Here comes the rain

[kstiltne]

I've recently been spending most of my time trying to improve my portraits(long, slow road...), but decided to go out this week and revisit landscapes, while trying to learn some new (to me) Photoshop skills. The Han River provides a lot of beautiful scenery and the incoming rain storm provided some fantastic skies to match. My biggest question here is regarding the processing, this is pretty much how I wanted the shot to look when I took it (at least on my monitor), but at the same time I don't want it to look fake and sometimes that's hard to judge on your own work...and as usual, any other comments and critiques are appreciated.



EXIF:
Nikon D50
Nikkor 18-55 f/3.5-5.6 kit lens
CPL filter...mostly acting as a 2 stop ND filter
.4 sec exposure
f/16
ISO 200
18mm

Exposure adjusted a bit in CS3 Camera Raw to get everything within the histogram
Greens and blues boosted, top half of the image WB corrected to a warmer tone while the bottom half was adjusted to a slightly cooler tone

[navcom]

I think it's a nice shot! Well composed. Flowing. It looks like it's been processed but not overly. It has nice color and mood. The only thing I would want to correct is the green fringing around the foreground vegetation. That adds a bit of artificial-ness to the shot.

Nice.

[Michael_2010]

I like it. It is almost like a hybrid mix of reality and illustration. Would be interesting to take it to a full blown HDR effect just to see how it would turn out.

[raghunath]

Originally Posted by kstiltne

I've recently been spending most of my time trying to improve my portraits(long, slow road...), but decided to go out this week and revisit landscapes, while trying to learn some new (to me) Photoshop skills. The Han River provides a lot of beautiful scenery and the incoming rain storm provided some fantastic skies to match. My biggest question here is regarding the processing, this is pretty much how I wanted the shot to look when I took it (at least on my monitor), but at the same time I don't want it to look fake and sometimes that's hard to judge on your own work...and as usual, any other comments and critiques are appreciated.



EXIF:
Nikon D50
Nikkor 18-55 f/3.5-5.6 kit lens
CPL filter...mostly acting as a 2 stop ND filter
.4 sec exposure
f/16
ISO 200
18mm

Exposure adjusted a bit in CS3 Camera Raw to get everything within the histogram
Greens and blues boosted, top half of the image WB corrected to a warmer tone while the bottom half was adjusted to a slightly cooler tone

Very nice shot!
It would have made a great HDR shot as well.

Jayant Neogy

[Aleix]

Amazing picture, nice treatment! (only the excess green fringe needs correction)

Regarding composition, let me humbly contribute with an alternative crop:



It still preserves all the essential elements of the picture and places them at the intersections of the rule of thirds, but it concentrates them to a smaller extension, concentrating the attention of the viewer to a smaller zone as well. It removes part of the left 1/3 column of the rule of thirds grid, which is anyway what can be seen on the middle column (blue sky-bridge-water-grass), so it does add little to the pic IMHO. The bridge being a powerful diagonal line (slightly increased brightness of the bridge would make it even stronger), the position of the elements and the bright spots really make the eyes go to the buildings, which for me are the primary element of the pic.

Keep up the good work!!!

[kstiltne]

Originally Posted by Aleix

Amazing picture, nice treatment! (only the excess green fringe needs correction)

Regarding composition, let me humbly contribute with an alternative crop:



It still preserves all the essential elements of the picture and places them at the intersections of the rule of thirds, but it concentrates them to a smaller extension, concentrating the attention of the viewer to a smaller zone as well. It removes part of the left 1/3 column of the rule of thirds grid, which is anyway what can be seen on the middle column (blue sky-bridge-water-grass), so it does add little to the pic IMHO. The bridge being a powerful diagonal line (slightly increased brightness of the bridge would make it even stronger), the position of the elements and the bright spots really make the eyes go to the buildings, which for me are the primary element of the pic.


Keep up the good work!!!

Thanks for the suggestion, and I definitely see where you going with it, but the crop makes it a bit too boxy for my taste. Personally, I prefer a more rectangular aspect ratio for my landscapes...squarish makes me feel claustrophobic, but you're absolutely right that the left third of the image doesn't really contribute much apart from making it more comfortable for me to look at.

As for the color fringe...not sure where that came from, and I was having a really hard time seeing it until I went to full size and looked for it (I don't see subtle color changes between blue and green very well), and I'm not real sure how to get rid of it, short of going in and trying to clone it out. Any other suggestions would be welcomed.

Thanks a lot for your input guys...this was pretty experimental for me as far as the editing goes and I definitely found some things to be watchful for in the future.

[Aleix]

Originally Posted by kstiltne

As for the color fringe...not sure where that came from, and I was having a really hard time seeing it until I went to full size and looked for it

Try reducing the green saturation; also could have its origin when brightening up the foreground plants, but I can't tell for sure. You'll have to try making some changes on the adjustments, because I don't think cloning will work (without destroying part of the picture, of course).