Mission in California

[Jerry Soto]

Interesting place, Carmel Mission in California is on the National Register of Historic Places and a U.S. National Historic Landmark. It was the headquarters of the original upper Las Californias Province missions headed by Father Junípero Serra from 1770 until his death in 1784.

[Donald]

The second one is a bit over tone-mapped for my tastes. The first one is, I think, a good composition in that we see the Mission building in its surroundings and can see that the main Mission church is part of a complex of buildings. I always think it's good if we can understand something about the context/location when we're presented with an image like this. Nice one.

[Andrew1]

Nice photos. I too prefer the first one. It looks like a great place to get lost in with a camera for a few hours.

[FrankMi]

Hi James! Good to see you reaching out with your skills. Both images have great composition and as you perfect your post-processing skills that will be a real blessing.

When you do images like these, look for the halos where the sky meets the horizon. If the edge of sky is too light or the edge of the horizon is too dark then a little blending back in of the original can correct this for you. Other tell-tale signs are an overly dark sky (particularly clouds), electric green foliage, and pasty skin tones - all signs that additional post processing is needed. Doing HDR well takes quite a bit of time and skill but can produce very pleasing results as you improve your skills. One of the great things is that you can take the same source images and try multiple processing values to perfect the results.

Many of my images contain varying amounts of HDR techniques where I feel they will enhance the image, but, if someone notices that I have applied HDR processing, I wince and give myself a good quick kick in the butt! In the end, HDR is just another technique that is available to help get the perfect image.

I am looking forward to seeing more of your postings!

[Jerry Soto]

Hi James! Good to see you reaching out with your skills. Both images have great composition and as you perfect your post-processing skills that will be a real blessing.

When you do images like these, look for the halos where the sky meets the horizon. If the edge of sky is too light or the edge of the horizon is too dark then a little blending back in of the original can correct this for you. Other tell-tale signs are an overly dark sky (particularly clouds), electric green foliage, and pasty skin tones - all signs that additional post processing is needed. Doing HDR well takes quite a bit of time and skill but can produce very pleasing results as you improve your skills. One of the great things is that you can take the same source images and try multiple processing values to perfect the results.

Many of my images contain varying amounts of HDR techniques where I feel they will enhance the image, but, if someone notices that I have applied HDR processing, I wince and give myself a good quick kick in the butt! In the end, HDR is just another technique that is available to help get the perfect image.

I am looking forward to seeing more of your postings!

Wow Frank you just gave me very good advice that will help me on my pursuit to better my skills, just what I am looking for. Thank you for taking the time.

[Jerry Soto]

The second one is a bit over tone-mapped for my tastes. The first one is, I think, a good composition in that we see the Mission building in its surroundings and can see that the main Mission church is part of a complex of buildings. I always think it's good if we can understand something about the context/location when we're presented with an image like this. Nice one.

Donald I agree with you thank you for the comments, I took a peek of some of you work and was very impressed.

[Jerry Soto]

Nice photos. I too prefer the first one. It looks like a great place to get lost in with a camera for a few hours.

Andrew, the entire Monterey Bay area in California is just a photo opportunity. Just messing around, trying to get better thanks for responding.