Garden Bay - Southern coast of South Island.

[rawill]

Very near the spectacularly blustery bay called Cosy Nook is this spot where we were working the other day.

I only had my cell phone to take photos.
Here is one, but I want to make the sea and sky more angry.

I have tried curves, and contrast, and a little sharpening.
I wonder what else others would suggest.



Oops and a little crop to remove some of the green foreground

[Geoff F]

Try selectively darkening the sky to give a more stormy feel. That would probably also make the white surf stand out a bit more.

[Dave Humphries]

Hi Robin,

This would be much more effective done on the full sized shot (although you may need different sharpening values), downsized, then sharpened.

I made three layers so I could separately treat sky, sea and land areas.
Sky layer (lowest)
LCE with USM 60%, 250px, 0 threshold
Sharpen with USM 70%, 7px, 3 threshold

Sea layer (middle)
LCE with USM 40%, 250px, 0 threshold
No sharpening

Land layer (top)
LCE with USM 10% 250px 0 threshold
Sharpen with USM 80%, 0.5px, 2 threshold

Careful erase of top layer over sea and sky
Careful erase of middle layer over sky only
Flatten image
Save as jpg

If anyone is wondering;
LCE = Local Contrast Enhancement
USM = UnSharp Mask (a type of sharpening)



UPDATE: comparing with original, it looks rather too subtle

HTH,

[rawill]

UPDATE: comparing with original, it looks rather too subtle

HTH,

Yes subtle, but it does go in the direction I wanted.

Thanks for that

I will upload the original, I think you will see why I cropped it.

Rbn
I am really going to have to figure out how to do this layering process.

[Dave Humphries]

I am really going to have to figure out how to do this layering process.

Me too, you may notice that instead of blending or masking, I simply erased the bits I didn't want

That's not best practice, but it works for me for now

[Geoff F]

Working with layers/masks? Easy!

Well, start here and see how far you get http://www.ronbigelow.com/articles/l...1/layers-1.htm

For basic editing, it isn't too difficult; although things can soon sound complicated. Not too bad if you keep a clear head and don't panic though.

To be honest, if I had to give up using layers and masks I would give up photography! They are my essential editing tools.