Big Sur b/w - help and suggestions?

[Infinite Monkey]

I've been working on this shot and some others from a recent trip to Big Sur. I'm working in Aperture. I've just picked up a copy of Photoshop Elements 9 and hope to start learning my way around it this week. So now I'm looking for help and suggestions with this image:



While I'd love to get feedback on the composition (is it too center weighted?) and the exposure (is it too dark?) as well as the b/w conversion, I'm also looking for thoughts as to what I might be able to do with it when I gain access to the additional tools that PSE will make available to me. Can I use the image as it currently is and build on it in PSE or should I start over again from the RAW file in PSE, re-do the conversion and ignore Aperture completely? I'm very open to any suggestions people have.

Thanks for any time and thought you bring to this. Oh, yeah, here's some Exif:

Camera Nikon D80
Exposure 0.006 sec (1/160)
Aperture f/11.0
Focal Length 22 mm
ISO Speed 200
Exposure Bias 0 EV
Flash No Flash

[shruggy63]

I really like it. The composition is good although (on my monitor) there's a lot of blocky blacks. It definitely makes me think of Weston.

[Krusty79]

It's a very nice scene, but you have a dynamic range problem. I looked at a histogram of your shot and there is clipping at both ends, but mostly at the dark end. There are many dark areas with no detail. I would shoot this closer to sunset when you have less dynamic range to deal with. A graduated ND filter may have helped.

I like the scene, but I feel that it could use more of a subject or focal point. Too bad the sky wasn't more interesting.

[Infinite Monkey]

Thanks to both Shruggy and Krusty for your time and trouble.

Shruggy -- I agree about the blocky blacks. Do you have any suggestions as to how those might be mitigated in post or did I lock those in when I took the shot?

Krusty -- Absolutely right about dynamic range. The darks really kind of dominate the shot more than I'd like. I shot from that spot at 4 different times over 3 days but never got the combination of ocean, lighting and sky that I hoped for. I'll probably shoot there again sometime (it's about 2 hours from here) and will certainly try both early morning and late afternoon. Is there any way to address these issues in post or is this a shoot-only issue?

I feel like I've gotten as much as I can out of this image in Aperture. I'm hoping there is more available to me in post as I learn PSE. I'm going to put up at least 2 more images from this trip and hope to hear back with some critiques and comments. Thanks again.

[Krusty79]

There is no magic tool in PP that will fix a dynamic range issue. I wish there was! I heard Lightroom has a ND grad effect, but I don't know if that really corrects the dynamic range problem. That's why just about any landscape shot you see in a professional gallery was shot in the golden hours and they often use ND grad filters to reduce the brightness of the sky relative to the ground.

[Infinite Monkey]

Thanks Krusty. I'll look into ND filters.

[Krusty79]

The ND Grad filters are the ones the reduce the brightness of the sky relative to the ground. Get a 3 stop one if you do. The Lee and Singh-Ray are very good; HiTech if you're on a budget. I would avoid Cokin, as I hear they are not really neutral.

[crockny]

I'm thinking that if you got down lower you'd have more rock in the front (hopefully with nice rock detail), your wave would look higher in the sky and the big rock on the left wouldn't be so lost against the background cliffs ...

[shruggy63]

While I agree with Krusty in that you should always try to get the best image in the camera, I think you may have loads of leeway with this picture if you've got it in a RAW form. If you process it in Photoshop & maybe up the exposure a little & increase the fill light without losing the contrast that makes the foam bright then you might easily regain definition on the rocks. Once the picture is processed & saved as a .psd then you can look at the histogram & pin down the dark & bright highlights & adjust the middle point.
Hope that makes sense. I like the composition.

[Infinite Monkey]

Thanks Shruggy. I always shoot RAW but I'm a total Photoshop novice. As mentioned above, I worked on this image in Aperture. I have just picked up a copy of Photoshop Elements 9 and I'm starting to learn my way around but it is all very new to me. I'll try to do some of what you've suggested and see where that leads me. I appreciate your thoughts on this.