Whispers on the beach - C&C

spinfire

This was taken on a beach in Gabon (Central Africa). I originally put these images up in a hurry, I'm going back and tweaking them in Lightroom and regretting I hadn't done a more thorough job initially. I'm curious what you think about the post processing in particular.



70-200 f/2.8L IS + EF 1.4 extender, @280mm, f/4.0, 1/600, ISO 100. I shot this in Aperture priority mode. I can't remember why I had the aperture so wide open, since it certainly wasn't needed to isolate the background. There was also a lot of ocean spray in the air which led to a bit of fuzzyness. Nonetheless, I like the shot, particularly the mood of a quiet isolated conversation next to the roaring waves.

I had a treatment with significantly higher saturation, primarily in the blue sky channel and I pulled it back because it looked artificial. The reality is the sky is more gray than blue there, so I decided against that particularly rendition. The result is something with a bit less saturation, particularly in the blue channel. I do like to keep my photos relatively unprocessed but slowly I am accepting the reality that they look better after some tweaks

For comparison, here is the original:




Thanks for your comments!

Paulcao

I think the post is done fine. The sky looked too gloomy in the original and I like the added contrast. The photo would be better if both faces were at least slightly visable.

jeffreaux2

I notice more red(undesirable) in skin tones on the edited shot. I usually post process strictly for pleasing skin tones in photos that contain people and let everything else pretty much fall where it may.

I think the unedited looks pretty good but lacks "pop". A curves or levels adjustment would have straightened that right out.

I do like the mood of the photo. Nice capture.