Photography at the golden hour

[abhi]

At Chandrabhaga beach, Orissa, India



View on Black

EOS Digital Rebel, 18-55IS @ 55mm, f/11 for 1/80s.

C&C welcome and appreciated. Thanks for viewing.

PS: I would like to add a border to it. Can someone please suggest a good tutorial, or just the steps to do that I use CS5. Would a black border go better with it or white?

[jiro]

I like this shot, Abhishek. I am glad you added the human element to the scene as that completed the image for me. The foaminess of the ocean waves are also great. The horizon is leveled so that's a plus for you on this. If this is my shot, I would probably add a graduated neutral density filter effect on the top half of the image so I can deepen the colors and saturate it more. I love saturated colored clouds, it makes any image dramatic for me. You did very well on this one. Congrats!

Here is what I normally do to add borders in Photoshop CS5:

1. While holding the ALT button, double click on the background layer to unlock it. You will now notice that instead of showing "background", the image is now named "layer O".

2. Now, add a new blank layer by pressing the "Create new layer" button on the lower right corner of the layers pallette.

3. Put this new blank layer below "layer O" or the image. This will now be your border layer.

4. Press the CROP button on the toolbar. Click the top left portion of the image and drag the mouse to the bottom right corner of the image. You will now see the handles that you will pull to expand the frame area. Click on any of the handles (the small retangles in the middle of the frame edges) and pull it outward. The size will depend on how wide do you want your borders to be. Do the same on all sides.

5. Based on the color of your color palette, you can now fill your border frame with the color you want using the paint bucket tool on the toolbar. If you want your border to be white, make your foreground color to be white. Black for black. That's it.

Hope this helps.

[abhi]

I like this shot, Abhishek. I am glad you added the human element to the scene as that completed the image for me. The foaminess of the ocean waves are also great. The horizon is leveled so that's a plus for you on this. If this is my shot, I would probably add a graduated neutral density filter effect on the top half of the image so I can deepen the colors and saturate it more. I love saturated colored clouds, it makes any image dramatic for me. You did very well on this one. Congrats!

Thank you, Jiro for your kind words and the quick tutorial . This has taught me to take my telephoto lens next time I want to photograph sunrise or sunset, so I can capture more action in the foreground. The boats were too far from me to include them nicely in another photo I normally use a GND with sky photos, but I guess I was too excited with what I saw in this case

Here's a more dramatic version of the same photo for you (white-balanced using the clouds, the previous one was white-balanced using the surf). I think I need to play more with the hues on this one to make it pop. Any suggestions and edits are as always welcome.

[jiro]

It's amazing how colors can change the overall effect of an image. Did I notice some sensor dust on this one, Abhi? I would probably go with the first one. I like this, too but the top clouds became too white that now it's competing for attention for me.

[abhi]

It's amazing how colors can change the overall effect of an image. Did I notice some sensor dust on this one, Abhi? I would probably go with the first one. I like this, too but the top clouds became too white that now it's competing for attention for me.

Thanks, Jiro. I can make those clouds darker/bluer too. But somehow the overall color balance doesn't work as well for me. I might try using the foreground of the first image with the background of the second one at some other time. Not sure how that'll work. And, thanks for pointing out the dust spots. Guess they are more visible on blue. I had just made a virtual copy of the first

PS: Can you take a quick look at my yellow flowers thread as well. That was a compositional exercise for me so I will truly appreciate that