Hello everybody,
Recently i went on a photography expedition to Greenland on a sailing ship. It was the experience of a lifetime, and i came home with a ton of pictures. One of the images i was particularly fond of from the start was this reflection of a massive iceberg during sunset. I liked it so much i even had a large print made to put up in the office. But now, after a few months, i start to think the image is a bit dark and bland, so i re-edited it in lightroom. The new version pops a lot more with vibrant colors, but i'm afraid it's losing it's sense of reality if you know what i mean. What do you guys think ? Is the newly edited version too much ? Or is it better ?
Do we have a before and after?
I do find that there's a line between editing and over-editing, and as someone who's quite new to this, I feel like I don't always know where that line is...
This is the before
This is the after
Hey Rudy, this a great shot. What a marvelous experience.
I like both versions but for different reasons. I prefer the increased contrast in the after shot, while the before is softer and perhaps more "true" to the original experience. The after image is more compelling to me.
I think the blue shifted a bit too much towards aqua, and I would pull that back. The lower 20% of the after is a little dark, I think some gentle lightening would help with a gradient adjustment.
If you want to differentiate the upper and lower sections, the berg from the reflection, consider adding just a touch of blur to the reflection by using gaussian blur to a duplicate layer, mask off the upper portion, then use the blend if sliders to take the blur from the darker tones, but leaving it in the lighter areas of the reflection. This would need to be done in Photoshop, Lightroom doesn't have that capability.
I agree with D Wilder that the sky colors could use a hint of vibrance/saturation to bring up the colors a bit. I find applying some negative clarity to the sky is a nice way to soften it also.
For my tastes, I really like the after. I think you hit the sweet spot. So many landscape shots seem over-cooked, as that appears to be quite fashionable these days.Yours has not crossed the line, and I like the colors that are subtly enhanced. I say "Nice work!"
I agree. This is not overcooked at all.
I had a Grand Canyon panoramic stitch that was overcooked, so I reprocessed it.
The after photo looks great to me.
I like the second one more though the first is also excellent. I don't think it's over edited at all, it's just right
Dear Rudy,
what a great opportunity to shoot in Greenland and what a nice shot you posted. From the colors, the second one ist just fine. For my taste I'd increase the shadows at the bottom of the image just a tiny bit. The dark area draws my attention every time I look at the image.
Cheers
Sascha
Thank you for your comment Sascha. I'll give it a try to make the shadow a little lighter, but i do want the reflection to remain darker than de original...
Which is a good composition, I agree too. It's just the very bottom of the image which is too dark for my taste. Maybe lay a gradient mask over it to lighten the bottom more that the rest.
I'll take the "softer" version (before). I think the "after" version has a tad too much of the Clarity slider. The sky and the iceberg is a bit too crunched to me in the after. The softer version matches the beautiful pastel colors in the scene. Nicely done.
both look great, I think the sunset colours could be pushed further but that berg looks amazing