Took these photos this morning, it was still quite dark as you will see in these images, but the question is, are they too dark? I have not posted images because I thought they were too dark, and later posted them as part of series and y'all went nuts over them, calling them "moody" and "beautiful", feedback I honestly never expected on those images. (see the first three photos in the series I am posting now, "Anatomy of a sunrise". OK, well these images are much darker then I would have liked them to be, but mother nature just was not cooperating this morning, as the horizon lightened, the colors faded. Enough talking, lookie here and tell me what you think! :)

Number 2!

I think you could up the contrast a tad. As it is the tree's are a bit greyish. I think it would look better if the dark area's in the foreground would be black or near black. But that's just my opinion :)

Indeed, it misses clearness, Keep the very black foreground can put the sky and the reflection in value! Bon travail! En effet, elle manque de clart Conserver le premier plan tout noir peut mettre en avant le ciel et le reflet! Good work!

It's not so much the photos being off as there isn't any correction done to the image. Hope you don't mind. Here is the top image with a two-click, 10 second correction (opened curves and set black and white point).

And this is 3 click/10 second correction - set black, white and midpoint. -=>Donald

I was playing with the "unsharp mask" in PSP7 trying to sharpen and lighten. The original is much darker but it came out when I adjusted the contrast/brightness. I would hate to trash these but seeing as it is lacking both sharpness and light... I am posting the original here, feel free to play with it, as I am sure I will.

Got to admit Donald yours looks much better then mine! :)

Donald, do you know anything about PSP? If so can you teach me how to do what you did to that pic? I dont have Photoshop. Please???

Did this while eating lunch at work. Didn't have any of my filters there, so had to do things the old fashioned way. Lots of noise, so gonna be hard to get a nice, clean edged look to it. Will try this again with my home setup. Looks like a challenge. :) I'll see if i can figure out how PSP does what I did. Will let you know. -=>Donald

Kewl Beans! I like that last one there, the colors are just as beautiful as the sky was yesterday. Got a couple sky shots this AM, didn't have time to actually do a shoot this morning! :( Funny, on the lcd on the camera when I took these, didn't look as dark as they actually are! I have found a setting for "curves" in PSP, I can do some screen shots if you don't have PSP7! Let me know. I have had some pretty abstract results with this pic using the different effects in PSP, have been thinking on using the eye candy filter on this and seeing what I can do in there.

brenda, PSP has curves, contrast, clarify & noise reduction, similar to PS, ya just gotta look for em... look under "adjust"-> brightness & contrast -> curves also clarify is there add & remove noise is under adjust too, as well as hue & saturation just take a shot & try out every tool you have to familiarize with what they do & where they're located nice silhouette shot here gf good postwork Donald :]

ps... oh, sorry, you found the curves adjustment & i wouldn't use the special effect filters until you get the shot cleaned up first using your tools at the top

Attached Link: http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/command_primer.shtml

Nilla - what kind of camera are you shooting these with? As for curves, Luminous Landscapes has a great primer on it. Check the link above. All I did in that first one was to adjust the black and white points (in quick terms, I pulled the bottom-left marker horizontally to the right and the top-right marker horizontally to the left). -=>Donald

Thank you both! Will be sure to check out that link, thanks Donald! And Cyn, I had already found most of those settings, have been playing around with them to try to find the best way to bring out the colors without losing anymore clarity. Donald I am using a Sony Mavica that I bought almost two years ago. I know that I need to upgrade, but I won't be doing that until spring! :) Thanks again! Hugs! Brenda :)