Overexposed Sky

[chrismar]

Here's a picture of a creek/brook that I took in Chile this past February. In the original the sky is a bit overexposed due to the long exposure necessary to get the silky water effect. In the edited version I tried to replace the sky with another sky from the same day. Does it work? Or does it look un-natural?

Before:


After:


I also did a made a slight curves adjustment to lighten up the foreground a little.

(If this is in the wrong forum I apologize!)

[wattsbw2004]

i think the added sky doesn't hurt the image at all. it almost appears as if there is a mountain there in the background which makes it seem all that more interesting to me. I just got a ND filter myself yesterday so i can't wait to play around with it a bit.

[chrismar]

Made some more adjustments and ended up with this:



I really like this result.

[richardpsic]

Isn't Chile such a beautiful country? (I used to live there ).

I like how the new sky looks, the only thing is that it's pretty obvious that is a new sky. You should get a polarizer filter, is the best accessory for landscape photography.

Viva Chile!

[embrodak]

Ok, your final adjustment looks absolutely fantastic! Great pp job!

[ditch_azeroth]

just a little - it's almost too surreal to have such a gradient sky (especially when the tree tops are obviously lit and hit by the sun. try a shade one or two stops lighter, or better yet, try adding clouds double-exposure like. it's always good to have a template of clouds handy when pp'ing. that said, your second result is better. if i were to process this, my objective of the pp is to draw attention away from the brightness that is made in the void of the sky towards the silky waters.

[kahunaben]

I like what you did with the picture! This does come from a super beginner though I like the foreground being lighter and even though the sky looks edited, I think it's a very pretty picture!!!

Very Cool!!

[aglio]

it looks OK, definitely needs some work though...the lit treetops makes it stand out as an altered image and draws my eye away from the stream.

polarizer would have prob helped, but if you could clean up those trees or adjust the exposure on the inserted sky, it might be a little more natural.

otherwise, good shot

[CallMeKat]

the last one you posted with adjustments looks great! i think what you might need to do now though is correct the yellow in the trees from the overexposure. perhaps take the trees from the second shot and clone it there along with the sky. see how that looks

[chrismar]

Thanks everyone for your feedback!

I do agree the tree tops look a little out of place. I can't seem to make them any better, though... :\