Overdone Lighting Adjustments?

[melliott715]

The problem I had with this shot is I wanted to see the sun breaking through the clouds, but the barn was worth seeing too. I had a few that ended up as silhouettes, but I felt like they lacked.
On this one, I pulled out the lighting to try to see both the sky and the barn. What do you think? Does it seem a little fake-y? Maybe it's just because I've looked at it for too long now.

Thanks in advance for your critique.

[melliott715]

I'm not sure if that worked...it's my first time. Let me try again.

Also,
Shutter: 1/400
Aperture: 1/8
ISO: 200
Nikon D90
35mm



Whether that works or not:
All sizes | DSC_1315 | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

[KUlmer]

I'd like to see what it looked like with the barn in silhouette. With the sky as lit as it is, and without any other equipment or tampering, you almost have to chose between exposing for the sky or exposing for the barn. Expose for the sky and the barn will be dark. Expose for the barn and the sky will be blown out. My choice? Those clouds are so amazing I would expose for the sky and sacrifice the barn to silhouette. If you really wanted to try to capture both you would either have to use a (jump in anytime people if I am wrong) graduated neutral density filter to darken the sky and leave the horizon alone or possible take multiple exposures and try layers them in post in such a way that both the sky and the foreground are exposed properly. Great shot though!

[melliott715]

Here's a slightly different shot that's silhoutted (mostly, at least). I did take try a bracketed shot to do some HDR, but haven't really had time to put it together.



DSC_1318 | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Do you like this one better, or should I up the contrast some and fully black-out the barn?

[KUlmer]

I think this may have been what you were trying to do in the first place.

When you silhouette the barn it exposes for the gorgeous detail in the sky. All I did was open both copies in Photoshop as separate layers in the same document. The silhouette one I put on top and changed to 50% opacity so I could line the two up. Then I erased the barn and the foreground on the silhouetted version. What was left was the sky from the silhouette and the barn from the first version. Flattened and there you go.

[avishek24]

I really hope you dont mind us playing around with ur picture. Here is my attempt at it. I used the recovery and fill lights in lightroom to darken up the clouds while lightening up the foreground, in this case the barn house. Also increased the saturation of the picture overall. I wouldnt do a crop cuz I quite like the composition of the picture.