The photographer is looking for generalized feedback about the aesthetic and technical qualities of their image.
Description
This is sunrise at Smith Rock in central Oregon. I shot this last week after getting up at 4:30AM. Ugh!! Oh well, worth it IMHO.
Specific Feedback
Any feedback is most appreciated. I was also interested in hearing about the “impact” this image has. Is it interesting? Too much color? Not enough? Was hoping for a better sky, but you get what mother nature gives you, and I don’t do “sky replacements” in general.
Looks worth it to me, too. Not too much color, it looks right for this time of day. The sky has some interest, but not as much as the landscape itself. I wonder how a square(ish) crop might work to accentuate the similar shapes of the river and the road to the left. You could do some mask work with dodging and burning to further that end if you wanted to. I would tone down the road near the cliff base just a little, too. It pulls the eye more than the river reflection. Great looking place with an excellent name!
Oh and I just noticed that very little of the image appears to be tack sharp in the blown up view. Not sure if you were on a tripod or not, but it looks almost like the camera moved. Maybe a smaller aperture could have helped if you were on a tripod and it wasn’t windy. Hm.
Thanks Kristen! Yes, I thought of cropping a bit off the left and I like it. May do that in the end. Regarding the sharpness, I actually applied a bit of blur to the image on the lower half as the original was a little “crispy”. Perhaps I did a bit too much, so will scale that back. And finally, thanks for the suggestion on the road. Will try some things there. Most appreciated!
I hear you about the sky hopes, but actually I think the gentle clouds and color work well. I think the composition also works well, although the right side is more interesting to me than the left. (I don’t know if a small shift towards the right was an option?) Speaking of “I wonders,” did you happen to take a slightly later image with more sun on that right hand spire? That would be interesting to compare.
Thanks John! Yes, this image is a bit off-center and I will try cropping. Thanks for your idea about other images with more lighting on the right side. See attached (totally unedited)
I think the shadows have been warmed up a little too much. A very nice opportunity, but something definitely went wrong in the first one. Does the raw file have that look? Looks like tripod shake., or a masking problem. Well worth a redo.
If something is too crunchy, blurring it a bit is not nearly as good an option as going back to the raw file and preventing the crunchiness in the first place.
I like the composition and colors very much. Sorry just can’t get past the blurry FG. Also some strange artifacts in the sky, especially the left side.
I just noticed the file name – it looks like some sort of HDR software was used. Was it done in-camera? In that case there was apparently some camera movement between frames. If it gave you the raw files, you should be able to do better in LR or PS.
Thanks for the feedback! I think the artifacts in the sky were due to the low resolution of the jpg I created to post here. In PS, there are not there. Thanks again!
This image is worth playing with the last time you used it!! But not with Photomatix.
I don’t know what software you have, or the camera, but I think there is a good chance you could pull out the light and shadow detail without an HDR program, just using the shadows and highlights sliders in LR or equivalent software.
Maybe one of the contributing exposure files is sharper than the others?
If one exposure doesn’t give you enough tonal range to work with, then try Photo > Photo Merge > HDR in LR. It can correct some misalignment of the exposures, which possibly occurred if/when you touched the camera to change exposures. Maybe you don’t need all 5 frames you fed to Photomatix. See if just one is blurry and don’t use it. LR will return a raw file and give you the most overhead for corrections.
Sometimes you see people asking someone what is their favorite tool in digital processing. I have a favorite by a mile – the ability to zoom in to 1:1.
Thanks everyone for the feedback! I decided to use a similar photo that had more of the rocks lit up (one of your suggestions). I like this one better, but always open to feedback.
I think that it’s ALWAYS worth getting up for sunrise!
I like this image, Scott. It has a pleasing comp with the reverse S curve of the river framed by the peaks to the left and right of it and I like the colours – particularly the blues and the oranges. It’s a favourite colour combination for me and I think for a lot of other photographers.
