More Sunshine Beach

[adman]

Here are some more I have had a go at processing.

Could some photographically minded people please offer comments about the processing in particular? Have I overdone it?

Some of these were JPEG originals (damn those settings - I have now saved my sunrise landscape settings to one of the custom locations on the dial...), so these were just done in PS (CS5) using vibrance, curves, levels, shadows & highlights and unsharp mask. Basically just fiddling with these until I got something I liked. Coming back to them again now, some of them seem a little heavy handed....?

Most of the processing of the RAW ones was done in Adobe Camera Raw - fantastic bit of kit that, with just some very minor tweaking in PS.

Here are links to the larger versions - should be in same order as the ones below:

Picture 1 (https://www.dropbox.com/s/pit7kgnksxz75nn/2012-10-06%20SUNSHINE%20BEACH%20Sunrise%201 .jpg)
Picture 2 (https://www.dropbox.com/s/455p8ndhsn5w7kr/2012-10-06%20SUNSHINE%20BEACH%20Sunrise%202 .jpg)
Picture 3 (https://www.dropbox.com/s/2ls08dn11zvlad5/2012-10-06%20SUNSHINE%20BEACH%20Sunrise%203 .jpg)
Picture 4 (https://www.dropbox.com/s/yq40f0d56zpmu3x/2012-10-06-SUNSHINE-BEACH-Sunrise-5.jpg)
Picture 5 (https://www.dropbox.com/s/0mmuy5lczk12kba/2012-10-06-SUNSHINE-BEACH-Sunrise-6.jpg)
Picture 6 (https://www.dropbox.com/s/053j0k6ur33jdy6/2012-10-06-SUNSHINE-BEACH-Sunrise-7.jpg)
Picture 7 (https://www.dropbox.com/s/jmlq98ustu6e4in/2012-10-06-SUNSHINE-BEACH-Sunrise-8.jpg)
Picture 8 (https://www.dropbox.com/s/vnu70boa5jh230c/2012-10-06-SUNSHINE-BEACH-Sunrise-9.jpg)

My favourite is the first one.

Thanks for looking!
Adam

[Larryp]

Beautiful place, great photos

[EagleEyes]

Great pics!

[adman]

thanks for looking Andy and Laurie!

[gregbradley]

Great shots. A few comments.
Firstly a big part of photography is the quality of the light. Unfortunately in several of these shots it was a gloomy grey day and this detracts. More to do with when you take the shot rather than technique.

The twilight images look underexposed. Twilight does not have to mean a dark image. I think it would look nicer brightened up. Perhap there is enough signal in the image to take some curves and brighten it up.

Composition is very good and colours all look good.

Greg.

[adman]

Thanks Greg. I think I am having problems with my monitor. It is uncalibrated, and when I print these images on my Epson printer, they are dark as well, but on my monitor they look a lot brighter.

Is there any way besides getting one of those little monitor calibration doohickeys to check it?

Thanks for the constructive comments.

Regards
Adam

[ourkind]

I really like the 7th photograph where the wave has crashed on the rocks! Beautifuly framed!

[adman]

Thanks Carlos!

[Octane]

Outstanding work, my friend.

The light is perfect in these images.

What you're suffering from is incorrect white balance.

In Digital Photo Professional, use the Click White Balance tool and click on areas which are neutral grey (or, failing that, white). You'll find that it'll warm your images up and they'll pop.

As for printing -- your printer will /always/ print darker than what you see on screen. Even on my 78xx series printer, I make a test strip of 24" wide, with each image 2.4" wide (ten side by side). In Photoshop I brighten (levels, by adjusting midtone slider) each by 0.1 increments and print the lot out in a strip (so, 0.1, 0.2, 0.3...0.9, 1.0). The one that looks best, I apply that adjustment globally and print.

You've done great.

H

[adman]

thanks H. I did a quick reprocess of the first image this morning after correcting the white balance as you suggested, and it does look a lot better. I think the overall gloomy-ness that Greg mentioned was due to the blue cast (which was very obvious when you compared it against the WB-corrected version). It also bought out the oranges of the sky alot more as an added bonus.

I will post the changes I made when I get home today.

Thanks for the tips!

Adam

[Octane]

Also, DPP for the win.

Look forward to your reprocesses.

H

[adman]

Here is the first repro...

Adam

[Octane]

What an enormous difference. ;)

I should charge money for this.

H

[adman]

surely that warm feeling inside is enough reward? ;)

[Octane]

Haha, zing! :)

H

[adman]

i have just attached the original image with the repro'd one above so you can flick between to show the difference...

Adam

[Octane]

Chalk and cheese, sir. :)

White balance is /crucial/.

H

[Octane]

The glow on the trunks to the far right of screen...

H

[adman]

meaning they look better now?

[Octane]

Nodding.

It's magic.

I look for little things like that.

H

[adman]

:)

[stardust steve]

They look great Adam. And what a big difference that white balance adjustment made. Good stuff.:thumbsup:
Thanks for another great tip H:thumbsup:

[Octane]

By helping others, I help myself. It's all good. :)

H

[adman]

I have had yet another go at reprocessing some of these shots. I have just downloaded the trial of Lightroom 4, and I and quite impressed. Another learning curve...

There were some other shots that I didn't even try processing in photoshop, but after I saw what I could do with the others in Lightroom, I had a crack at some of (what I thought were) the more marginal ones.

I like these a lot better than than my first efforts.

link to dropbox album (https://www.dropbox.com/sh/2e7bj9dv4ul1kmh/3W2gOv3dQS)

Adam

[RickS]

Very nice, Adam!

[alistairsam]

Hi Adam,

Not sure how to describe it, there is a big difference in your repro's, but the rocks kind of look dry and more of a desert feel if you don't look at the ocean whereas the original one had the "wet" look on them as you'd expect from the water?
how close is your repro to the actual scene in your opinion?

just my personal opinion, I think the originals while they do have a stong blue hue, do look more powerful, but I do like number 3 in your dropbox album. that contrast is striking.
Nice work.
Cheers

[adman]

thanks for looking guys!



I kind of see what you mean in some of them, but looking back at the originals, there is no real 'wet look' sheen that has been lost in post-processing, so it must be the colours? I have attached the original for the number 3 shot so you can compare...

It is a very strange experience going back to a previously processed image after a while, and you see it through fresh eyes again - you pick up things that you couldnt see while you were working on it.