Hi Cheryl On your sunset shot.. it's pretty hard to lighten the bottom part when you have such extremes of light from the sun and the dark.Others here may be able to help you more but I've had similar problems.
I like you last shot best. Did you use curves to bring out the color? it may be just a tad over curved, I'm not sure.
Cheryl, when you have very bright and very dark areas like that your camera can't record the extremes. So there actually is no information in the dark area of your shot to bring out. It was just too dark to record at all. I have this problem all the time.
In order to do what you want, you need to take more than one exposure of the scene. One will be set to get the details in the dark part, but the sky will be WAY too bright. Another exposure will be set to get the nice colors in the sky, but the ground will be black. Then you combine the good parts of each on your computer.
Comments
need suggestions to lighten bottom part
Suggestions?
I like you last shot best. Did you use curves to bring out the color? it may be just a tad over curved, I'm not sure.
Keep shooting and don't forget the challenge
In order to do what you want, you need to take more than one exposure of the scene. One will be set to get the details in the dark part, but the sky will be WAY too bright. Another exposure will be set to get the nice colors in the sky, but the ground will be black. Then you combine the good parts of each on your computer.
Photoshop Assignment 13 (here) was all about this very subject. Check it out, it can be fun!