B&W Landscape C&C Please

[WJT]

I edited this in B&W to define the clouds more and create a dramatic finish. I think that works but am not sure if I have over sharpened etc. I'm a novice in monochrome and would appreciate some feedback.

[Mike Buckley]

Terrific composition! I love how the two arches formed by the clouds are in inverse of the shape of the shoreline. I also like the very rich and warm toning that you used; it's not what I would describe as a classic sepia tone and I like it for that reason.

Sharpening is largely subjective, of course, but there is one characteristic that is deemed unacceptable by virtually everyone: halos. Notice the halos around the shorter tree line. I'm referring to the very fine white light where the trees and sky meet, not the broader white area that exists across the entire span of the tree line (more about that broader white area below). When you find that your sharpening is acceptable throughout most of an image but notice halos in particular areas, simply erase most or all of the sharpening in those areas using a very small brush.

As for the rest of the sharpening, it's difficult to tell at such a small file size but it seems to me to be in the range of what most people would find attractive. I certainly wouldn't go any farther with it and backing off a bit probably wouldn't hurt. You might want to upload images that are 900 to 1000 pixels in the longest dimension, especially when asking for critique.

Though you mentioned that you wanted to define the clouds, most people wouldn't use sharpening to define them, so you might want to apply less or no sharpening to clouds than throughout the rest of your image. I don't think you have over sharpened your clouds in this image and mention it only for consideration about other images you make in the future.

Now about the broad area of white light along the entire tree line. Sometimes light is displayed that way in reality. If that happened and you like it, it's fine to leave it as is. However, I would be willing to bet that in this case your post-processing produced it. It looks a bit artificial and unnatural to me, so you might want to attend to it.