Need some input...

shniks

Hi guys,


Here is a pano that I made last week. The negative feedback I am getting is that the sky lacks contrast. How can I make the sky darker? I am not very adept at PS (just know levels, curves etc), but from what I understand, I need to use gradient fill. I tried that and the results are as below. I don't think it is still popping. What can you guys suggest I do?





Altered Image
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Thanks,

kdog

I don't know either, but it looks like your gradient is going from left to right. Is there a selection for a vertical gradient fill?

shniks

kdog wrote:

I don't know either, but it looks like your gradient is going from left to right. Is there a selection for a vertical gradient fill?

The gradient is going vertically from bottom to top. I guess you feel it's going right to left because of the brighter light on the right side (where the sun had set)?


Thanks,

jfriend

Neat image, but I think the white balance is off in this image (way too purple). I like it a lot better with less blue. I loaded it into Photoshop, opened a curve adjustment layer and just pulled the right end of the blue channel down about 30% of the way. It warms up the image a lot and makes the sky and city a much more believable color. You should try it and see what you think.

As for the sky in general, I think the issue is that there isn't really anything going on in the sky area to make it interesting so it just feels like there's too much empty expanse of sky and the viewer is left wishing they could see more foreground. Also, the horizon is right in the middle of the image which is usually not best.

shniks

jfriend wrote:

Neat image, but I think the white balance is off in this image (way too purple). I like it a lot better with less blue. I loaded it into Photoshop, opened a curve adjustment layer and just pulled the right end of the blue channel down about 30% of the way. It warms up the image a lot and makes the sky and city a much more believable color. You should try it and see what you think.

As for the sky in general, I think the issue is that there isn't really anything going on in the sky area to make it interesting so it just feels like there's too much empty expanse of sky and the viewer is left wishing they could see more foreground. Also, the horizon is right in the middle of the image which is usually not best.

Thanks for the great feedback John. I agree on both points. I will play with the colors. And you are totally right about the sky- there is too much 'uninteresting' sky, which is lowering the impact of the photo. I will crop off a portion and see how it looks.


Danke,

jfriend

shniks wrote:

Thanks for the great feedback John. I agree on both points. I will play with the colors. And you are totally right about the sky- there is too much 'uninteresting' sky, which is lowering the impact of the photo. I will crop off a portion and see how it looks.


Danke,

If you were going to every experiment with taking this again, I wonder if this would benefit from a little less exposure. While you can't avoid having bright lights in an image like this getting a little blown out (if you tried to avoid it, everything else would be too dark), I wonder if you'd get a little more detail around the lights with a little less exposure. It's probably something to experiment with. It would also be OK for the sky to be a bit darker. The only question is would you lose too much detail in the darker areas.

It would be interesting to see how it looks with more sky cropped off. It's going to get really long and short (an even more extreme aspect ratio). If there isn't a great sky, I think about putting the horizon 1/3 of the way down in the image and using the bottom 2/3 for image/foreground. It obviously helps if you can find an interesting foreground and for images like this, one that isn't so dark it's just a black blob.

Anyone ever done an HDR pano? This kind of scene would lend itself to that if the right source shots were taken. Protect the highlights, but get more detail in the darkest areas.

shniks

Ok John- I did a bit of quick processing on the shot and have appended it below the original. It def looks better, although I really want to get it a little more saturated. Hmmm, not sure what else I could do!


Cheers,