Treasure falls

[windrider86]

I have fallen intot he "critiuqe my shot" trap and have decided to post in other forums. This was a shot i took at treasure falls. I'm not happy with the edge by the sunset as it doesnt look natural.I had to clone a bit on the edges to fill in and then tried to smudge it a bit. Am i not "smudging" enough? Any tips that might help I always apprecaite. The orginal sky looked horrible so figured I change it and thought I might leave the left side darker to kinda go with the sunsetting theme.
E-500, 14mm, 1/160. iso-100.

[Firemaine]

windrider86: instead of using the smudging tool. I might use the blur tool. Seeing as that area is in the back ground and would be out of focus.

[ELAY]

The difficulty I always have with composites is that I can never get the light right.

I think that what is bothering you is that the waterfalls side looks to be slightly underexposed in a creative and dramatic way, and is rendered in cool tones (see the blue tones in the water), with light probably coming from high and right (see the highlights on the rocks and shadoes at upper left). Your sunset, however, has beautiful warm light (those orange tones are gorgeous), and it looks like your light source is more diffuse and at lower right. I think that even if we can't always put these differences into words, our eyes figure it out and tell us that something doesn't quite match.

I don't have the same eye or creative mind for these things that JC, Clockdoc or Wulf do, so I am not going to be very helpful with suggestions. But how about posting the original falls picture (what I see of it looks very striking and dramatic) -- it might give us somewhere to start.

EL

[windrider86]

#1. could you elaborate a bit ont he blur tool?
#2, I agree withy ou and thank you for puting into words what i couldnt figure out. I kept looking at it and thinking wow it looks great (except for the edge of course) but something is missing.
Great suggestion that i will definatly remember amd use

[ELAY]

I think that because the edge is where the two differently lit scenes meet, and where the difference is most evident, no amount of blurring or smoothing is going to make you happy.

It isn't the technique I don't think -- it's the contrast between the two scenes.

EL

[windrider86]

I agree. I just kind of wanted to know for future reference. Even tho the colors conflict the edge is just too harsh

[Nai no Kami]

Originally Posted by ELAY

it's the contrast between the two scenes.

EL

I wholeheartedly agree.

In addition, there are other details in the compositing that make the photo look "wrong": look for the tree on the lower right, which is cut with a straight line; look for some serious cloning in a cloud in the middle next to the edge; keep an eye on the lower right column of single pixels that shows the background beneath the sunset addition, etc.

[magnus9]

That waterfall really is beautifully shot. So is the sunset. They just don't seem to be work well together.

[wyndhydra]

I do agree that they look off, but if you want to keep them together perhaps a graduated warming filter on the falls may help? That way it wouldn't be quite as stark of a contrast. Still, both are great captures.

[windrider86]

Great idea, i will have ti try it