I took a series of photos this morning and this was my fave of the bunch. I'm still learning to process sunrise photos and develop my technique. I'm not a big fan of the over-baked unrealistically red and orange sunrise and sunset photos. This was probably slightly more saturated than what I actually saw however. So, I guess I'm just looking to see what you guys would suggest. Is this over- or under-done on the processing? How about exposure and composition? Any advice is welcome and reworks are fine.
Might be a bit too much for your taste (although I did restrain myself quite a bit ), but ...
I tweaked on the gamma darker for the water, lighter for the sky to drive some difference between the sky and the water. Also tweaked on the foreground dock with a little lightening/sat, and killed off some of the blue sat in the far dock.
You've nicely captured the various elements at the sky, water, and two docks. I'd probably go a bit more at driving them toward/away from each other depending on how you want to draw your viewer's attention ... be that to the sky, reflection or docks.
Perhaps adjust the position of the horizon in the opposite direction, dodge, burn, bump vibrance, adjust gamma/exposure slightly, mid-tone bump, slight sharpening....
I'm really liking those edits, RustyBug and Antipode. Then again, you two always seem to nail it. Thanks so much! Can't wait to work on the RAW file a bit more and take all three suggestions into account.
Great picture. I like the darker gamma, but I probably wouldn't go quite as far in that direction. The dock is a bit of a distraction, but it's dark enough to be ignorable. You did a great job with focus, exposure, and colors. I'm in the same camp as you insofar as over-saturated sunsets and sunrises are concerned.
I actually took some shots without the dock, but I was surprised when I got home to process them that I preferred the dock in the photo. If interested, you can see three other shots on my blog. Here is the one without the dock. Which do you guys prefer?
), but ...
