Beach sunset

[bedantabd]

Hi, This was one of the most dramatic sunsets I have ever watched on the beach. Took a couple of snaps with my Canon 550D / 18-55mm kit lens / 50mm prime. Would like to have c&c on the following:
1. Is there any keeper: which one and why? Any further improvement from composition / exposure / DoF / PP point of view?
2. Are all rather trash? If so, what should I do next time (under more of less same conditions) to get at least a few decent shots?
3. A few of them were shot in RAW+JPEG. I am attaching a pair of them as well. Please help with the RAW processing, especially the workflow from start to finish.
I'm expecting some elaborate replies from all of you. Here are the images:





RAW file of the above image:




While all this was happening on one side, the other side was rather calm and cool:



Hope I'm not bothering you guys too much. Thanks for looking.

[Bobobird]

Now THAT is some sunset. Thanks for sharing it with us.

[Geoff F]

They all work well, Bedanta.

With the first shot, I would try a little crop of the sky and right side to concentrate more on the horizon and the ship.

Not a lot though. Maybe just lose the bright area in the top left corner so you have a dark band of cloud going all the way across the top.

I'm not sure if it would be an improvement but I would like to try it and then decide.

With regard to Raw processing workflow;

Unless there are obvious faults which need serious work, I usually start by checking the White Balance then adjust the Exposure. Try to recover any over exposed highlights and sometimes, but not always, slightly increase the Fill Light (Ambient Light).

Then a little bit of extra saturation if required; but as little as possible.

And a little bit of 'capture sharpening'. Like the other adjustments, the amount will vary depending on your actual software, but somewhere around 50 to 300% with a small radius, between 0.3 and 0.5 should be about right.

[bedantabd]

Thanks Bobo and Geoff.

Will try to crop as suggested by Geoff. Also the RAW processing workflow looks pretty simple, will definitely give it a try that way. I'm not very sure about the 'capture sharpening' though. I know, there is a detailed post on sharpening by Colin and I have gone through the entire stuff once. But I was not able to digest everything, need to revisit that post again.

[HMW12]

Hi Bedanta- the sunsets are quite spectacular but for some reason I am most drawn to the last photo. not sure if I would try cropping a little off the top and left but in any event I really like that one

[bedantabd]

Helen, thanks for your comments. Great to know that you liked at least one of them! May be you liked it because of its simplicity or its calmness as compared to the others or may be its something else, I really don't know. This happens with me all the time, in this case I don't know which one I like the most and why.

I think it's very important for a beginner like us to know the reasons why we like a particular photograph so that we can work on them for further improvement.