Bubble Rock - Acadia National Park

[AJ Witt]

This is a picture I took last week atop Bubble Rock. It's comprised of 7 vertical shots stitched together in CS3.

Even though I've read you should hardly ever polarize a pano, I did polarize this. I did get a darker blue sky in the middle and have worked on that a bit, but I should probably spend a little more time on it.

I welcome any comments, positive or not...thanks!

[Andrew McLachlan]

It looks very nice there. I like the composition. The elements in this scene are well placed with just enough sky. The 7 verticals gave you a nice big image. In similar situations where the sky is concerned I have had some luck, using Nik Software's Viveza plugin for correcting such variations in the sky. I think it would help you here. You could download the trial version if you don't already own the plugin and play around with it. When I shoot my panoramics that include sky I prefer not to use the polarizer that way I get a nice evenly toned sky. When in doubt you can always shoot one series of images with and one series without.

[Roger Clark]

AJ,

Beautiful image. I like how the lines lead my eye to the horizon just left of center. Colors look great (on my uncalibrated laptop). But I find my eyes being drawn to the bright upper right corner. I feel the image would be improved it the bright sky on the right were reduced.

Roger

[AJ Witt]

Thanks Andrew and Roger!

Roger, yes, I am not too fond of the sky in the upper right either...that's the part I was referring to in my post w/ the picture that I think could still use some work. I'm not exactly how to go about doing it in CS3 (I don't have Viveza), but I will play with it and get it looking better.

Thanks again!

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Aj,
Very well composed and Roger nailed my thoughts on the URC and I see you thought as much yourself. Did you try a multiplied layer on that part. (Robert has a tutorial on tonal range tweaks with a section on that at the top of the forum I believe).......this may work so worth giving it a try. You have some great blance in the scene here with the rest of the image so well worth exploring. That fix wil take it to it's rightful place!!!

[Robert Amoruso]

Hi AJ,

I like the FG left rock is triangular in shape and points/guides the eye into the image - your composed it well.

For the UR, I would try a curves adjustment targeted for that area to reduce the highlights and then mask off the rest of the image. You can apply a gradient mask to the image first to transition it near that corner and then paint black using a paint brush on the rest of the image.

[AJ Witt]

Thanks Robert and Roman, I will give your technique a try!