First post from Sweden

[MagnusL]

Long time lurker I decided to finally throw myself into the greatest landscape forum I've found on the net. Seeing all the great photos here I've always shyed about posting here but this is a shot from "Domsten" just 40 minutes drive from Malmö, Sweden where I live.

This is 4 shots blended "manually" in photoshop with lightmasks, converted to LAB for color seperation manipulation.

Any comments and feedback is welcome, I post here to learn from the great people populating these forums.

[Tony Jay]

Welcome to the forum Magnus - I hope you do enjoy yourself here.

Lovely subject matter in this image that does have a lot of potential.
I am no stranger to various strategies to enlarge the dynamic range of an image and am not at all averse to the techniques per se, however this image to me looks like a work in progress since the tonal relationships through the image just don't look quite right.
I would take this master and play in Lr to create a more believable tonal relationship within the image.
In particular it is clear that the fore and middle ground are unnaturally bright in relationship to the sky.

Regards

Tony Jay

[sdwilsonsct]

In particular it is clear that the fore and middle ground are unnaturally bright in relationship to the sky.

I see sunlight on the rocks, and on the seaweed, so this might be another one of those cases where reality is unrealistic, and Magnus is guilty only of showing it to us.

Great job on the sun, Magnus. I find myself trying not to look directly into it.

Välkommen!

Scott

[francois]

Welcome on the forum.

I'm with Tony, I'd like to see a bit darker foreground even if that's how "reality" was. It's a brilliant image!

[shaunw]

Good potential however the points that have been raised seem justified in this example....the brightness/luminance of the foreground is too distinct/separate from the sky....the foreground as an almost HDR glow appearance whilst the sky has deep contrast and colour saturation from that bracket/file or some heavy use of grads( probably from attempting to hold the sun?) The overall feel/look Magnus is one of separate files/images merged, however the techniques your using merging/blending files can be used to great effect if like everything in photography its done with great care and not loosing sight of the overall image.

A few ideas for this one...

Could try reduce the luminance of the foreground and ease the saturation of the sky.

All the critical aspects aside....nice scene good effort going contra jour....look forwards to seeing more of your work.

One last thing i might add...if you are shooting into the sun you can (and likely will have to) let the highlights blow a little, in the majority if images a small area of blown highlights doesn't distract too much, its when you have a large white area things start looking strange.

Regards Shaun

[MagnusL]

Thank you all for your great responsen, i really appriciate it. And i like that you all had rather simillar feedback and i Will take that to My heart!