Trying to get the sunlight to light up the crashing waves in the photo to show the power of the sun and waves together.
Type of Critique Requested
Aesthetic: Feedback on the overall visual appeal of the image, including its color, lighting, cropping, and composition.
Conceptual: Feedback on the message and story conveyed by the image.
Emotional: Feedback on the emotional impact and artistic value of the image.
Technical: Feedback on the technical aspects of the image, such as exposure, color, focus and reproduction of colors and details, post-processing, and print quality.
Specific Feedback and Self-Critique
Not happy with the way the sun looks in the clouds.
Technical Details
Sony Alpha A6600 Tamron 18-300 mm
f/8, 1/125 sec, ISO 100, 34 mm
Hi Bradley,
and welcome to NPN! I hope you will enjoy this community as much as I do.
That’s a really beautiful first image. This beach scene awakens the urge for a vacation. I would love to stand there now and enjoy the sunset.
You froze the wave beautifully. I like how the water splashes over the rock and some drops fly in front of the sun.
Shooting directly into the sun is a tough task for any camera. The dynamic range is simply huge. The only thing you could do there is exposure bracketing. But blending the images would be difficult in your case because the water is moving fast.
Maybe we should just accept that the sun is very very bright. And in my opinion, the sun does not look bad in your picture. There is still some slight cloud structure in front of it.
I don’t know if you are using PS. There are tools that might help to make the sun look a little less harsh.
So I took the liberty, downloaded your file, and trying to improve the sun. The difference isn’t that dramatic:
I created a new blank layer and used the Clone Stamp Tool to copy a section of the clouds over the sun. I tried to clone an area that seemed to fit in terms of clouds (that looks ugly at present).
I double-clicked the layer to open the layer style and dragged the dark Blend If slider for the Underlying layer to the right until the image looked better. Then I dragged the slider again (while pressing the Alt-Key on the keyboard) all the way to the right.
The result looked like this (The “Blend If” feature works like Layer Masks, in this case, it let all dark parts of the underlying layers shine through):
Again, that’s a really beautiful image and the sun looks quite good in your version. I just showed the processing because you were not happy with your image. Let me know if you have any questions.
Welcome to NPN, Bradley. Terrific first image. Ocean sunsets or sunrises are always fun and can be quite impressive, like this one.
Looking forward to seeing more of your work. I know you’ll get a lot out of this community. I see @Jens_Ober has already provided some advice on taming the sun in these kinds of images.
Welcome, Bradley!
I really enjoy ocean sunsets and sunrises, but yes they are so challenging because of that high dynamic range. I agree that in this case the bright sun core is kind of to be expected, and I especially like the way it is reflected in those waves. @Jens_Ober 's editing is pretty amazing! I’m going to have to get back to the ocean and give this Blend-If technique a go.
Welcome, @Bradley_Taylor! Wonderful light and color contrast between the blues and oranges. @Jens_Ober has excellent suggestions on managing these types of scenes. You might also consider reducing the saturation–to my eye the orange in the sky and on the waves is a bit much, but that’s an individual taste thing.
Thanks Jens for the feedback and showing me the blending method to bring back some detail. This is the type of feed back I’m looking for to help me improve my images.
Welcome to NPN, Bradley. It certainly is hard to pass up a beautiful scene like this one so I understand why you took this image. If your goal was to catch some amazing light in the crashing waves on the shoreline, mission accomplished. You have great light hitting the splash zone of the waves and you can feel the power you were after.
I do find that the saturation, particularly the purple tint, is just too much for me. It may be to your liking though so take that for what it’s worth. Also, not sure if you’re married to the trees on the left edge of the frame but I see a nice crop without the trees if you are so inclined.
Really looking forward to seeing more on your work Bradley. Keep them coming.
Welcome to NPN! Great to have you here. And what a beautiful first post!
Great processing tip from Jens! Thanks @Jens_Ober !
Great job catching the wave and splashing on the rock - very cool to see the splashes up in the sunset as well.
I too was wondering about the saturation. As David mentions, certainly well within personal preference, but I wanted to ask about the variation of color/sat on the beach and into the rock on the left - how the color goes from a warmish red/magenta to a cooler blue/purple. The crashing wave on the bottom right is pretty purple as well. The orange in the wave is the most consistent as it’s directly in line with the setting sun and horizon colors. Just wondering about the transition of colors and saturation on the beach and wave in the LR, lower right. Not big deals, but noticable by a pixel peeper like me.
Thanks for sharing and we look forward to more images and seeing your participation in the community. Welcome aboard!
You are welcome. Looks like you found the right place to improve your photography. This community is really great. I haven’t been here that long myself, but I’ve learned quite a lot. Everyone is eager to help.
