Where to crop, adjust brightness and auto levels?

[irenelee]

Hello All,

This is my first posting. This is the original photo.

1) Do you think I need to adjust the brightness and auto levels for this picture? I kind of like the gloom and cannot decide.

2) Where should I crop? Or should I leave it as is? I was thinking I could crop an inch or 2 from the bottom since it adds no effect to the picture. As for the top, I like how you can see the clouds and the streaks in the sky so once again, I'm not sure if I should crop that part out.

Thanks in advance for the advice.

[windrider86]

use the rule of thirds for your crop. Lay an imaginary tic tac toe grid on your image and your main focal pints should fall on the lines of that grid!

[irenelee]

how about this? I tried to take your rule of thirds into consideration but it doesn't quite seem to have its effect in this case. However, I did use a ruler when I did the cropping, taking into consideration the asymmetry of the composition i.e. the outer posts of the bridge to the edge of the picture and how much margin from the top and bottom to where the point of interest starts. I hope this make sense..pls see the link.

IMG_0422 original c5 on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

[irenelee]

Futhermore, what do you think about the adjusted auto levels, contrast and colours? Does it appeal more to you, or do you like the original better?

IMG_0422 original c5 a on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

[SusanH1970]

I had a quick play, I hope you don't mind. I'll take it right down if you want (and my apologies if you'd have preferred I didn't).

I opened it in ACR and bumped the exposure just a touch, and cooled the temp down a tiny bit (-3 blue I think?). Then I opened in CS2, did a manual levels adjustment (right slider over quite a bit to the left, middle slider just a touch to the left). Duplicated the layer, dragged the photo down to where I wanted the pier, then used the rectangle marquis tool to select a good chunk of the sky. Then I used transform -->scale and stretched the sky up to the top of the frame. Flattened, resized and sharpened a bit.

Really cool photo to begin with!

[irenelee]

interesting take on it. I like how you stretched the sky and the small adjustments made..I am new to the software so that all that you did on ACR and CS2, i will somehow learn to get that same effect. The photo is more impressive..thanks for your feedback Susan!

[SusanH1970]

Glad you liked it, and happy to help! I used to be terrified of ACR and Photoshop, LOL - but after awhile a lot of it just becomes second nature. The best thing to do is play with the different tools to see what they do and google tutorials (tons of stuff on youtube!).

Again, really cool photo. I must admit this was a fun one to play with!

[amitkhanna84]

I am pretty new to the post-processing tools (I just have lightroom 3 beta - its free till June 15th) and maybe that's why I think this way but I really like the photos to look like (or atleast close to) how it really was.

If you want it to look gloomy because that's how it was, then I think that's alright.

Here is my take on your photo - nothing fancy, just some basic changes in LR (done in 30 secs)
1) Fill light 15 points
2) On the tone curve tool, click on the "circle with top and bottom arrow" on the top-left and then click-and-raise the lighter part of the water until you can see enough details.
3) Zoom in till 1:1 and then click on Presets > Lightroom presets > Sharpen Lanscapes. If it doesn't look ugly, keep it, or else undo.

Of course, if you play around with the settings in LR, you will get better ... thats my plan too

Btw, very nicely photo!
I like the composition - I don't think any cropping is needed

[irenelee]

Hello there,

Thank you for your input. I do like my photo as it was with little tweaks, however, it is interesting to see what post processing can do and how far it deviates from the original. I think I will d/l the lightroom beta version. Thanks again!

[Solarian]

I think with photos it has a lot to do with personal preference.
I upped the exposure a bit, made it a bit more blue, de-noised and increased the saturation. Take a look at it and see what you think.