The Silhouette at Niagara Parkway

[yazz86]

Hello all,

I wanted to get your opinion(s) on the processing of this silhouette image. The shot seemed good on camera, but on screen was different. I did not like how the orange tones dominated the image. And while I liked the line running from the bottom corner, I did not like the amount of empty road in front of the subject.



Nikond D60, 55mm ISO 200 f/22 1/60 sec

First thing I did was crop it a little to get rid of some of the space at the bottom, without losing too much of the line. "Dusted off" to get rid of some of the trash that I could see in the background. And then got to work on the color.

In Lightroom, I shifted the orange and yellow hues just a bit, to lighten it up, and desatured them a tiny bit as well. Turned up the exposure to get more light into the image, and compensated it by boosting the contrast quite a bit. Also turned up the fill light to +10 so his legs would stand out against the road.

Finally, I decreased the overall saturation, and increased the vibrance to get some color into the sky and the misty treeline. that made the biggest difference actually.



Would love your critique and ideas on how you would process this.

Thanks,

Yazz

PS cropping to a landscape orientation with his upper body in the shot works, but it had a completely different feel to it.

[lputman]

I actually like the before shot best. I do like the orange tones and the distance he is in the photo.

[Joey the girl]

I like the richness of the color of the first pic, but overall I like the after shot much better. The silhouette stands out much more, and I totally agreed with the part about too much negative space at the bottom. I think the edit was a good decision.

[Queenbrownshuga]

I actually like the first shot best...the distance and the oranges. They add to the dynamics of the photo.