

[peter delaney]

this is the colour version of an earlier B&W posted.
I have increased the amount of sky as suggested by Dave and Roman . I have also applied Romans LCE .

Nikon D3 50mm 1.4 lens , hand held , 1/1000 f8 @ iso 200 .

[Dan Wolin]

Man, that sky is crazy:D. I think I like the black and white a little better - probably just a personal taste thing. Might be the sky also. Sand pattern shots work better (for me anyway) in a contrasty black and white.

[Dave Mills]

Hi Peter, I go along with Dan regarding liking the black and white better. This is subjective, but the B/W seems far more believable to me than the color intensities and variations in this image. The drama is still there but in a different form....

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Peter,
Another vote for the B&W.....this one appears a bit over the top/painterly....maybe the PP'ing......but I think the B&W was super......so hard to top!

[Dave Blinder]

Hi Peter - I see some jaggies on the dunes at the top in this one, might be the jpeg conversion. I also prefer the b/w.

[Robert Amoruso]

Peter,

I have not seen the B&W yet. I am likening this a whole lot - out of this world. The blue sky is cool and I like the high-contrast of the sand. Well done. The curve in the dune from FG to BG is a great s-curve leading line.

[Morkel Erasmus]

I also like the B&W a bit more Peter...seems like the fine details are a bit off here, not sharp enough and as described "painterly", might be because of a part of the workflow you followed?

[Elmar Venter]

Peter, I like this colour version more. I would tone down the sky a bit and just check whether there are halos along the edges. But this is awesome.

[Julie Kenward]

I dropped down and viewed the b&w's and they are beautiful but i like this one as well. I do think the colors are a bit too intense to be "realistic" - maybe drop down the saturation and contrast just a little bit - and I think this would totally stand on it's own. The shadows along the dunes are spectacular and really show up better in this version IMO.

[peter delaney]

Thanks everyone for your input all very valuable and appreciated.

Just to cover some of your points and suggestions
First, I love B&W , very old school in that regard, but never had the patience in the darrkroom can still smell those chemicals... Amen to the digial Dark room.

so my preference is also for the B&W versions but saying that I do like this colour version...

With regard to my PP .. very little was done ... the sky in the raw version has a strange angry blue colour to it.. so enhance that a little in curves , no saturation was done , not a big fan of the saturation tool so i use it very sparingly or not at all... I increased the density of blacks , shadows , and enhance the whites in selective colours... small amount of sharpening in LR ... Used Romans LCE 20/30/0

Dave and Morkel... I also thought they might be jaggies too but checked raw version ..its just the shadows and light along the dunes..

Robert , thanks... also love the lines of the s curves..
Roman and Julia..
agree it looks a bit surreal will try tone it down a bit and see what it looks like...the sand dunes are very white in colour ... but when the cloud covered them they went a kind of creamish yellow colour...

thanks again , i really appreciate the comments ... it has helped a lot