Portland Headlight

[Grady Weed]

Canon EOS 5D, Shooting Date/Time: 10/25/2008 07:42:48, Shutter Speed 74Sec. Aperture Value F22, Evaluative metering, Exposure Compensation: 0, ISO 100, Lens: EF28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM, Focal Length 28.0 mm. On Gitzo Tripod with Wimberley 2 Head and cable release. Double bubble level on hot shoe.

I was hoping for some brilliant red skies after the previous days storm cleared away. I was not disappointed. To the right of this scene you would have thought the sky was on fire. The reds reflected in the windows is nothing to what I saw. And the sun comes up just out of frame right here, not in the direction the colors were so brilliant. The best colors were when it was almost pitch black too. So it was very hard to capture the scene. I used bulb exposure for some images.

However after getting home and looking at the RAW files on the computer screen, they looked somewhat muted. Has anyone else found this to be an issue? So I had to do some more work in PS than normally would like. I like what I have here, but sure would have liked to kept the more brilliant reds and yellows that were present then.. Comments always welcomed.

[Michael Pancier]

looks familiar. ;-)

Must be nice to be able to shoot this light anytime. Grady my solution to your problem is to shoot the pic at -2 or -1 depending on the light and blend exposures in HDR. In my earlier post of this light, the shot taken at -Ev showed muted color bands. The shot at -2 showed more intense color bands and I blended them.

I wish I would have had your sky though. but then again, my shot was at sunset ...

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Grady,
Love the look of the water with the long exposure. Did you try the old multiplied layer or even better yet.........check out Robert's sticky; http://www.birdphotographers.net/forums/showthread.php?t=20434
This should help you get the colors back in the sky. He gives a few options to try........and saves me some typing :D. I've debated cropping off half the sky above the lighthouse.........but will wait and reserve final judgement to see if you re-post with some of the colors back in the sky. Still .......one sweet shot!

[Dave Mills]

To my eye I would crop the sky down to the faint pink band about half way up....

[Cindy Cone]

Beautiful composition, Grady, and I like the nice, soft colors. I think I might also vote for cropping some of the sky.

[Robert Amoruso]

Grady,

You captured a great looking image here but now need to put into practice the advice you have been getting over the past months. The rock's tonality needs to be brightened and better separated - a curves adjustment. The sky darkened - curves again. USM is needed too. I reposted a 5 minute fix-up followed by a the two curves that I used. THe USM gave some halos (lighthouse) but that's for you to do in the original using selective sharpening and excluding the sky.

In my opinion, this is the best image you have made from this site and to make it shine, you need to work in in PS. I am really glad you use the slow shutter here as it would be a totally different feel w/o it.

[Robert Amoruso]

The Curve 1 layer.

[Robert Amoruso]

The Curve 2 layer. To bring the sky down more, pull the curve down. Note the mask I created for the FG and lighthouse.

[Grady Weed]

Stay tuned to this thread for my attempt at Roberts suggestion please. It might take me some time to make the changes as I use PS 6 and do not fully understand all of its functions. Thanks Robert.

[Robert Amoruso]

Stay tuned to this thread for my attempt at Roberts suggestion please. It might take me some time to make the changes as I use PS 6 and do not fully understand all of its functions. Thanks Robert.

Sure thing Grady. The curves fix is in PS6 so should be no problem. I got your PM.