+Nada

[Nai no Kami]

My wife took this photo of me at the shore. Capture was made in RAW and adjustments in Lightroom. I personally like the kind of "cross" my body and the horizon do; it breaks the "rule of thirds" and I like it. What do you think?

[oriolhdz]

Hi Nai no Kami:
I like the shot. The compositions works great for me and the detail and sharpness in the photo is pretty good. As for the rule of thirds....well rules are meant to be broken (of course when you know how to do it)!! I must practice more to break it but your wife managed pretty well!
Thanks for sharing it!

[abarickman]

Totally dig that photo. The sharpness is awesome and the darkening at the corners really makes it feel dramatic. Tell me what you did in post processing please.

[deshalon]

It's really nice

[Nai no Kami]

Originally Posted by abarickman

Totally dig that photo. The sharpness is awesome and the darkening at the corners really makes it feel dramatic. Tell me what you did in post processing please.

Remember the post processing was done in Lightroom. Some value names may not be available or be different in other software.
I'll try to remember as well as I can. I knew what I wanted, but I did so many adjustments I don't remember exactly what I did. The easy ones are:

* BW conversion in almost "auto adjust" settings.
* Give high contrast to the photo by bringing the curves to a pronounced "S" form. Brought darks and shadows to almost all the way black and upped the highlights and lights values
* Added sharpness and a bit of masking.
* Added clarity.
* Added dark vignetting value.
* Added a little bit of warm split toning to the highlights.

I've tried the same procedure for other photos and not always you get interesting results.

Bear in mind also that this photo was shot almost at sunset, so the light source is almost parallell to the floor.

Hope this helps.

[wulf]

I think the "cross" effect would work better if the space above and below you was more balanced. Did you try different crops? Roughly masking the picture with my fingers, I wonder if a square crop, with your body along the right third might work well (although you would have to redo the vignetting).

Whether you prefer that or not, it would definitely be worth doing a little rotation to get the horizon level (the right is lower than the left).

A cool addition to this type of shot would be if your hands were out and positioned as if the horizon line were the top of a wall.

Wulf

[peeperita]

this is a nicely contrasted scene in black and white.....something i almost always lose in conversion.....you vignetting is well done....

but, i would straighten the horizon and if you have the room in the original, i would place yourself more to the right of the frame with more "foot room"

thanks for sharing...

peeper