Short Wave Sportfishing wrote:
On Sat, 02 Aug 2008 18:09:20 -0400, hk wrote:

I suppose I could have made the water blue, the skies bluer, the trees
greener, et cetera, but...my mind would have told me "that's not the way
it was."

In fact, what you saw and what the camera "saw" are two different
things. For instance when you frame an image, your minds "eye" is
translating what you are seeing while the camera is taking a replicant
image of what actually is.

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...aneous/003.jpg

This is pretty good actually - it's flawed, but not as a composition -
the subject is clearly defined and while overly horizontal (it would
have looked better if instead of being shot straight on, at an angle
to the dock), it works.

The flaws are there is too much of nothing of interest. If you had
cropped about 25% off the bottom and to the edge of the kayaks on the
left, it would have been a much better composition overall even with
the straight on angle.

At that point, it wouldn't be difficult to blue up the sky enhancing
the white haze.

That's probably what your minds eye "saw", but the camera looks at the
scene in a much more harsh fashion.

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...aneous/005.jpg

This one has potential, but needs a good working over with a histogram
to reduce the harsh white balance. The greens are way too washed out
against that hazy sky. Part of the problem is shooting into areas
where the greens transition into black and back again - probably
giving the meter fits in particular with the harsh white over all
tone. This image should be greenish more than whiteish if you get my
drift. Which can be problematic if only because greens are one of the
worst colors to adjust.

On the plus side, as an image, it's another straight on shot, but
accidentally, you received the benefit on depth with the walkway
projecting out towards the center of the image with a nice round
curve. If you took the haze out, blued up the image, reduce the
overall white washout (without sharpening - I might use the unmask
control to reduce the sharpening), that would be a nicer image than it
is.

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...aneous/011.jpg

Believe it or not, this is a gem in the rough. Very crisp, the greens
are properly balanced and the composition is really interesting. If
you cloned out the walker/biker in the distance on the right, it would
help a lot.

Again, some problems with overall white washout that could use some
help - in particular with the sky - you must have had white balance on
auto because that is almost always an artifact when you find hazy
conditions. Unmask control is your friend on this one, adjust the
blue scale just a touch to take the white wash out, don't touch the
contract/brightness controls and it's a great image.

The last photo was the one I liked, but the blown out sky and the sun
almost directly overhead made it look harsh and flat. I definitely
would have cropped out that tiny bit of dock on the right.