Curious City - feedback wanted pefore printing

[Pernod]

Hi all,

I thought it was about time I opened myself up for some feedback ;-)

This shot is one of my favorites, and I plan to get it framed so I thought I'd ask for any improvement ideas first.

Realistically I'll never get another chance at the shot again, so I'll be limited to digital enhancements only, but I'd also appreciate any technical/composition thoughts as well so I can learn :-)

[epeyton@tampabay.rr.com]

I would crop out the top of the sky and contrast it a bit more but lovely shot great job.

[melanie2457]

haha everytime I'm in the UK I love looking at all the sheep! Much better than all the cows we have here. How did you get him to pose for you? It's cute!

I don't know if I'd crop the sky or the bottom... or if I'd leave it how it is. I think, any way you slice it, it's a good photo!

[kunaldaswani]

Defiantly needs more contrast. Just play with the levels and curves and you can make that beautiful sky pop. Hope u dont mind, did a very rough edit.

Picture attached. Might look over saturated. Make adjustments to your satisfaction.

[Nicole]

I like what kunaldaswani has done with the sky to really make it pop. And I love the overall composition of this picture even if it does make me think Black Sheep Feels like he's about to go take over the city

[stevesutt89]

Personally i'd crop out some of the top and some of the left hand side so a)the sheep is bigger in the frame and b) the horizon and the sheep fall on closer to some of the 'rule of thirds' lines which in this instance i think would improve the shot. I'd also be tempted to put a bit of a gaussian blur on the city and moutain in the background so that they are not drawing my attention away so much.
Nice capture!

[wulf]

I'm surprised no-one else has said "rotate" yet! The horizon is a little bit off so I would either rotate and lose a little bit round the edges to get that flat or rotate dramatically the other way so that the sheep is standing upright and the world appears to revolve around it (a more memorable image but you might find you end up having to trim too much off to make it work).

Wulf

[shannonje]

my immediate thoughts echoed some cited here: make sure the horizon is even, crop the top and bottom enough to roughly follow the rule of thirds, up the contrast a bit. I don't like the edits one person did to the sky - way too bright and obviously digitally enhanced for a print. I might brighten up the goat a bit and try to make the hill stand out a bit more from the background by tweaking the color/lightness of one or the other, perhaps even desaturate the town landscape a bit....

[ELAY]

Hi Pernod --

I agree that, depending on how you want this to look framed, a more panoramic feel, with crops to both top and bottom, would work here.

I also agree with the contrast comments, but with a slight twist. Can I suggest that you try to use layer masks to make the the foreground hill/goat just a little bit lighter against the background sky (which you could also darken slightly)? It would be easy to go too far, but really I think that it the contrast that would most enhance the photo.

EL

[Pernod]

Thanks for all the feedback guys. I am def looking at making it more of a panoramic format (I love panoramics so I'm not sure why I didn't do that before!).

As for the sky, I have already boosted the colour once, but the work was done on my old laptop which had a dud screen... so I think I'll prob boost it a bit more and add more contrast to the island to help separate the sky/land.

Thanks guys!