Northern California Sunset

Took this earlier this evening. Did some quick work in DPP. Let me know what you think, suggestions, tips anything to help this shot out. Thanks

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looks like something from a calendar. nice

as for suggestions, the rocks are underexposed. It would be really nice and make the photo that much better, if you could get some detail in the rocks, especially the ones in the water to the left.

beautiful capture

casey487 wrote in post #5700315
the rocks are underexposed.

second. It's mainly just the ones to the left which look entirely black. Even a little detail would help a lot. If you shot in RAW, it should be easy .

Awesome shot, though.

i agree with everything above

macocroft wrote in post #5700845
second. It's mainly just the ones to the left which look entirely black. Even a little detail would help a lot. If you shot in RAW, it should be easy .

Awesome shot, though.

I think the rocks being underexposed is a result of getting the correct exposure for the sunset. Any exposure which would provide any shadow detail would overexpose the sky and I would loose any color in the sunset, even in the original raw file I could not recover any shadow detail without seriously hurting the shot in my opinion.

Hi Ben;

I like this a lot - almost as it is... but... you've got a dust bunny at 11 o'clock to the sun that needs cloning out...

Otherwise, since the original is RAW, you might try for a fake HDR by Tone Mapping three exposures to draw some detail in from the shadows... Might be worth a quick play...

But, as I said, nice job...

Cheers;

Lee

nice shot, i dont mind the rocks being under exposed, keeps the focus on the sunset and the water - which are more important to me

Colors are actually a little too "vivid" for me. I'd pull back the saturation just a smidgen.
I like the rocks as well

The rocks are underexposed? I had the impression that that was the point. The sky colors and water are the source of the impact of the image, in my opinion. Proper exposure on the rocks (fill flash?) would have made it an ordinary shot. That's my two cents.

but without ANY detail, they just look like they were filled in with black paint bucket in PS.

Brilliant....you are such a perfect landscape photographer...working for magazine?

Had a bit more time this afternoon and played with it a bit more in lightroom and then a bit in photoshop. Let me know if you think the improvements help the image at all. Thanks again.

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That's a bingo to my eye. I liked the first as well, but the oh-so-slightly visible rocks add more visual depth for me.

Clone out the dusties (I see 2, possibly 3) and you're good to go!

EDIT: I guess pointing them out would be a good thing... duh. I see a fat one in the sky about 11'oc from the very tip of the biggest rock in the relative center of the frame. There's another less obvious one about 10-11oc from the sun. It's kinda hard to see but I'm pretty sure it's there. I thought I saw one in between the two large rocks, but I must've been imagining things.

I like it just the way it is, I would frame it!

ben4633 wrote in post #5701574
I think the rocks being underexposed is a result of getting the correct exposure for the sunset. Any exposure which would provide any shadow detail would overexpose the sky and I would loose any color in the sunset, even in the original raw file I could not recover any shadow detail without seriously hurting the shot in my opinion.

HDR...

Either make an faux HDR or just increase the exposure a bit, then mask the detail in the rocks into the original unadjusted shot