Dec. Sunrise - my first RAW

This image is my first post of a processed RAW image. I have a ways to go - I want to tone down the blown out region on the horizon, and balance the rest of the image. At any rate, it is a start - I'm using Capture One LE as the processing program. Any suggestions are more than welcome. I do not have PS, but I do have Picture Window Pro. On this image, I didn't do any more processing on the JPG image in PW Pro.

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Harold, it appears to be somewhat over-saturated, but I can't say for certain (not being there). You should be able to alter the exposure to darken the highlight, but that may make the overall too dark. This may be a time for blending two images, if you can do that with your software.

Thanks for the suggestions, Stan. I'll try modifying my processing in Capture One. I can also layer the JPGs in Picture Window Pro (though I don't know if it is sophisticated as doing it in PS.)

Yes it does seem over saturated, plus you cranked the exposure up too much during conversion - the yellow area is too bright.

Thanks for the suggestions, Hellashot. I keep coming back to this image - I am still trying to better process it.

Harold:

I do not know if you frequent the PWP boards. To bring out some contrast in the highlights I suggest using Den's 3Tone Range Adjustment Procedures, Masks, and Workflows:

http://www.ncplus.net/​~birchbay/3tone/3tone.​htm

In your case, since the highlights are very saturated, following Den's procedure, I would apply the Brightness curve to the hightlights in HSV color space as opposed to HSL. HSV will increase the contrast, HSL will increase saturation and contrast.

Depending on what you final derired output is, you may stop at adjusting the highlights and leave the shadows and midtones alone.