Under a storm cloud

[carregwen]

Looking south down the coast from Strumble Head, West Wales. Taken last week at sunset. The streak across the water is the strong currents.

comments welcome

EXIF

VIEW ON BLACK

[Donald]

Now, THAT'S a sky!. Lovely bit of work, Rob.
That (don't know what you call it) froth line running from the bottom left corner catches my eye. Could it come out?

[Steve S]

Nice shot carregwen. The view on black makes a huge difference............way better in my opinion. It really sets it off, i suspect because this image lacks blacks in it.

[carregwen]

Version #2

I wasn't happy with the very dark land-mass at the bottom, so I did a second version. I created two exposures from the RAW and blended them together. I think the clouds look even more dramatic now.

VIEW ON BLACK

[Keith]

It works for me, I really like dramatic clouds and this works great in B&W, lovely shot Rob.

[Colin Southern]

Out of curiosity, have you ever experimented with changing the aspect ratio?

I quickly whipped the shot into 2:1 and 3:1 versions and thought that the panoramic look quite suited it.

[jacsul]

Awesome shot Rob.

[carregwen]

Out of curiosity, have you ever experimented with changing the aspect ratio?

I quickly whipped the shot into 2:1 and 3:1 versions and thought that the panoramic look quite suited it.

Colin

Presumably that would mean chopping the islands on the left? I like this shot because of the relationship between that big cloud on the right and the land area at the bottom. If you mentally flip the cloud on its own it would exactly match the land. Of course, a decent photographer would have waited for the right cloud.

I once saw a cloud pattern that was the exact shape of the UK and Ireland - but I may have been taking the wrong medication at the time (!), and I didn't have a camera on me.

Try an edit, if you wish, but I'm not convinced.

[Colin Southern]

Try an edit, if you wish, but I'm not convinced.

Here it is at 2.5:1 - what do you think?

[carregwen]

Here it is at 2.5:1 - what do you think?

WOW!

Ok, how did you do that?

It's obvious that it's been stretched, but it does look very dramatic. Like to know what others think.

Thanks, Colin.

[jacsul]

No question he does have talent.

[Donald]

Ok, how did you do that? Like to know what others think

I still like the original. I think the re-work 'over cooks' the sky. However, there's no denying that Mr S's re-work gives it an extra 'wow' factor. And, as you ask Rob, we're all waiting to hear how on earth that is done.

[Colin Southern]

Hi Guys,

Pretty easy. I usually work at an aspect ratio of 2:1 - which for online image I use 1024 x 512 pixels (you can tell I'm a computer guy huh!). So in Photoshop I simply went into IMAGE -> IMAGE SIZE -> plugged in 1024 x 512 (unchecking the option to retain the current proportions).

To my eye it looked better but I thought it might look better still at 2.5:1 - so I just popped back in and upped the 1024 by the appropriate amount.

The boarder also makes a difference - helps to isolate and encapsulate the image.