Daybreak on the river

[jkshyt]

[Manfred M]

Nice peaceful scene. I tend to like a more neutral white balance that you have here and I try to open up the shadows a bit to bring out the textures. Other than that, nothing else to offer in terms of thoughts or comments.

[mugge]

Nice scene. Nothing much to do except opening the shadows a tad.
Cheers Ole

[Stagecoach]

It's a pleasant scene Jack but from the file you've posted most of the detail is lost in the boat and shoreline and can't be recovered.

The trick to doing these is to expose well to the right (ETTR) without clipping the bright areas which will then retain detail in those dark areas. Then it's a matter of sorting it in post to your taste.

[Geoff F]

It may be possible to bring out a little more detail from the shadows but this needs great care to selectively brighten those areas without turning them into a muddy brownish hue. In which case, I would leave things as they are now.

[jkshyt]

I've attached the original image unedited with the exception of a horizon crop.
As I learn to make adjustments in post I would like to see this image from different perspectives.
Please feel free to make edits and show this image from your point of view.

TIA.

[Stagecoach]

I've attached the original image unedited with the exception of a horizon crop.
As I learn to make adjustments in post I would like to see this image from different perspectives.
Please feel free to make edits and show this image from your point of view.

There's not a lot you can do with this 173kb 1600px wide jpeg but this is the general direction I would have progressed. You can see that with just minor work it's breaking down so I have not addressed the tree-line shadows, that would need the raw.

Basically, toned down the colour cast, that's not to say I'm not a fan of pushing these type of shots, and given the water and sky a bit of pop by simply raising the highlights.



Here's one using Nik Pro Contrast, 60%.



And one with the tree shadows lifted, so there would be plenty of scope on the raw

[DanK]

This image is in a format I couldn't read, but copying and saving it as a JPEG, I was able to look at the histogram. As the original image suggests, the histogram suggests that you already did what Grahame suggested: expose to the right (ETTR). Any more, and you would have clipped the sky.

I may be necessary to bracket in a case like this to preserve more detail in the shadows.

[xpatUSA]

This image is in a format I couldn't read <>

Good old Google strikes again:

"WebP is an image format employing both lossy and lossless compression, and supports animation and alpha transparency. Developed by Google, it is designed to create files that are smaller for the same quality, or of higher quality for the same size, than JPEG, PNG, and GIF image formats."

https://www.bing.com/search?form=MO0...open+webp+file

The GIMP V2.10 opened it OK:

A bit too far with the ETTR, IMHO:



Rescued to an extent by the GIMP's 'shadows/highlights' adjuster:



Shadows slider didn't do much but the highlights slider broadened the histogram in the upper levels which improved the sky and water contrast quite nicely.

[xpatUSA]

Just for grins, I let CLAHE (Contrast-Limited-Adaptive-Histogram-Equalization) loose on the original with a pretty high value of Contrast-Limit (4):



No other adjustments used. Surprising how the boat detail popped out.

[jkshyt]

Just for grins, I let CLAHE (Contrast-Limited-Adaptive-Histogram-Equalization) loose on the original with a pretty high value of Contrast-Limit (4):



No other adjustments used. Surprising how the boat detail popped out.

Wow!

[jkshyt]

There's not a lot you can do with this 173kb 1600px wide jpeg but this is the general direction I would have progressed. You can see that with just minor work it's breaking down so I have not addressed the tree-line shadows, that would need the raw.

Basically, toned down the colour cast, that's not to say I'm not a fan of pushing these type of shots, and given the water and sky a bit of pop by simply raising the highlights.



Here's one using Nik Pro Contrast, 60%.



And one with the tree shadows lifted, so there would be plenty of scope on the raw

I never thought the tree line could bring out that much detail.