Dan I have my preset setting on photomatix and then I tweak either the strength, saturation, white or black point depending on how the initial image comes out. I upped the black point on this image as well as saturation.
Michael....I love this comp. From the LL of the pier to the lighting on the pier and sky. I even like the way you timed the water flow to just come up to the conch shell. Beautiful!!!
Beautiful tone and composition. The shell does not do it for me. It looks way too fake. With the beauty of the wave, I am not sure there is a need for another anchor point.
I think the FG wave action and pattern makes for an interesting FG so like Rene, the shell makes it look like a postcard. My view on this is if you can get a nice pattern, reflection, colors, texture or whatever in the FG on these types of images, that is generally enough. I think you had it to a "T" here w/o the shell. Nice work on the HDR.
Hey Michael,
I like this one a lot too for all the reasons covered above but I am also in the shell may be a bit over the top. Doesn't ruin the image but would have preferred the image without it.