Downtown Dubai

[GBO25]

[Astramael]

Pretty intense photo. Graded pretty warm, is it a HDR?

I feel like the left edge could be brought in until it starts to eat into the leftmost short building. Balance feels a little off to me. Otherwise I find this photo to be making quite a statement, which is a good thing. A large shot to tackle, and done so admirably.

[GBO25]

Thanks Julian.

Not a HDR although it has had a "golden hour" filter laid over it and has had midtone and shadow adjustments. It was shot in haste from the top deck of one of those red hop on-hop off tourist buses.

[Jim A]

Have got to agree with Julian about the cropping, Graham. Unless it spoils your memories, or you want to portray exactly what you saw, I would move the left part of the cloud down to intersect the leftmost spire, thus giving the impression of the towers picking up signals. However, that is me, I just love fiddling and changing !

[Wavelength]

An excellent city scape

[GBO25]

Thanks for the feedback.

Julian and Jim I'm assuming you're suggesting something like this?

[madcrow]

Cropped or not it's a beautiful image. love the warm colours.

[bnnrcn]

Is this hazy look because of the 'golden hour' filter you used ? The image looks a bit pale , so may be adding some midtone contrast ?

[GBO25]

Thanks Maurice.

Binnur it's hazy because of the dusty atmosphere in Dubai with the desert right there on their doorstep.

[Manfred M]

Graham - in my view the shot is a bit flat. All this image needs is a bit more contrast. Some microcontrast to take care of the haze and good old-fashioned black point / white point adjustment. And perhaps a touch of perspective adjustment.

[GBO25]

Thanks Manfred. I like your extra editing.
By the way, this is the original image saved as an unedited raw with no levelling, cropping or any of the myriad colour, tone or whatever adjustments.I kept it so I could see the difference.

[Manfred M]

Thanks Manfred. I like your extra editing.
By the way, this is the original image saved as an unedited raw with no levelling, cropping or any of the myriad colour, tone or whatever adjustments.I kept it so I could see the difference.

I always find it amazing as to how much data an image file contains. As long as the technical and compositional aspects are good, we can coax a lot of information out of an image. Blow the technical aspects or the composition, no amount of PP work will ever turn a mediocre image into a great one.