This is an example of an image that despite its simplicity leaves so much to study and admire in every single area of the image. Congratulations also for your wise judgement to place the horizon so near the center of the image (despite the so-called rule that misguidedly leads far too many photographers to believe the horizon should always be elsewhere).
Very calming scene Chris I can see some halos around the rocks which need fixing. I love the silvery sky.
That's not necessarily true. The same amount of sharpening applied everywhere will sometimes create halos in some places of the image and not in other places. By the way, the halos are clearly visible on the trees when viewed on my calibrated monitor.
My experience is that it happens when creating a jpeg for viewing here and understandably applying a second round of output sharpening that takes into account the smaller file.this seems to happen with jpeg compression.
I didn't mention the halos because a lot of people like me use an automated batch process that includes a component of output sharpening to create small JPEGs for viewing on the web that sometimes is too much; the halo is often only in the output file and not the original thanks to that automated output sharpening process rather than a custom process.
Simply serene. Three elements - sea, sky and rocks - I don't need anything else to dive right in.
I don't add any output sharpening other than that I apply when using the Tony Kuyper actions for jpeg output. I just recalibrated so will have to look at each step (yes, I save my files as layers) to see if I might have hot the contrast too hard on one layer...Photoshop says I am good. I see no halos in the original at all. I have to put the blame on the TK action, I guess.
Nice shot Chris.
I'm not familiar with the Tony Kuyper actions but I have found that the downsizing algorithm selected in PS can have an effect on sharpness and halos. I've got best results using the Bicubic (best for smooth gradients) option, rather than Bicubic Sharper (best for reduction) option which tends to create or over-emphasise halos. After downsizing, I apply a small amount of sharpening using Smart Sharpen (40% @ pixel radius 0.5).
Dave
Nice image, Chris. It would be worth removing all the dust spots.
Love these sorts of images, a great use for long exposure where the blur helps add a timeless quality to the shot.