We had some rain clear out in time for the sunset last night. I'm trying to make the most of the shots I got. IDK, I'm just not totally sold on these. Any suggestions on improving them with post processing? The first two are HDR and the third is with a 10-stopper. These were taken with a Nikon D800 with 16-35 f4 lens.
1. This was a 7 bracket shot. The biggest issue I had was the top left of the frame looks a bit sloppy to me due to the clouds drifting. I tried to clean up the ghosting a bit, but it still doesn't look great IMO.
http://www.christianfp.com/temp/mann1.jpg
2. Went for a different view here and was very glad to not find any fanged friends. Maybe this one is too busy? One of my favorite parts of the scene is the upper third toward the right where the orange sun is trying to come through the dark clouds a bit.
http://www.christianfp.com/temp/mann2.jpg
3. Went for a totally different look with my 10 stopper (almost 2 minute exposure). The hard part was I couldn't pull much detail from the shadows while keeping the sky exposed properly. There was a thin strip of low clouds that picked up the red glow from the sun.
#1 - The hay bale looks like it's getting hit by some distortion? And the "movement" of the clouds in the top left and middle due to ghosting is distracting from where I think the attention should be, which is towards the sun and the barn. Maybe crop in that direction?
#3 - The movement of the clouds really dominates the image. If the foreground were lighter that would really help.
That said, wish my HDR attempts came out this good.
karmaportrait wrote:
#1 - The hay bale looks like it's getting hit by some distortion? And the "movement" of the clouds in the top left and middle due to ghosting is distracting from where I think the attention should be, which is towards the sun and the barn. Maybe crop in that direction?
#3 - The movement of the clouds really dominates the image. If the foreground were lighter that would really help.
#1 The funny thing about the hay bale is that it is actually just slanted that way. I thought the same thing... it looked like distortion. Maybe I can lean it over in PS to make it look more natural. I may also reprocess the image to make more cloud adjustments to get rid of those distractions.
#3 IF I had been smart, I would have removed the 10 stopper and exposed a shot for the foreground. I get smarter after the shoot!
Great photos to look at. In order I prefer 2, 3, and then 1. I too thought the hay in 1 was warped. The golden hue on the grass really does a lot for the overall feel of the image.
2 is by far the best of the three. I don't love HDR and yet this picture is good by me.
3 is a great attempt at something difficult to execute. I'd be curious to hear what RB did to lighten the foreground so much.
Duplicate layer > screen mode > layer mask to retain sky ... dial in opacity, mask density/feather to taste. Followed by saturation/lightness/hue tweaks to taste @ selective mask areas and some selective USM.
Ok, I tried to apply the collective advice I've received. Here they are...
1. Re-worked the top left to get rid of cloud ghosting. I also pushed over the hay. So much easier in PS than real life!
http://www.christianfp.com/temp/mann4.jpg
2. Fixed horizon and slight vin. Oddly enough, I know it was level, but you're right... it looked off.
http://www.christianfp.com/temp/mann5.jpg
3. I brightened up the bottom half and added a more golden look for the grass. The coloring wasn't suggested by anyone but I decided to give it a whirl.
