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Canon Image Challenge | all galleries >> Challenges From The Past >> 2014 Challenges >> CIC 113: Surprise >> CIC 113: Eligible > Surprise - A Cloudy Sunset
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16-FEB-2014 JimMSP

Surprise - A Cloudy Sunset

Green Valley, AZ

When I went out tonight to try to shoot a sunset in southern Arizona, the clouds kept rolling in; an unpleasant surprise.
So this is what I had to work with. I shot 3 photos for a HDR, followed by some Topaz Restyle.

Maybe tomorrow.

Canon EOS 60D ,Tamron SP 24-70mm f/2.8 vc

other sizes: small medium original auto
comment
Canon Image Challenge23-Feb-2014 17:05
K - Thanks for your comments. Basically, you are not looking at the original HDR. Most of the color enhancement comes from Topaz Restyle. It was never intended to look "real" or even like the HDR. It was a shot to put some art into the clouds.
I missed the dust spot - thanks. I'll get that fixed. I probably missed them on the next shot as well.
If I get a chance, I'll post the center exposure of the 3 shots in pending and you can see what it really looked like; pretty boring actually.
Jim
Canon Image Challenge23-Feb-2014 13:18
Jim, a few points from my site if you don't mind
- the foreground still looks over saturated and a bit unreal
- the mountains on the horizon look too blue on my screen
- the vegetation on the foreground is too dark - almost black in some areas, I would expect more details in shadow from an HDR
- not directly related to the processing, but it is a bit too much sky for my taste
- there is quite a clear seen dust spot in the sky.
Again, the HDR is a very challenging topic. As I mentioned, most of my HDR attempts ended in the trash.
K
Canon Image Challenge23-Feb-2014 03:26
A new version - with the foreground desaturated, and the bush removed.

Jim
Canon Image Challenge22-Feb-2014 08:28
HDR is very interesting area (may be one day we should have a challenge with such a topic) but at the same time very challenging. Some days I was a big fan of it, now, ten best HDR photo for me is the one, which does not look HDR-ish at all. The sky on these two shots look very interesting (especially) on the second one, but the bottom part looks over-processed and too artificial on my taste. Have to admit that the most of my own HDR attempts finished in trash ...
K
Canon Image Challenge18-Feb-2014 02:07
I'm a fan of sunrise/sunsets so what's not to like. The only thing I might of tried would have been to try and clone out that small tree section breaking above the horizon. Paul
Canon Image Challenge18-Feb-2014 00:14
Thanks, Traveller for your kind words; too kind, actually. It is true that most of the interest should be in the clouds for this particular evening. I have a couple of others that I am playing with - lets see what comes of them.

Jim
Guest 17-Feb-2014 19:55
I disagree Jim...the conditions forced you to produce something interesting...forced you to use your Post Processing skills to the maximum....this is very nice, and probably better than a ho-hum-another sunset.

But let us see what you do with a Sunset....still, I like this milky overhang of a sky.

Best Wishes, ever in your debt, Traveller