Landscape Help!

[tanc]

Hi, I'm a bit desperate for help...not sure if this is the right forum, but I couldn't really work out whether it was here or landscapes...or photoshop...apologies if it's the wrong place!

anyway, long story short, this photo is for two of my friends...the bridge has special significance, and I got up at 3:30am to try and get a decent shot...well you can see how that turned out, but now i'm trying to photoshop it into something good...unfortunately my photoshop skills are worse than my photographic ones!!

The end results is gonna be printed on canvas...don't know if anyone has any experience of that, or if it changes what adjustments need to be made...

Any suggestions of what to do with any of this lot (apart from the recycle bin (!) )

These two are original unedited shots.





This is what I did with the second one before deciding it was rubbish
-adjusted colours slightly
-sharpened
-added a bit of colour to the sky - i've got this on a separate layer, so I can actually revert this change...
-cloned out telegraph poles/wires



I was thinking about maybe cropping the left hand side and top slightly more...but not really sure...

This is an earlier edit, which i now only seem to have a jpg of...not sure why I decided to abandon this, as out of what I have...I prefer these colours, but my sharpening looks decidely dodgy...




Thanks for any help...!!

*Hmm well i've established one problem...my new dell monitor, and my mbp screen display things very differently!! :/ The first edited shot didn't look that bad on my dell monitor...it looks very orange on my laptop screen..!

[Pierreargubi]

on the first picture i think you are very very under exposed and the second one try too take from another angle and straighten the bridge to look more beautiful.. overall its lookin pretty good.

[soxboston]

The left third of the image looks rather empty...unless you were trying to capture those trees? (I can't tell whats over there). Also, the right edge of the bridge is really close the edge of the frame...this kind of makes you wonder whats over there, if somethings maybe missing. Perhaps a better angle (as mentioned above) would do the shot more justice.

[rowan]

I like the second edit a lot. I can't really tell about the sharpening. First thing is I'd recommend using picasa if you're not that good at photoshop (I'm not either).
I agree with soxboston about the left third of the picture and I would just crop it out. I think the angle is ok, it's a great shot of the fog. I don't know what I feel about the colors, maybe cooler and desaturated to add to the mood, or if that's not the right mood you're going for, do the opposite I would also add a soft focus so the emphasis is on the bridge, not the foreground. Picasa has a 'glow' effect that also might add a bit of oomph.

These suggestions plus the straightening of the bridge recommended by pierre and this is what I got. Hope you don't mind.

[tanc]

That looks lovely...

what did you do to straighten the bridge? just rotate the whole picture?

I'm annoyed i've lost the psd for that file cos I'm gonna have to work out how to get back to those colours again!!

[Pink-Spade]

I love the second edit, it's really crisp and almost black and white with just a little bit of coloring. Personally, I think that the top left corner is a little too dark and almost distracting, and could use just a tad of lightening using the dodge tool or so. Other than that, I really like it.

Maybe I thought to much into it, but with the way the one side is dark and almost creepy, and the other side being light and peaceful, it almost seems like good and evil. The bridge being what holds the two together to keep everything neutral and all. Haha, I don't know, maybe I just need some sleep.

[JJthethird]

Hi tanc, I borrowed your lightest and darkest shot and combined them, fiddled a little with tone mapping and came up with this.......



I tried to keep everything sharp. Dont know if this is what you were looking for.

John.

[daylebo5]

check out if you like the below one...
the main things i did were... cropping .. increasing contrast.. WB.. and vibrance...
hope this was like something u were looking for



P.S. i still think the sky is a little over exposed.. maybe you could try and combine the sky of your first underexposed pic with this one.. (sorry i can't do it since I dont have photoshop installed on laptop..)

[rowan]

Originally Posted by tanc

what did you do to straighten the bridge? just rotate the whole picture?

yep. I'm not too post production savvy

[tanc]

Cool!

Thanks guys...some great help here!

Any chance I could get full size versions of the last two? They're both good! I like options!!