Grand Marais Harbor HDR

[Steve Adkins]

This is a Silver Efex Pro B&W from a 7 image (1 stop increments) HDR of Grand Marais Harbor -
North Shore Drive, Lake Superior
Saved at 42%
D700
ISO 200
24-70 @ 50mm
Some dodge and burn and cloning in PS5 as well as selective sharpening.
I've included the Color version as well…
Including the usual, welcomed, C&C, was wondering if perhaps you have a preference of color or B&W version?

[Steve Adkins]

Here is the color HDR.

[Rachel Hollander]

Steve - I have a slight preference for the color version. The pink of the rocks is nice. I like the comp with the inlet leading us into the image and the placement of the lighthouse, but think it may be a tad oversharpened.

TFS,
Rachel

[Andrew McLachlan]

Hi Steve, I prefer this one as B&W. I think I might be tempted to crop a little off the top as I find the darkest clouds and the bright clouds underneath them to be a tad distracting, but perhaps you can tweak their tones a little more rather than cropping. Love the rugged shore of Lake Superior. I miss the north shore and am contemplating going up to Lake Superior Provincial Park in a few weeks for some fall color.

[Dave Mills]

Hi Steve, I agree with Andrew preferring the the B&W due to it's contrast and overall look. The comp is well thought out and balanced with good use of the inlet as a LL. Looking at the far waterline I'm thinking it needs some CCW rotation...

[Steve Adkins]

Thanks Rachel, Andrew and Dave for you time and comments. Appreciate it!

[Robert Amoruso]

Steve,

I like the comp but felt the overall contrast was too high. I ran the procedure below and then lightened the final result using a Levels adjustment in PS. I also left opacity at 100% in the post in the method below. I straightened the image too as suggested.

Highlight selection:

1) Channels palette.
2) Ctrl key and click the RGB channel. Photoshop will now create a feathered selection around highlight pixels in the image. Photoshop has selected pixels based on how bright they are. Pure white pixels are selected 100%. Pure black pixels are not selected and pixels falling in-between those two extremes are selected based on a percentage of how close they are to white.

Adjustment:

1) Go back to layer palette - you will see selection.
2) Create BG copy.
3) Create mask on the BG copy from the selection.
4) Selection is grayscale shaded.
5) Change blending mode to Multiply.
6) Adjust opacity.

[Steve Adkins]

Thanks, Robert!

[Arthur Morris]

I like Robert's repost but I like the HDR in color too. Do you have more above in the ORIG? I'd like to see more black cloud as a border.... Image design rocks. Ooops; sorry for the bad pun. :)

[Steve Adkins]

Thanks, Artie. I like your idea. It's FF as is, but with a little expanded canvas, content aware fill, cloning and subtle shading... :S3:
I'll give it a try and see how it goes.

[Arthur Morris]

Thanks for being open Steve. I look forward to a repost.

[Steve Adkins]

Artie,
Had fun playing with clouds. All I can say for sure is that it was a learning experience... and it confirmed to me that nature knows best. :S3:

Steps I took are:
Expanded canvas for sky and used a copy of current clouds as a starting point.
Flipped V & H. Used healing brush, cloning, dodge and burn to help blend.
Levels layer and Brightness/Contrast were masked in with soft brush.
Applied a masked layer of Pixel Bender- oil to add a little fluffiness at a low opacity.
B&W masked layer to subdue sky color cast from PB-Oil.
Rotated for level water. There is a long receding shoreline in the ULC, but used small center beacon as best reference for vertical.