channel marker

[rikkersc]

[porterd2nz]

Nothing wrong with the composition. Might want to get rid of some of the empty space at the top to focus attention on the marker.

[windrider86]

Not quite sure what it is but something that bright should jump out at you and this doesnt seem to have that effect. Your focus is great, the colors are great, I'm not sure what it needs. Perhaps dof or a darker background

[ELAY]

Originally Posted by windrider86

Not quite sure what it is but something that bright should jump out at you and this doesnt seem to have that effect.

I agree. I downloaded your pic and pulled up Levels -- the left side of the histogram was quite empty, and I could push the black slider over to 50 (in GIMP) before I hit anything on the histogram (see below).



When I made the adjustment I think the picture looked much better for it -- deeper blues in the water, richer reds, and better contrast overall.



EL

[rikkersc]

Thanks for the comments. As ELAY suggested, I bumped the histogram input up to 50 and here is the result:


It definitely looks better.
(I am still new at the post processing thing ... I am trying to become better at it, I pick up on the techniques quickly, its just the figuring out which buttons to use to get it to do what I want that is still tricky.)
But hopefully with enough input on my photos here I will be able to learn what to do for the future.
(Also hoping the photos become better "in camera" and require less PP)

I was thinking about adding a Gaussian blur to the water...what do you think?
Or is there something else I should do instead?

[ELAY]

I don't know about blurring the water -- I think the colours give you plenty of separation between the buoy and the water, and the patterns in the chop are interesting.

If you were fiddling around, you might try to play off the graphical quality of the image. Try some really high contrast and saturation, and different levels of sharpening.

EL