Help! Water at Sunset...

[crackaonrice]

I have image editing turned on, just a reminder :D.

So I took a sunset picture and I'm having a lot of trouble dealing with the way that the water looks in this photo. Any recommendations for PP guys?

Also, send me your harshest criticism about the picture in general, it will be much appreciated.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v112/crackaonrice/photography/IMG_1673-Cropped.jpg

ISO: 100
SS: 1/320
Length: 47mm

[Radtech1]

WOW!

I love this shot. I would crop it on both sides, soften the yellow, and, of course, straighten it - but WOW, this is sweet!

Rad

[goforphoto]

I'm not sure I would crop it at all. But I would soften the yellow which seems blown out a little then maybe add a touch of blue.

[crackaonrice]

goforphoto, which exact photoshop commands did you perform to get the picture like that? it looks exactly like what i was going for!

[goforphoto]

1. Open jpg as raw in CS3
2. Adjust the exposure to bring the brightness up
3. Drop the saturation of the yellow channel almost completely
4.Add deep blue filter layer (increase the opacity of the filter until the water gets a good blue hue.
5. Using a soft 45% opacity brush, pick up black color from pallet and mask out the blue filter layer where the reds and yellows are to bring that color back. (use a large size brush)
6. Noise reduction on the base layer.