Beautiful sunrise

[baldemort]

I was lucky enough to get what was a glorious sunrise this morning. Lovely clear day and a pretty sky. Hope you like the shot. Comments and thoughts would be great.

[hminx]

Is that structure supposed to be oval, or have you stretched this a bit ? Apart from the sharpening artifacts around the tower and rocks this looks pretty good, although I would like it a tad lighter.

[ksbryan0]

I agree with Pete, the ghosting around the tower and its distortion need to some attention.

[baldemort]

thank you so much for the advice and help. the tower isn't stretched at all but the shot had to be taken at an angle but i thought i had corrected the vertical distortion completely but obviously not. the hardest thing about the shot was the lighting and balancing exposures to the point that i just didn't pay enough attention to the tower shape. the rocks have a strange formation anyway but may be suffering from the same distortion as the tower which i will correct tonight and repost. i think i have a lighter version but i went for this one as it seemed more true to life. the halo is a mystery as there is no hDr in this shot. i had no idea sharpening could cause a halo. i will try to sharpen using a different technique. i noticed the halo but had no way of fixing it that i could think of. any suggestion would be great. i will try to sharpen but mask off the tower to see if that helps.

[baldemort]

Corrected as promised.

[Adamo]

Much better. Great shot!

[baldemort]

Much better. Great shot!

many thanks and glad you like it. Will pay more attention next time as I have taken the same shot with a very different sky without sun but more colour and I'll post it soon.

[llewpics]

Overall, I think this is a very nice shot. You did very well composing it, as the position of the sun vs. the castle is very well balanced. I also like the shapes of the rocks and green grass which compliments the sky well. The 2nd shot is better than the 1st by far, but it is still too sharp, in my opinion. Also, there is a way to get a lot more light from the the grass and the castle to balance tones better. I did it on the image you posted, but I am not sure if you allow others to edit your images for learning purposes ...if you do, let me know and I can share my version. Otherwise, I would look into working on lighting using curves to bring out some more light from the darker end of the histogram ...

[Overbeyond]

It does seem over sharpened to me. However it is a very nice simple landscape shot with everything that's there, in good order. The second shot sorted the problems with the tower very well.

[baldemort]

Overall, I think this is a very nice shot. You did very well composing it, as the position of the sun vs. the castle is very well balanced. I also like the shapes of the rocks and green grass which compliments the sky well. The 2nd shot is better than the 1st by far, but it is still too sharp, in my opinion. Also, there is a way to get a lot more light from the the grass and the castle to balance tones better. I did it on the image you posted, but I am not sure if you allow others to edit your images for learning purposes ...if you do, let me know and I can share my version. Otherwise, I would look into working on lighting using curves to bring out some more light from the darker end of the histogram ...

many thanks for the reply and glad you like the shot. also thank you so much for the advice and crit. i could have tried curves or levels with a layer mask on the ground but i have a lighter exposure to blend in which is what i often do instead. the dilemma is this for me. . . do i lighten the foreground to make it easier on the eye and to show more detail, or stay more true to the scene, or should i say, more true to how i remember the scene being, ie even though the dynamic range of the eye is better than that of a camera, the foreground would still have seemed much darker than the bright sky. or have i just remembered it badly? its an interesting one as its almost art against science. art would maybe want it lighter, whereas a more realistic shot would be darker. or i could be just remembering it incorrectly km which case i am talking rubbish!

i have a very very similar shot with a much more colourful sky from the same morning which i am working on and will be a little more light on the foreground and will post that asap. also, the sharpening excess is probably because i added a little more for the small web file so probably overdid it. many thanks.