It seems like I'm on a killing spree with Photoshop. Edited 2 photos today in PS, one turned out complete trash, the other... oh well, you be the judge. I feel like I'm improving at a slow rate, but it's still improvement

This is a prototype for me, a boundary-breaker:
Unreal:

gLyo

United States2410 Posts

November 13 2007 20:19 GMT

You should post the original. I'm curious to see how much post-processing was done.

eXigent.

Canada2419 Posts

November 13 2007 20:20 GMT

It looks amazing. Very nice~

QuanticHawk

United States32084 Posts

November 13 2007 20:29 GMT

When I get sick of the 'forgot about dre' visual graph, this is gonna be my background

nice again man

minus_human

4784 Posts

November 13 2007 20:54 GMT

You requested the original:

Thanks guys. You give me strength for new inspiration

x_woof_x

United States659 Posts

November 13 2007 21:15 GMT

both the original pic and the photoshopped pic are amazing in their own way

nice job man

LuMiX

China5757 Posts

November 13 2007 21:36 GMT

The original is pretty

gLyo

United States2410 Posts

November 13 2007 21:49 GMT

I think I like the original better. It is much clearer and the colors of the mountains contrast with the sky really nicely. The Photoshopped one seems rather confusing and muddled, though it's far from bad. It is definitely interesting how far you've departed from the original. They convey completely different moods and though the setting is the same, they just look so drastically different.

il0seonpurpose

Korea (South)5638 Posts

November 13 2007 21:59 GMT

Wow nice, did you take the original?

fanatacist

10319 Posts

November 13 2007 22:01 GMT

#10

The more gradual fade to black ;D I see it here. It looks way better than the pitch black of the previous picture. However, if you do that, I'd also recommend then darkening the edges of the water as well, since it is the reflection of the sky. That'd make the picture make more sense, and because your focus is centered on the middle vertical line, it'd help your focal point too.

I think you could have experimented with sharpening and defining the clouds instead of blurring them, that could have produced some results too. The blurry looks good, but I think if you gray-scaled and upped the contrast a bit, you'd get some interesting results with the sky and water. And THEN you could have made the fade to black on both sky and water n_n

Just my opinion.

EDIT: This is what a relatively high contrast (although colored) sunset looks like. I didn't photoshop this, but I changed some values on my cell phone camera before taking this shot. I'm a big fan of high contrast in shots like this (note the fade to black on top, with a horizontally symmetric darkness on bottom):

These are some more low-contrast sky shots I've done, but with a normal camera - This is what I'd aim for when I blurr/use low contrast in sky shots (these are unedited):

minus_human

4784 Posts

November 13 2007 22:47 GMT

#11

On November 14 2007 06:59 il0seonpurpose wrote:
Wow nice, did you take the original?

Of course I did.

minus_human

4784 Posts

November 13 2007 22:57 GMT

#12

On November 14 2007 07:01 fanatacist wrote:
The more gradual fade to black ;D I see it here. It looks way better than the pitch black of the previous picture. However, if you do that, I'd also recommend then darkening the edges of the water as well, since it is the reflection of the sky. That'd make the picture make more sense, and because your focus is centered on the middle vertical line, it'd help your focal point too.

I think you could have experimented with sharpening and defining the clouds instead of blurring them, that could have produced some results too. The blurry looks good, but I think if you gray-scaled and upped the contrast a bit, you'd get some interesting results with the sky and water. And THEN you could have made the fade to black on both sky and water n_n

Just my opinion.

EDIT: This is what a relatively high contrast (although colored) sunset looks like. I didn't photoshop this, but I changed some values on my cell phone camera before taking this shot. I'm a big fan of high contrast in shots like this (note the fade to black on top, with a horizontally symmetric darkness on bottom):
+ Show Spoiler +

These are some more low-contrast sky shots I've done, but with a normal camera - This is what I'd aim for when I blurr/use low contrast in sky shots (these are unedited):

Note that I said I'm far from skilled with Photoshop. Your suggestions are very helpful, however, the reason to why I was reluctant in upping the contrast is the very powerful central glow of the sun. Much of the pic became disturbingly white in the central region, so I actually reverted the powerful contrast change in the initial phases of the manipulation. I did not only use the blur tool, I also used the Burn/Dodge one and most importantly, Smudge

. This type of manipulated photography is really what I wish to do right now, beautiful natural sunsets have their thing, but almost any fool can photo them, after all.

My main goal currently is to get a better camera, as I'm presently using a 4 mp digi point-and-shoot, which is a PIECE of CRAP tbh.

I found your suggestion about fading the water's edges to black genius, and all the while obvious. Dunno why it didn't hit me before, but thank you anyway.

Here is yesterday's pic, re-done.

Snet

United States3573 Posts

November 13 2007 23:16 GMT

#13

i really like the mist =)

HonkHonkBeep

China353 Posts

November 13 2007 23:36 GMT

#14

I like this kinda thing, like I really like this sunny photo photoshopped into this really dark, 100% opposite mood:

fanatacist

10319 Posts

November 14 2007 02:32 GMT

#15

On November 14 2007 07:57 minus_human wrote:

Show nested quote +

I know n_n I'm not any good either, I was making suggestions, like you said. Next time you can use the magic wand tool (it's somewhere in the area of the lasso tool on the top of your toolbar) to separate the sun from the rest of the picture and up the contrast on the rest of the picture.

Haha thanks xD It's sometime the most obvious stuff that one can overlook while editting a photo, because we tend to look at it as an image and not a real-life scenario, like water reflections and all that.

That looks a lot better, I think [: