Fiery colored Sky after Sunset

[NMarie]

The is a recent picture I took at the end of a nice summer day about fifteen minutes after the sun went down. I love to photograph sunsets and am looking for some suggestions on how to improve on getting the right light. All comments are welcome. Thank You

[smcrews]

Hello Nina,

One thing you could try with shots like this would be to take multiple photos with different exposures and then staking them. This would allow you to get better color and contrast in the sky while not losing all detail in the boats.

As far as this shot, I would just add a little contrast and call it good. Something like this.



I don't know if you are ok with people tinkering with your shots. Let me know if you would like me to remove it.

[NMarie]

I think the boats look too dark and I prefer my version better but thank you for your suggestion.

[Stagecoach]

Hello Nina,

One thing you could try with shots like this would be to take multiple photos with different exposures and then staking them.

But boats and their masts especially are going to be moving in any wind and tide Shawn?

Grahame

[smcrews]

But boats and their masts especially are going to be moving in any wind and tide Shawn?

Grahame

While that is true, making the appropriate adjustments to blend the masts from one exposure to the sky from another is not a difficult process. In some ways the movement could make it a little easier to blend the images.

[Stagecoach]

The is a recent picture I took at the end of a nice summer day about fifteen minutes after the sun went down. I love to photograph sunsets and am looking for some suggestions on how to improve on getting the right light. All comments are welcome. Thank You

Hi Nina,

Firstly, welcome to CiC.

It's very much pot luck as to the light you are going to get at the location where you are. The golden rule is for shooting both sunrise and sunset be there from half an hour before to half an hour afterwards and the sky will change continuously.

In addition consider shooting when it's fairly early/late and using a long exposure where there are not significant moving subjects as here and a tripod of course will be essential.

You have certainly captured a glorious sky here.

Grahame

[Stagecoach]

While that is true, making the appropriate adjustments to blend the masts from one exposure to the sky from another is not a difficult process. In some ways the movement could make it a little easier to blend the images.

Shawn, would it not be far easier for this image to simply treat the sky separately to the boats in PP if you wish to enhance the sky only. Simple gradient masks could be used for the different areas?

Grahame

[smcrews]

Shawn, would it not be far easier for this image to simply treat the sky separately to the boats in PP if you wish to enhance the sky only. Simple gradient masks could be used for the different areas?

Grahame

True, but then the mask will cover the masts of the boats so that issue would have to be addressed. There are many different ways this shot could be approached.

[Nicks Pics]

I think there are simple things one could do in most any software to brighten the sky(which I do think helps, pictures are usually too dim when taken) without darkening the boats, like brighten sky, by one of various methods, then lighten shadows. By playing around with those things perhaps decent results could be achieved.

[NMarie]

Thank You all for your suggestions.

[Shadowman]

The is a recent picture I took at the end of a nice summer day about fifteen minutes after the sun went down. I love to photograph sunsets and am looking for some suggestions on how to improve on getting the right light. All comments are welcome. Thank You

Hi Nina,

Nice capture. How close were the colors shown in this image to the colors you remember? That is where I have trouble with sunsets, the colors captured by the camera never match what I am seeing. I even tried the "sunset" camera preset which stated that it would provide more vivid reds but my colors come out yellow in tone similar to yours. I find that when I underexpose the sky, the colors are more vivid and closer to what I am seeing, granted that usually renders my foreground very dark but that can be fixed in post-processing or I can use a filter to compensate.

[NMarie]

Thank You Shadowman, the colors in the sky are ver close to what I saw, but the water color was a deeper shade, same tone but deeper.

[bnnrcn]

Welcome Nina, I like the image with lovely sky I don't know which software you use but If you are a fan of sunset shots, I would suggest that you should have a good software for post processing , because you usually have to make local adjustments to the image. I use PS CC and 'layers ' function helps a lot but there are of course other softwares in the market.

I actually like Shawn's treatment to the image as your version seems a little bit overexposed. I would also suggest you should take more than one shot for the same scene with different exposures so that you can choose the best one to edit.