Storm Coming

[Dale Villeponteaux]

May be overprocessed.

[wmchauncey]

In my experience, storms like that usually bring out a little more saturation in colors...

[RSL]

Dale, It's a fine shot. Chauncey may have a point, but I'm not sure about that. I've seen oncoming storms like this with and without high color.

[Dale Villeponteaux]

Thank you both for looking.  I'll play with saturation and vibrance, but I was struck by the islands of light in an otherwise clouded countryside.

Again, thanks,
Dale

[Christoph C. Feldhaim]

Thank you both for looking.  I'll play with saturation and vibrance, but I was struck by the islands of light in an otherwise clouded countryside.

Again, thanks,
Dale

Its more about the contrast and edge definition than about the color.
Eg. Highpass sharpen with huge radius or so.
Or manual local dodge and burn.

[churly]

Hi - I think I would go after the noise before anything else.  It is readily apparent in the sky.
Cheers

[Dale Villeponteaux]

Another version with light area to left center dodged and vineyard burned, with slight overall lowering of shadows.
Smoothed the sky as best I could, without much effect.  Used a 20-70 f/2.8 at ISO 640 f8 1/60 70mm. With a non-
stabilized lens I did not dare go lower or slower.  Still the amount of noise surprised me.  I did not expect this much
until around ISO 800.  Must have read that somewhere, since I seldom go above ISO 100 unless forced.

Overall, I think the changes improve the image.

My thanks to you all,
Dale

[Christoph C. Feldhaim]

I am not exactly sure about the sky saturation - maybe taking it a slight bit back would be better, but overall I think you did the right thing and the image is improved, especially the dodging and burning on the landscape did it.
Thanks for posting !

[Jeremy Roussak]

Overall, I think the changes improve the image.

I agree: I like the effect on the ground in particular. I think you've over-saturated the sky on the left, though: it looks (on my laptop screen) unrealistically blue.

Jeremy

[Ed Blagden]

I like both versions but the second one is better in my opinion.  I like the contrast of sunlight and shadows on a beautiful landscape and the saturated dark sky adds drama.  You even got some subtle God Rays in there!  Good stuff.

The noise doesn't bother me, but if it bothers you then you could try adding a bit of film grain effect.  Surprised you are seeing that much noise from a D3X even at 1 stop under.

[francois]

No question… the second version is better.
Bravo!