Sunset

[blinnea]

Here is another attempt at a sunset.
nikon d3100

EXIF-
shutter-1/20
aperture-F6.3
iso-100
72mm

looking for general ideas on how to improve. This is the first time I have shot in RAW. PP was done in Pixelmator for mac. I upped the exposure a touch as well as brightness. and increased the contrast a bit. Please let me know what I can do to improve before PP. As well as what I can do during. Thanks all!

[geo909]

Originally Posted by blinnea

Here is another attempt at a sunset.
nikon d3100

EXIF-
shutter-1/20
aperture-F6.3
iso-100
72mm

looking for general ideas on how to improve. This is the first time I have shot in RAW. PP was done in Pixelmator for mac. I upped the exposure a touch as well as brightness. and increased the contrast a bit. Please let me know what I can do to improve before PP. As well as what I can do during. Thanks all!

Hmmm.. As a beginner, maybe I shouldn't really comment on other people's photos.. However I do think the colours are a little washed out. It seems to me that you could improve the pic by changing the color curves to add some contrast and 'popness'.

You could also burn/dodge the sky to make it more impressive, if you don't mind the cheesy feeling this may give it.

All that said, wait for the pros for some better feedback.

[gjakovare]

The sunset is beautiful. The upper 3rd of the picture is perfectly framed, however, the foreground is less interesting. This is something to really pay attention to before you take the shot, especially since in this case it takes up 2/3 of the shot.

As far as PP, you could improve the colors a bit by increasing the contrast as well as the saturation.

All in all, though, I like the shot regardless.

[blinnea]

So, I played with the levels and curves as pp mentioned. How does this look? I really love the reflection in the river and the way that it curves.

[Krusty79]

A graduated neutral density filter could have really helped to reduce the brightness of the sky relative to the sun.

GND filters | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

You have a great sunset, but it looks like you desaturated it to try to even out the exposure. In landscape photography, there is usually too much dynamic range in a scene to get everything exposed correctly. That's why you should get a graduated ND filter and shoot RAW and bracket your shots. You can then make one jpg for the sky, one for the ground and blend them using a layer mask. Or you can do HDR.

You have three points of interest in this shot. Although the smokestack is cool, I do find it distracting if you want the viewer to focus on the sunset and reflection.

[blinnea]

Originally Posted by Krusty79

A graduated neutral density filter could have really helped to reduce the brightness of the sky relative to the sun.

GND filters | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

You have a great sunset, but it looks like you desaturated it to try to even out the exposure. In landscape photography, there is usually too much dynamic range in a scene to get everything exposed correctly. That's why you should get a graduated ND filter and shoot RAW and bracket your shots. You can then make one jpg for the sky, one for the ground and blend them using a layer mask. Or you can do HDR.

You have three points of interest in this shot. Although the smokestack is cool, I do find it distracting if you want the viewer to focus on the sunset and reflection.

haha Krusty this is the same advice you gave me on my other sunset picture. Very much appreciated. Having trouble with learning RAW. but I'm trying!! ;P thanks again