Eilean Donan Castle

[Dbrskinner]

Hi,

I took this from a different perspective with the castle out of focus. I tried to stay away from the pathway and climbed down onto the sea floor, with the tide out

The orginal image was taken with a Nikon D700 at f2.8, 1/1250 sec, 62mm focal length with the ISO set at 250, it was a typical Scottish day, cloudy, overcast and light rain.

Adjustments were made using Lightroom, HDR Efex Pro (single image) and Photoshop to create this look.

Your feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Dave

You can view my other work at Glenhouse Studio - Home

[Matt K.]

Not sure what you want to show off here. If you wanted to have the castle out of focus, then why do I see the sharpening halo all along the castle and the top of the rocks on the left side? Looks eerie, if this was what you were going for, then you have met your goal. Other than that it confuses me.

[taffy]

I have to agree with Matt here. The viewpoint looks good but it is not clear which element you are showing off, I think too much of the immediate foreground is blurred, I only see the rock in the centre as sharp so my eyes settle on that . I am guessing the halo may be the effect of the HDR processing?

cheers

taffy

[Mad Aussie]

Love the composition itself here. And very cool seeing this from a point of view of someone sneaking up on the castle.
I think I see what you were going for, sort of environmental but leaving the castle in mystery.
The halo doesn't do anything for me I'm afraid. I think also a full B&W would have been more effective here as the little bit of colour left doesn't really add anything for me.

[Dbrskinner]

Thanks everyone, the halo is not from sharpening and must be a byproduct of the HDR software, I'm going to work through it again and post a revised version.

Dave

[Dbrskinner]

Turns out the software when processing a single image creates the halo, the only way to remove it is by over exposing the sky which takes away from the effect of the image, lesson learned

Dave

[pixieplease]

I think I see what you were going for, but I'm not a fan of artificial HDR (and I'm barely a fan of real HDR).
I think, with what you were aiming for, taking multiple shots at different exposures and combining them would look a lot les... harsh. I also agree about full black and white, but I'm not a fan of spot colouring to begin with.