Newbie C&C Landscapes

TheDriver

Hi All,
Totally new to all this, got my first slr 3 weeks ago so looking for some tips and hints! I know the brighter one has a few rain spots on the lens from yesterday, took the boats one this evening, I know they are amateurish but love some tips on glaring obvious wrong doings. Criticisms and comments please!
1.


2.

Rb

The first one is beautiful. Well done.

challengemaster

They're both pretty good photos for a beginner!

The first one turned out quite well without any editing, here's what I did to the second with 5 minutes in photoshop (induced editing by 4 litres of coke)



far from perfect but just a quick mess...

I think you're doing just fine considering it's only been 3 weeks!

Morrisseeee

I like the 1st, it stands out as a nice photo, but......the color seems odd (to me anyway!).
The 2nd is interesting, its a long exposure, (isn't it?) but with a little practice, I can see you improving greatly! ie. you seem to have a 'eye' for a photo. Challengemaster has processed the sh1t out of it, but maybe thats not your thing ! :pac: (but if it is, then he has done a good job).

TheDriver

thanks all, nice to know I am on the right road. CHallengemaster, what did you do to get the photo like that? I have used photoshop in the past for web design in a former life.
Exposure was actually 10s for that photo, was just messing with few filters I robbed off a mate, was serious vignetting (that word always sounds cool but just had time on my hands so read a book!) so cropped it a bit, lovely smokey sea effect though.

gerkeo

Challengemaster, i like what you did to the pic, it was good to start but your PP made it very harsh and rugged looking. What steps / filters did you use in photoshop to achieve those results?

challengemaster wrote: »

They're both pretty good photos for a beginner!

The first one turned out quite well without any editing, here's what I did to the second with 5 minutes in photoshop (induced editing by 4 litres of coke)



far from perfect but just a quick mess...

I think you're doing just fine considering it's only been 3 weeks!

As C&C goes...in the first one I really like the lighting,the silhouettes with the glaring sun behind them look brilliant.The only thing is,the colours seem a bit off to me.If you have Photoshop or Gimp I would use either Selective Colour or Saturation to decrease the reds in the photo and maybe increase the yellow.I think this would give a much nicer natural glow.

For the second one it's a shame that the water droplets affect the top of the shot.A glasses cloth can come in handy for those rainy days.Otherwise I would crop out the bottom left of the photo as it is a bit distracting and increase the contrast as it looks a bit flat.On the good side the composition is nearly spot on and you've achieved a lovely effect on the water with the long exposure.

These are some damn good landscapes though.If this is what you're producing after 3 weeks it'll be interesting to see what you're producing after a year or two!

Also Challengemaster I'd be interested in hearing about the processing too.

TheDriver

Thanks all, indeed only got my hands on an slr the first week of June when I purchased a 450D and naturally the bug has caught on! Its nice to know I am doing something right, thanks all, you are very kind and supportive. The 1st one was actually me driving to a beach last night and just saw light coming through on a pier near home so stopped and chanced my luck for 5 minutes.
Love to hear what filters challengemaster used alright, I shot both in RAW so can adjust colours on the 1st one easily.

challengemaster

Jaysus, didn't think there'd be a load of ye interested in it

Twas literally a 5 minute mess about

Background layer:

• Topaz adjust Dramatic filter
• Some slight dodging and burning
• Add a mask for new sky to be dropped in

New layer:

• Drop in a new sky

Duplicate bg layer:

• High pass filter (6.6) set to overlay

Adjustment layers:

• B&W adjustment layer (Red -40, yellow 235, all else -200) - Multiply blending 69% opacity
• Hue/Saturation adjustment layer (sepia preset) - layer mask for sky, Screen blending mode - 60% opacity
• Levels adjustment layer to increase contrast (increase contrast 2 preset) - normal blending mode - 100% opacity

Here's the .psd file if you're interested
Clicky

Seeing as you have RAW files for it, maybe taking a crack at editing the RAW file might yield more favorable results than jpeg editing!

TheDriver

thanks challengemaster, can i ask where you get the new sky to drop in?

challengemaster

Google "Dramatic sky"