Too much editing?

[Tww]

18-105 lens (tripod) set at 105mm, 1/60 second exposure, F-stop 5.6, ISO 200

When I took this shot the sky was overexposed. I did some touchup but it looks a little fake to me. Thoughts?

[Psyclop]

Can I see the original ?

[Tww]

Here is the original - it is a jpg copy of the NEF file but no other changes.

[jughead]

Originally Posted by Tww

Attachment 48173

Here is the original - it is a jpg copy of the NEF file but no other changes.

OK, now I could see it..

well,after seeing the original, I think the processing on the sky is OK but I prefer the original colors of the rocks

[Tww]

Originally Posted by jughead

The picture doesn't show up..

Tried the attachment - that didn't work well. It should show up now.

[oldwolf]

Garden of the Gods! Love the photo ops there. Have you gone out to the Siamese Twins yet? Great for star trail photography or if you want to capture Pikes Peak between them.

The original does look a bit over processed but it's also a matter of personal taste.

[Thanatoz]

I especially like the clouds in ur edited version The rocks are intense but I like them, very other worldly

[Tww]

Originally Posted by oldwolf

Garden of the Gods! Love the photo ops there. Have you gone out to the Siamese Twins yet? Great for star trail photography or if you want to capture Pikes Peak between them.
The original does look a bit over processed but it's also a matter of personal taste.

I know what you mean about the great photo ops. I could go back again and again and never get bored.
Haven't been to twin peaks - I'll have to do that this summer.

Thanks for the input on the photo, still learning PSE9. If I had taken a better exposed photo I probably wouldn’t have to process so much, but I do kind of like the artistic aspect of it.

[BigFuzzy]

The one thing I'd say about your editing is that you have to watch out for the "halos" around the rocks. It's a very clear and obvious sign of lots of post processing, and in my opinion, sloppy work because it doesn't have to be that way. Because, in my opinion, when something is very obviously heavily PP, the PP itself becomes and object of the image and detracts from the image overall. May I also suggest bracketing and then merging the bracketed images into something more natural looking (and no, I'm not saying HDR as I'm not a fan of HDR that much )

May I recommend doing whatever processing you do in layers so that you can more clearly control the transition areas as it will allow you to be more precise with your selections.
Good luck!

[SwissJon]

I think the problem here is that the foreground shoud be in shadow because the sun is behind the rocks, it looks wrong because you look like you've put a huge fill in flash onto the foreground.

I would have thought you would had been a little more careful with where you put saturation then you'd have a nicer picture.

If you make a duplicate second layer, carefully mask the sky and change the exposure and saturation etc to about the level you had it for the sky layer, and then go about half way with the foreground layer, perhaps reducing the exposure a little, the colours might appear to be a little more real.

I like the crop you did though.. Much better.