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Sydney Harbour at Sunset
#SYDNEY SUNSETBLUEHOURCITYSCAPEHARBOURBRIDGEOPERAHOUSE
Brad Jones
2 years ago
Hello everybody - would love a critique primarily around the colous / overall balance of this image.  It's. 3 shot composite of a sunset & blue hour of Sydney Harbour (obviously).  The water was incredibly choppy so this was as smooth as I could get it with 60s exposures, perhaps I should have gone 4min?

The blend was quite simple; base layer as an early blue hour shot capturing the initial city lights and the last rays of the sunset.  It was an exposure bracket so I could control the suns highlights.  I applied a negative dehaze radial gradient to create a more pronounced glow effect wrapping around the bridge and blending off into the crisper blue's of the cityscape.   I then masked in a late blue hour to bring in some artificial light from the city.  From a Colour Grading perspective there is a slight cooling of the blues and warming of suns yellows into orange, but nothing excessive as the colour was already very strong.
 
Overall i'm very happy with the image but would love other perspectives.

 

Daniel Springgay CREW 
2 years ago — Senior critic

Hi Brad welcome. All I'm going to do is give you a few things to think about. I had your image back into Photoshop so I couls play with a few ideas. I'm now 74 years old so my ideas might not be up to your standard. A bit long in the tooth as they say. I quite like you image love the composition and the way the capture works. This is what I had a play with.Dehaze +20 for pure impact. Nik tools Tonal Contrast on the water and building not the sky. Remove the blue line in the sky with fill / Content aware. Last selected the water and use path blurr to give it a more spacey look.  All this was done on the quick more time better the detail. ps I think I opened up the shadows a little.

 

 

Edited: 2 years ago by Daniel Springgay
Theo Luycx
2 years ago

Brad,

My suggestion is less attention for the red area on the right and more attention for your nice sky-line together with the rock before. Not better but another approach and a 16/9 format.

Theo L.

 

 

Edited: 2 years ago by Theo Luycx
Brad Jones
2 years ago

Daniel Springgay Thank you for the above edits - always great to get a fresh, seasoned set of eyes ;). I Love what Tonal has done to the water, and while I initially loved the 'odd' blue shadow cast by teh sun through the bridge, I must admit its a distraction.  I'll play around with a few other PS edits to get the water a bit more smooth.. Thank you again :)

 

Theo Luycx - also thank you for your ideas and cropping suggestion.  Not sure I'll take it to that extreme as my vision for this was always the dreamy sun coming through the bridge but I really do appreciate you taking the time to comment :)

Udo Dittmann PRO
2 years ago

Hello Brad,

You have already received very good help, but I would like to bring in another aspect. With the edit program "nature projects" I played with the time of day and the weather and made the version "from dusk till dawn" out of it.

 

 

Greetings

Udo

Edited: 2 years ago by Udo Dittmann