Bamburgh Castle

[Rufus]

The castle is a well-known landmark in Northumberland, UK. It was restored after the Armstrong family bought it in 1894.

I have cropped away some foreground and sky, but you may feel there is still too much.

Could I improve on this?

[DanK]

I'd start by adding contrast. Look at the histogram--you're largely missing the top end. To start, I used a levels tool to drop the white point, and then I used a curve to add midtone contrast, excluding the dark area on the bottom right.

I just got back from the eye doctor and have a dilated pupil, so I may not be quite on the money. However, you can see the direction I would go in.

[Geoff F]

Do you need all that space on the left side? I think I would try a slight crop of the foreground as well. Maybe lose about a third, or a quarter?

Nice sky, and even better with Dan's edit.

[MrB]

I think Dan's going in the right direction. It seems like a bright sunny day, so perhaps even more contrast and a boost to the colour saturation.

Philip

[escape]

I like the image and its size. The rise of the rocks on the left though small, contributes to the balance of the image in my view.

[billtils]

I like the composition and Dan's edits. Not too sure about any cropping at the bottom - it could probably stand losing the large rock about a third of the way in from the left though, but I would not crop anything on the left or right sdes.

[Rufus]

Thank you for all your comments.

Dan - Originally I was reluctant to have too bright a sky as the castle is in shade, but I have now increased the highlights and contrast as you suggested and the sky and foreground in particular are much inproved.

Geoff (Bill and Daniel) - I can see that the left hand part of the picture could be considered superfluous, but on balance I like the rise in the foreground rocks to the left and the additional land, sky and beach which seems to suit the wide format.

Philip - I was and am perhaps too wary of increasing the vibrancy or saturation. I did try to regain some of the red-browns in the castle, but having selected the castle I could not find a way to do that. I tried the colour sliders and vibrancy but they produced ghastly results, so these have been abandoned in the image below.

Here is my latest attempt.



However, I can now see that Dan's edit is still better as it brought out more vibrancy in the greens and darker rocks in the foreground.

[DanK]

David,

What I did was just simple global adjustments, but I would rarely handle an image like this in that way. Instead, after perhaps making a few global adjustments, I would work on regions, either using selections or masks & brushes. For example, I wouldn't handle the sky the same as the middle area with grass and the castle. The last step would be truly local adjustments, usually done with brushes.

It's the second stage that I would go to next. The edit you did brought out the variation in the sky, but it left the stonework of the castle quite dark. You may want that, of course, but I wouldn't--it leaves the subject in shadow and the foreground brightly illuminated.

As an example, I just did a very quick-and-dirty edit of the last version you posted. I did only a few things:

--I dodged the castle to brighten it up, using a black mask and white brush on a curve layer.
--I increased the midtone contrast on the castle area only. I did this with a curve and then copied the mask from the previous step.
--I burned the bright to of the rocks in the foreground slightly.

This is a crude edit, but I think it illustrates the direction I'm trying to explain.

Of course, it's all taste.

Dan