First light on Grand Cayman Island from the East End. This end of the island can get some surf and this area is known for it’s blowholes in the rock. I scooted away before the kids were awake and took this shot at first light. Was grateful to have some clouds in the sky.
What technical feedback would you like if any?
What artistic feedback would you like if any?
Pertinent technical details or techniques:
(If this is a composite, etc. please be honest with your techniques to help others learn)
2-shot composite (1 for sky and 1 for H20 - taken about 30seconds apart). 0.5sec, 23mm, ISO 80, f/5.6.
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Jim, I like the image, especially the sky. I tinkered a bit with the bottom part to the top of the breaking waves by reducing the brightness a bit and increasing contrast a touch. This is just a personal taste adjustment that I think adds some punch without compromising the first light look. Excellent image.
Jim, the light here is very nice, and I love the pastel colors in the water and sky. Those rocks look like they could be very nasty to walk on, but this gives them some interesting texture too. I also like your composition, you were able to avoid a 50/50 horizon, but still managed to give a lot of prominence to the clouds and color in the sky. As Larry said, it’s a matter of personal taste, but I prefer the lighter color of rocks in your original presentation.
In terms of suggestions, I might slightly burn down the brightest parts of the rocks in the center right side of the image.
Beautiful sky and real nice scene, Jim. As Ed and Larry said, it is personal preference, but I like Larry’s changes. Subtle, but I find it kind of vignettes the bottom, more easily letting my eye flow through the image. Not a biggie either way for me.
Jim, This image has such a nice feel to me. Kind of an overall softness feel even though the rocks are hard and sharp. The water and sky are beautiful. I like your original but Larry’s version is very nice as well and I could go either way.
Thanks everyone for your comments…all great ideas. i’ve reposted here darkening the water and rocks in the center which actually helps the image in a way I wasn’t expecting…I was hoping for a lower contrast image as was true to the morning light. I also burned some of the brighter aspects of the rock in the foreground as they were a bit of a distraction. I added a gentle overall vignette as well. Thanks again @Harley_Goldman, @Nick_Bristol, @Ed_McGuirk, @Larry_Greenbaum
Late to the party, Jim. But heck, this is very nicely composed. The color is a little too magenta for my taste. But that’s somewhat a personal preference. I like this last repost for the contrast in the FG. I think you have achieved a very nice balance.
@Adhika_Lie - you know I respect your eye for subtle color and personally I’ve struggled with “seeing” oversaturation in my own images. The attached is from Adobe Color website analyzing the colors in my image. What do you think? As I look at this compared to my image, perhaps it’s not the saturation but the diffuse nature of the magenta in the image. I’d be interested in your thoughts and thanks for your patience! Anyone else’s thoughts are welcome also!!
This is a beautiful coastal image. Killer sky and clouds; almost looks 3D. I really like how you’ve framed the scene with the curve of the rugged shoreline. And it’s actually kinda nice not having such an action-packed wave action - I mean like the spray shooting 20ft in the air… What you’ve captured allows that sky and foreground to be very nicely balanced with the lovely, not angry, ocean. (And still you have great texture a a shutter speed to show it all off.)
My only suggestion would be to burn down the brighter rocks and wave wash on the right - this was already mentioned and I like your repost.
I’m not familiar with that color/sat analyzer. Maybe you could post something about that? Maybe I should know about it? but alas, I don’t. Not sure I would use it, but I’m guessing could come in handy as a tool, reference. Thanks for sharing that.
@Lon_Overacker FYI - the Adobe color wheel can analyze colors in your images. I have seen this used in the context of color harmony, things like analogous or complementary color schemes. You can upload an image for analysis to the Adobe color website (as Jim has done), or you can download it and install it as an extension to Photoshop. Links to a few good articles on this (the Ted Gore article is an especially interesting read on the use of color harmony in landscape photography.
I believe the Adobe color wheel identifies the dominant colors in an image. In the case of Jim’s original post there are a lot of blue and reddish orange colors, which means he has a complementary color scheme (the dots are mostly in a straight line on opposite sides of the color wheel. I’m not sure the color wheel is the easiest way to identify color casts.
I think that color casts are most easy to spot when they influence areas of neutral color, like the pure white in the waves, or something that is a neutral grey like clouds. In @Jim_McGoverns color wheel there is some magenta/pink (the middle dot) but that does not tell us where it is in the image or how strong this color cast is. I look for these things by eyeball myself.
Here are a couple tricks I find handy when evaluating images for color casts, that don’t rely on the eyeball approach :
Method 1 If you use TK actions in PS, Tony has two Neutralize Color Cast tools, I prefer Neutralize Color Cast 1. This adds a layer that attempts to remove color casts. I don’t always like the results it produces, but it usually tells me which color is creating a cast. Sometimes tweaking the opacity of the Neutralize layer helps, and sometimes I adjust it manually using a Color Balance adjustment layer.
Method 2 In Photoshop add a levels adjustment layer. Click on the options hamburger in the upper right corner to display levels options, and click on “auto options” This brings up a number of color correction options described in the link below
In the end, all of this is subjective, and a matter of personal taste. But I wanted to share a few links on some interesting reading on the topic of color and color correction.
I “see” now @Adhika_Lie! I like your changes…thanks for your help!
@Ed_McGuirk - thanks for your excellent offering on color cast and color harmony! Ted’s article looks great and I’ll be spending some time reading that.
@Lon_Overacker, thanks for your comments and for reinforcing Ed’s previous comments…I had misinterpreted them and thought he meant the rock in the water only. I’m constantly surprised at my own “color blindness”…I know it takes time to develop the eye, but I still struggle a bit. This NPN forum has been huge in helping me.
