I can't get away from this photo.... I think it is nice, but I just can't seem to get it where I want it. the sun is too bright (I think) and the rocks on the edge are too dark. If I try to lighten the rocks, then it just gets noisy, so I try to smooth it out, then have to sharpen, and I find myself in this endless loop. Any ideas about things that I could do to this thing? (there is a variant... a darker one, available in my portfolio).
I don't know that much about digital shooting, but I know that some photographers will shoot a high contrast scene like this twice at different exposures, then copy one properly exposed area from one picture into the other. I know that won't help this time, but maybe something to think about for future photos.
Hey Charlie.... I really do like your corrected version better. I don't know why I couldn't get PS to do that for me. Of course, I was starting to go cross-eyed staring at it :) Thank you so much for the help and the suggestion. At least I know now what I'm shooting for is possible! I'm going to give this thing one more go around to see what I can make it do.
I love your photo! I have run into this problem a lot myself. I have found there's not much you can do about the overbright sections, but you can use PhotoShop to do a midtone correction to bring up the dark areas and add a little color saturation to improve the contrast. This works to the extent that the white balance and color accuracy is good. Check out the attached modified shot & see if you think it's any better.
I understand your problem.....However, I can't really come up with a solution that would work all the way around. If I were you, I'd crop this photo, taking out alot of the darkness at the bottom. The pic may not seem as dark then.....
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