Advice please: reflections

[Big_B]

I took this on a hike at the weekend. I thought this was going to be a really great shot, but there's something about it that doesn't quite work. Any ideas/opinions?

http://www.pbase.com/sam_blackie/image/39291037/original.jpg

[tim]

I like it! Maybe clone out the cloud in the top right, and have a little play with the white ballance and see if that helps things. RAW would be good for that - I always use it for tricky situations like this, and I usually use it anyway.

[[blur]]

I don't have too many problems with this either. Crop the sky about halfway down.
The comp. is pretty good. The line from the receding surf and the line of the wave are what draw your attention, and the line of mountains.
But yeah, play with WB and it'll pop better.
Some human interest would make it even better.

[msol]

I also liked the picture but also thought it could use some editing. I took the liberty to try (I hope you don't mind) and here is what I came up with.

I did the following changes:

Rotate a little to straighten the horizon
Crop to remove half of the sky and part of the left
In PS, I used Curves as follows: (a) press the Auto button, (b) slightly bended the curve downwards to increase contrast between the mid tones and the highlights, and (c) On the Red channel I had a calculated curve point (in=220, out=255) which I dragged to the left (in=143, out=255) in order to bring back some red.
I liked what happened. I hope you like it too.
(I hope the attachment works... first time I do that :o )

[[blur]]

Nice fix Msol.

[Big_B]

Thanks all!


Msol - nice fix. You've given me some good ideas to play around with :)

Bloo Dog/blur - human interest. Yes i think that's what its missing. Dang, I wish I'd thought of that at the time. oh well.

On the colour issue. The WB of the photo is fine but, I'd tried playing around with a yellow filter in photoshop. clearly that doesn't work so I'll scrap that plan.

Cheers!

[Mark Kemp]

I agree with Bloo Dog - I reckon a silhouette of someone walking away along the beach would be about right

[Big_B]

Sorting through my photos I've come across one with a little more human interest (http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=56825). Thanks for the advice.