Critique request

[CIC]

When I darken a sky with vivid blue in it I often find I need to reduce the saturation of the blue to keep it from looking too processed. I don't reduce it much but just enough to avoid the rather intense artificial looking blue that the darkening can produce.

Thanks, Paul.

So in case of the last two photos, do you think that the blue is too much?

[Polar01]

Yes not quite real, thanks for info as you use Photoshop. As you know many ways to do things in Ps, suggest you try selective colour, select Blue move slider to decrease Black, add another layer again selective colour chose White again take away black. See where that gets you.

Cheers: Allan

PS Mistake I said increase black it should have been decrease black

[CIC]

Yes not quite real, thanks for info as you use Photoshop. As you know many ways to do things in Ps, suggest you try selective colour, select Blue move slider to increase Black, add another layer again selective colour chose White again add black. See where that gets you.

Cheers: Allan

Thanks, Allan!

Would you please elaborate a bit more?

[Polar01]

Srijan I made a mistake I said increase Black it should have been decrease in both colours. With your permission I would like to post one of your images that I adjusted, will try to explain what I did. I will wait for your reply.

Cheers: Allan

[xpatUSA]

So in case of the last two photos, do you think that the blue is too much?

Srijan, I do not think that it's too blue. The color is correct being Azure (about 210 degrees of Hue) but I would say too colorful (saturated) and a bit bright. It draws the eye away from the building.

Also, both images appear on my screen as 700px wide which means that the abundance of fine detail in the buildings is lost to my eyes.

I played with one of them - toned up the building and toned down the sky which makes the building more the main subject. The bright cloud at right remained a little bothersome ...

[CIC]

Srijan, I do not think that it's too blue. The color is correct being Azure (about 210 degrees of Hue) but I would say too colorful (saturated) and a bit bright. It draws the eye away from the building.

Also, both images appear on my screen as 700px wide which means that the abundance of fine detail in the buildings is lost to my eyes.

I played with one of them - toned up the building and toned down the sky which makes the building more the main subject. The bright cloud at right remained a little bothersome ...

Thank you Allan, much appreciated!

Could you please explain the steps you have taken to tone the sky down?

[Polar01]

Srijan that was not me (Allan) but instead was Ted (xpatUSA).

Cheers: Allan

[xpatUSA]

Could you please explain the steps you have taken to tone the sky down?

First, I selected the whole sky area. Then I edited the saturation and lightness of the selection. I reduced both the saturation and the lightness. I don't remember the exact amounts and the adjustments were in the GIMP anyway.

After that, I inverted the selection and applied brightness, contrast and some sharpening to the buildings and foreground. I may have played with the mid-point in Levels too.

All pretty basic actions really. No doubt that there are several other ways to do much the same thing or better ...

[Manfred M]

Srijan - in the RGB colour spaces saturation and luminosity are tied together. Lighten an area and you will decrease saturation and darken an area, and you will increase it.

Depending on the tool you are using, this can be mitigated, as others have mentioned. Photoshop, the tool I use, lets one get around that if one uses an adjustment layer to do this. If one uses the "Luminosity" blending mode, the software darkens (or lightens) the area without changing the saturation.

[Wavelength]

Srijan,
I like your set of images very well. Why can't you post your images directly? than gives an effortless enjoyment and direct comparison among the images....expecting more and different variety; cheers

[rpcrowe]

Srijan... Photographing while on a tour is often challenging. I missed many photo opportunities during a tour to China because the tour was not organized specifically for photography. Often, we would arrive at the very worst time of the day for photography and that I would not have enough time to photograph what I wanted in ways that I wanted to. I played hooky from the tour for one day in Shanghai (which was the only place I had the opportunity to go off on my own) and I probably achieved more images that I really liked on that day than on any other day of the tour...

Why did I take tours? Because that is the way my wife preferred to travel in Pre-Covid-19 days. Happy wife, happy life

I strongly recommend that a photographer (especially one who is under the constraints of a tour) bracket exposures whenever possible. Bracketing while using aperture priority, can provide several advantages. First is pretty well guarantees not missing a photo because of exposure problems but, secondly it allows making an HDR composite - if desired. It may use up some extra storage space and slow down post production a bit but, the advantages far outweigh those minor disadvantages.

Getting back to your image... I think that you may have included too much foreground which is a distraction for me... Secondly, the image is not very dramatic... I tried recropping the image and then just played with the global sliders of the Viveza component of the NIK collection. I did no local corrections. This is my result...


Looking at this posted image - I may have included too much area at image left. IMO, a picture of a building should include a bit more space in the front than in the rear. But, you get the idea.

BTW: While I do like most of the Viveza Collection, I am not fond of the HDR Effect Pro 2 segment. I tried it with this image and did not like the results.

However I might have started with one of the presets and edited from there. Here are the original choices provided by HDR Effect Pro 2

[CIC]

Thank you so much Allan, Ted, Manfred, Nandakumar and Richard.

My apologies for this belated response. I sincerely appreciate your time and effort.

I am going to post a few of my landscapes in a new three, do drop by and give me your valuable feedbacks.

@Nandakumar, thank you for your appreciation. I am posting the smaller versions of the photos directly to this forum, as larger/full size photos are not going to meet the size restriction.

Thank you again.

[Manfred M]

I am posting the smaller versions of the photos directly to this forum, as larger/full size photos are not going to meet the size restriction.

As this is a free forum, the natively hosted files are quite small to save on storage costs. Many of us use other hosting sites, for instance a free Flickr account, to get around the size restrictions. Using an external linked file lets you post larger resolution images.