Capturing Sunsets with a twist
Sunsets are one of the most popular photographs, but how can you make a sunset jump out at you? Before venturing out to shoot that sunset think about the composition you are shooting. Are you shooting action at sunset or are you shooting a landscape sunset. Apply all the basic photography tips to shooting the sunset. Starting with a good image makes for a better edited photo in the end. Now what kind of twist can you give a sunset to capture the viewer and draw them in?
This is where your digital darkroom comes into play.
Turn your photo into a classic black and white and let the subject matter speak for itself. Enhance the brightness and contrast. Play with the Hue and Saturation. You can still edit the color balance in black and white to bring out unique effects. In the orginal photo you are drawn to the right where the brightest part of the photo is. As you can see I brought out the street lights and the lighting around the buildings. Bringing the focus back to the center of the photo and not just on the bridge.
Enhance the colors of the sky to make that your main focus. Play with the color balance and hue and saturation to give it that extra boost. GO extreme and change the colors all together. Add sunbursts or flares to the sun portion itself to give it extra drama. In this photo I changed the colors of the sky and darkened the foreground. Bringing out the highlights and putting balance back into the photo.
Before shooting a sunset think about the composition. If you are going to shoot activities where the action is the main focus and not the subject doing the action, then shoot at sunset to give your photos and extra twist. And enhance the foreground and play down the sun itself.
Resources
New Your Institute of Photography
Popphoto.com
vividlight.com
sunset, digital photoraphy, tips
July 11th, 2007 at 5:01 pm
[...] Editing the Photo There are almost endless possibilities you can create with your editing program. First and foremost know how to use the program, and what it is capable of. You have an idea in your head on how you want it to look. Always save the original photo under a different file name so you can return to re-edit it when you want. I have a file just for all my original photos and then a file for all my completed works. I use the file name the camera gave then put a letter behind it so I know how many time I edited it. With that said a few things you can do to help your image along are • Use your highlights and contrast to make parts of your image pop. • Hue saturation to help bring out the colors or change the colors • Use your editing filters to create different effects. [...]