Highland Pic

[alanw89]

Took this pic last week and think its one of my best ones but i wouldnt say i was totally happy with it, just posting it here to see if anyones any critique for me. One thing i dont like is the bit of blown out sky at the top and im unsure about whether cropping the post out or not.

Be as harsh as you like.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2187/2421407930_14ba3eac18_o.jpg

[Steep]

Crop the post I'd say, the image is almost there, in fact it would have been better if you'd moved left or forward a bit to see past the post so you had the railway lines hopefully coming to a point in the distance.

[Theo Moore]

I played with it a bit in Photoshop, and I'll say that you've done a good job PPing it and there's not much you can do (out of the ordinary) to make it better. It's a difficult picture to crop -- without the barrel, the railway tracks don't extend far enough, and without the blown bit of the sky, it throws the composition out of whack. The sky is, as I'm sure you've noticed, completely blown, and I would assume there's no chance to save it unless you painstakingly paint in the areas manually.

That being said, it's not a bad picture. The colours are nicely muted greens and grays, and the composition of the railway + mountain is nicely done. It's too bad about the barrel and the sky: I say, go back and do another shot.

If you're really set on improving this to the best of your ability, what it could benefit from is some selective contrast. The railway and surrounding areas can be made a little grittier and darker.

[alanw89]

Thanks for the replies, its just the kind of critique i was looking for.

At the time i was using another post to wedge myself against to keep the camera steady for the three pics for HDR (no tripod) and didnt think about framing it so the railway lines came to a point in the distance but now youve pointed it out i think it would have been an improvement.

I just checked the three exposures and the bits of sky are still blown out in the one exposed for the highlights but i noticed that in the middle exposure theres only a few really small bits of clipping in the shadows so i could have probably added in a bit of exposure compensation and still kept the shadow detail and kept the bits of blown out sky, if you know what i mean.

I hadnt though about selective contrast but think i might give it a try later and see how it looks.

[EdinburghGary]

Where was this taken? Just back from a weekend in Sky but not quite ready to post any images as too many to go through (I took 1,500 over 2 days!!!)....the sole purpose of the trip was scottish scenery mind you...

Gary.

[alanw89]

this was somewhere on the A85 between crianlarich and dalmally, right next to the road, i just pulled into a layby and got out and took a few shots.