Macchu picchu correction!

Hey guys, I was wondering if somebody could offer some possible improvements through PS (Namely the upper left corner)

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com/​photos/jose72388/76330​51440/

The whole shot looks flat to me. I'd boost contrast and work on the sky as a separate layer. Here's a take on it.

The image is, basically, overexposed and is showing up in the clouds...how you "fix it" depends on your software brand.
I would start with a selection of the clouds in the upper left area and try to dial back the exposure and apply a little gaussian blur.

Hindsite being what it is...if ya wouldn't have been in a plane, it would have made a killer HDR image.

Thanks for the tips, the exposure trick definitely helped alot!

I was actually not on a plane! Just hiked up a bit further to get a higher perspective than normal!

The processing is not helping in any of the two images...

You have got to split this image into layers to pull those clouds back. Processing the two regions together is futile. I am not sure you will be able to recover the clouds completely, but you will have a lot better chance if the skyline is on its own processing layer.

rip the sky out and put new sky....

stanclark wrote in post #14817215
rip the sky out and put new sky....

+1 here.

So, I took the cloud layer and bumped it up a few notches, as well as did the sRGB conversion so i had to boost saturation a little but ...slightly better?

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com/​photos/jose72388/77202​13688/

still say rip out the sky and replace it...

excuse me while I pull my soap box out here..........

ok.... climbing on soap box.... for forgive me in advance....

This shot is a prime example of needing to take shots right in the field - not directing this at the poster. One of the really bad habits our friends of Adobe have done is given most the attitude of " I can fix it later" rather than getting it right first. The adobe answer to this is to bracket the shots (or rip seperate copies of a raw file) and then HDR them together to compensate for the lack of dynamic range of the camera.

The thing is, shots like this have been an issue for a long time, even with films that had far more dynamic range than todays cameras. The answer was to use this cheap and easy soution - a gradient Neutral Density filter. What could have been dealt with in the field, added maybe a minute or two to the shooting time, will now take many multiples of that to fix or blend on a computer screen These old solutions still work fantastically - many high end pros like Art Wolfe use them regularly.

These are cheap and easy solutions... fix it at the time of capture. Go out and by a good gradient ND filter if you want to take shots like this. They cost a fraction of cost of PS, and consume a lot less time - and are actually fun to use.

.... climbing down off soap box..... I feel better now.

Sorry about that.

but it's after the fact and he wants it fixed all though mark is right...shoot it right the first time...do your home work....read a book,watch a video, take a class......

This picture still needs fixed..........

Agreed....and looking at the poster other images in flicker... he is not a newbie. It is just some of the old fashioned techniques like ND filters really do still work very well.

It is a great image - if the sky could just be reclaimed.

I brought the sky down in LR4, added some negative Clarity to it, then increased the black point on the whole image. Not great, but it did turn up what looks like a... bird? Must be cloud edges.

Thanks for the comments guys.

I agree, I would prefer to get it right the first time in the field if I could but...I was backpacking, so I had to keep minimal gear as I had to carry it everywhere and bring only what I was ok with getting stolen. Also, for alot of the shots, I chose to take the easy way out and take the quick snap or 2 and then move on. While I love taking pictures, it's way too easy to get caught up in capturing that perfect photo on vacation and alot of the times, you get WAYYY too caught up and it detracts from just the surrounding, the vibe, the people. All too often you travel with a non-photography obsessed person and they don't prefer to be bogged down because of the photos which you want to meticulously plan out. But, that's just my experience! Just my 2 cents!