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Yes it's not a bird picture!

Taken at Langston, Hampsire. Right next to the Royal Oak Pub, opposite Hayling Island. Two versions, not sure which I like the best.

Lens: 18-70MM DX Kit Lens
Shutter: 1/800th
Aperture: F/3.8
Meter: Matrix
WB: Preset (based on a cloud I think - slightly on the warm side)
ISO: 200


Click for Larger.

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Great picture. Truly wonderful. I'd like to see a tad more pop in the sky though. Not too much, but just a tad.
Definitely prefer the sepia.

Ahhh good old England! Hows the weather there? Don't bother coming to Australia, it rains just as much... its just a bit warmer!

Mind you I haven't experenced summer yet

Nice looking shots, I was taken with the first one but to be honest the second really suits that sepia look. Has that "vintage" look. Good to see that you can achieve classy results with the kit lens.

Ed.

Dooda, I've tried giving the sky more pop but not with much success. Might give it another go. Tried linear greyscale gradients on different layers with overlay/softlight/etc blends. Nothing seemed to work. Might go for a dual exposure later on and try that.

Do you use greyscale for the B&W? I understand that there is a plugin for PS that offers outstanding B&W results.

Ed.

number 2 works for me but I would like to see a tad more contrast in the sky, try to highlight it by using the magic wand, levels, or curve ....... and being a member of the straight police can the image have a tilt to the left would be good......or a book under the right hand side of my screen.....

cheers
bp

kipper

truly awesome work!

i like the B&W better this time...
they are both great tho

Hi Darryl, Well loverly pics but i tend to like #2 better but yeh very nicely done.

Kipper, try a curves adj layer.

One thing that I like to do

Select the sky with either lasso or Wand.
HIt Q (on Mac) for quickmask.
Go to blur/gaussion (I generally go to somewhere between 6 and 11, but 20+ is fairly common)
Go to levels (still in QM) and slide the middle slider to adjust exactly where the blur border on the Mask resides.
Hit Q again and the red disappears.
Open up curves and get contrast.
command H hides the selection line.
This gets me the results I want everytime. I made the water glow on my last sunset shot and it looks pretty natural with the Gaussion. Hope this helps, but you probably already know about all of it.

Very nice KIppper