Rescued a dull sunset - opinions ? ?

[arumdevil]

I just looked at some sunset shots I took last week, in particular there where some really dull ones which I thought were crap, but after experimenting with my new-found blending mode skills I was surprised at how good I made it look.

what do you think?

original

http://www.arumdevil.com/galleries/imgs/sky/sky_1448_orig.jpg

processed

http://www.arumdevil.com/galleries/imgs/sky/sky_1448.jpg

oh, and it looks a bit better in Adobe RGB - try it in photoshop

cheers

[Scottes]

I think it looks pretty darn good.

I'd crop the front out a little - the sand line (?) could be removed for an improvement. I think.

[arumdevil]

hows that?

[Scottes]

In the original (I can't see the processed right now - it's 404) there's a wide line of sand in the forground. In the processed, I seem to remember it just being a very dark area. Cropping that might make it look a little better.

Basically I'm suggesting to make the image about 30 or 40 pixels shorter, cropping the foreground out a little.

[arumdevil]

lol, that's what I did, but you couldn't see it. I fixed the link now. sorry about that.

[vfilby]

I have a pair of sunglasses with interchangable lenses (Expresso from mec.ca) one is orange and one is amber. I find they add great tones to images, the orange works especially well in autumn. I only mention it because the effect seems similar.

Could you briefly state what you did to achieve that effect digitally?

Vince

[Scottes]

lol, that's what I did, but you couldn't see it. I fixed the link now. sorry about that.

Perfect! Looks great.

[arumdevil]

Could you briefly state what you did to achieve that effect digitally?

Vince

Absolutely. I did it all with duplicate layers with different blending modes and adjusted their respective opacities to get the desired effect. the settings I used are as follows:

Layer 1: original

Layer 2: duplicate of layer 1, blend mode= Multiply, opacity= 80%

Layer 3: duplicate of layer 1, blend mode= Color Burn, opcaity= 14%

Layer 4: duplicate of layer 1, blend mode= Hard Light, opacity= 65%

Layer 5: duplicate of layer 1, blend mode= Overlay, opacity= 14%


that's it! no layer masks or anything like that - just blend modes and opacity. layer 5 didn't make much difference and on some of the other similarly dull looking shots I couldn't get such good results, but it shows that even a shot that you think didn't come out of the camera looking right can still be made to look amazing :)


oh, and the shot was taken in JPG high with the 300D kit lens. Actually here's some selected exif:


Shutter: 1/320
Aperture: 5.0
focal length: 30mm
ISO: 100
time: 20:42pm (GMT+1) taken in Ibiza - in the mediterranean[/i]

[vfilby]

Thanks for the ideas!

Viince