Driftwood on Beach

[Czrich86]

Canon EOS 50D
Canon EF-S18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS
Focal Length 24.0mm
Exposure time: 1/80
F/20
ISO 200
Metering Mode Evaluative Metering
White Balance Mode Cloudy
Picture Style Landscape

Hey everyone,

I shot this piece of driftwood that got lodged into the sand at a nearby beach after hurricane Irene. It was about 4pm when I took the shot.

I'm looking mainly for critiques and suggestions on post processing. I increased saturation on the sky and foregroung to bring out the vibrant colors my eyes saw, but left the water alone. I also used an unsharp mask to bump up the sharpness a little. I feel pretty happy with my composition, but I am happy to get comments on that as well.

Thanks!

[EOBeav]

Compositionally, I'd like to see the rest of the driftwood. And all of that post work didn't help your lighting situation at all. Try shooting this first thing in the morning or later on in the evening for better light. Photoshop can't fix quality or direction of light. See my signature for more details.

[NgaiHill]

Post processing - it looks to me like the blues are oversaturated, maybe try dialling them back a bit. The sky looks too blue compared to the water.
Compositionally - that driftwood concerns me from this viewpoint, it looks like it is going to fall on me. The bit that has been cut off bothers me too, like a persons arm being cut off.
I like the light in the clouds behind though, I hope you got some shots of that!

[Krusty79]

I think the bright sky has caused the driftwood to be underexposed. If you shot RAW, I would create one jpg for the sky and one for the driftwood and use a layer mask to blend the two exposures.

Also, I wouldn't use any apertures smaller than around f/13 or else you may start to get diffraction, which degrades sharpness.