Boston

[Reed Waters]

OK, I took this last year on a trip to Boston. Oh God, the seafood. Anyway, I took this shot of Boston from Cambridge.

I cropped it a bit, this seems to have the best balance, and brought out some of the colors.



I look at it one time and think "meh". Another time I look at it and think "that's a pretty good shot".

So, I want some other opinions, should I relegate this to the "OK, I'll keep it but..." folder or the "keep it handy" folder.

[Donald]

Reed

My first reaction was - Crop it to something like a 2:1 landscape and get rid of what I'd call the 'excess water' at the bottom. I don't think it is adding anything to the image and cutting it would throw more attention onto those boats and the buildings.

[Mark von Kanel]

Im with Donald, the crop would strengthen the image.

[acsky]

Is it just me or the image is just a bit tilted to the right??

I also would like to see some of the water cropped out.

Toño

[Geoff F]

The not level problem appears to be mostly optical illusion caused by a perspective problem although there may also be slight lens distortion.

My first thought was to crop to 2 x 1 ratio, as Donald suggested. But after thinking a little more, and holding some pieces of paper against the screen (less messy than Tipex ) I think I would crop even tighter.

The water is a rather unattractive grey so the only thing of interest there is the boats. And the buildings to the left of the tall bluish building is too distant to have any real clarity.

So I would crop out at least 25% of the bottom and left side. That would also help to 'level' the horizon.

Then I would consider giving the whole scene a little bit of extra pop by a small amount of LCE or a duplicate layer with a suitable blend mode; for example, Soft Light or Overlay and adjust the opacity to suit.

[Viana]

OK, keep Reed, it but. . . try some PSP. Since this is probably a little snap that evokes memories of a lovely trip, you might want to play a bit.


If anything, I believe the boats should be, are in fact the focal point and the crop should be made accordingly.


The bridge gives the illusion of the horizon not being straight as you have noted. You will have to decide what works for you. Obviously working on the RAW file will give you much more precise results with these effects.


Since the whole photo is a bit grey I thought using some filters might be fun. Here is a quick pseudo “sunset.” I suppose if I were actually doing this sort of coloration I would add more layers and fiddle a bit with the golden reflections of the water to give that some more interest.





The second rendition is one of a 3 split prism effect with a fog vignette to again focus on those little boats.





All adjustments done in Lightroom, Photoshop and Topaz.

PS—I was recently in Boston and well and am working up my captures. Oh, the seafood!

[Reed Waters]

Thanks for all the comments. Yea, the water in the foreground was my biggest problem also. I did like the depth that it gave the shot and I liked the stream of white foam leading to the one boat. Viana, I like what you did with the color. I only have elements but I'll have to play with it a bit.

We spent five days there and the sky was like this for four of them. Sucked.

Here is what I ended up with.

[epmi314]

I would say the good news is you have two nice shots here. I think the boats have merit on their own, especially if you have the resolution to crop it significantly tighter. Keep the white foam and crop them into the upper left third of the frame. The skyline is worthy of keeping as well but the water needs to go. The bridge is a double edge sword. On one hand it adds depth but on the other is distorts the level of the horizon a tick. I'd say keep most of it and forget the illusion it creates. The sort of "blah" sky was not your friend and keeps the skyline shot from being all it could be and you can help that a lick.

[MrB]

Reed, the skyscraper on the left is toppling over because the picture needs perspective correction, as suggested by Geoff, not just a simple leveling adjustment. He also suggested using LCE. This looks good if applied to bring up the foreground, and a reduction of contrast is applied to the background to give it a slightly hazy effect - the two effects combine to give some depth to the scene. Just my opinions, of course.



Philip

[Geoff F]

Just one comment about Philip's version. This has now 'over strengthened' the wave effect.

I would do the same thing as him but on a layer; which could have an edited mask to selectively slightly reduce the impact to the bottom left corner.

[Reed Waters]

Thanks everyone, I'll play with it now that I get LCE. With too many years in the army, it was Load Carrying Equipment to me.