Shelter-in-place sunset

What technical feedback would you like if any?

The middle-ground bushes look too dark on my iMac computer screen…but the bushes liven up on our new iPhones. Judging that people viewing social media today are 50-50 on computer-viewing & phone-viewing, how does one decide how to develop the image? I’m guessing some would answer that you need an adjusted exposure for each. But I’m not that ambitious :wink:

What artistic feedback would you like if any?

Is it too dark overall for your tastes?

Pertinent technical details or techniques:

(If this is a composite, etc. please be honest with your techniques to help others learn)

One exposure.

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Ultimately, I think you have to adjust for the various media where you plan for the image to be seen. For me, personally, I am really only interested in the medium over which I have some semblance of control, namely the image as a print, whether as a fine art print or as a collection of photographs published as a book. But even that can be a challenge. For the most part, my monitor gives me a very dependable view of my image but that can really change if I decide to use a matte paper rather than a lustre or if there are colour or tonal variations that appear when the image is printed. But, at least, when I print there is a tangible result that allows me to determine whether or not I’m satisfied that the image is as close to my vision as possible. With all of the platforms that your image can be read on, from a calibrated monitor to an iPhone, from Instagram to FB and all the compression and distortion that that can entail, how can we possibly know what the reader will see? That’s a big reason why I print.
As to your image (as I see it :grinning:), the yellow/red orb against the quiet, muted blue is just gorgeous. I think the image might benefit from bringing up some of the darks contrast in the midground as well as the green. While I understand your intention, I think, in including the foreground band, I feel like it detracts from the image overall. As I look at this image one thing that I’m aware of is that the aspect ratio is vertical but the image itself has strong horizontal lines and I think the verticality of the aspect ratio fights against the horizontality of the image overall. For that reason, I would consider changing the aspect ratio to maybe 4:5 and remove that bottom layer altogether.

The sun is just gorgeous here, Doug. I can’t answer your question about developing the image for viewing. Personally, I develop for printing, and post a smaller, sRBG version for web use. I’ve never checked to see if they look different on a phone versus monitor. It’s a beautiful image, but I do find the bottom too dark for personal taste. Infact, I would be tempted to crop the bottom most part off.

Doug, this is a gorgeous image of a stunning sunset. Very well captured. My suggestions, in the totally subjective category, would be to darken the sky a bit, and create a bit more real estate on the left side so that the sun is not in the exact center. Like so: