[Irma]

I got this picture yesterday... I love the right corner where the path is and the light... The sun was so big... I don't think a crop would be right ... What do you think... should I clone out the sun and add a barn or a house... or leave it as it is... or definitely doesn't work?

Thanks a lot for your comments...

[Kombisaurus]

wow Irma.. what a unique and beautiful pic!

I don't know what to suggest here. I can see why you might want to get rid of the sun because it distracts from the wonderful details.. but at the same time it makes the shot so unique that its worth keeping in.

Maybe do two versions and keep both?
Also, what about just shrinking the sun so its less distracting?

You did a fantastic job to keep the detail and subtlety in the fog considering you were pointing directly at the sun. Wonderful metering effort!

Cheers
Adrian

[EnglishBob]

I wouldn't clone it out, but I might try to tone it down, just a little bit. Wonderful shot Irma.

[Petographer]

It's a very good shot Irma. I agree with Adrian about maybe just shrinking the sun a little.

[Irma]

Thanks for your comments... Unfortunately I went out too late so the sun was too high already... I was a little affraid it wouldn't work, but at the end was nice..... This is what I did before but I was not quite sure... I duplicate de layer and clone out the sun... then I worked with oppacity... Unfortunately I worked with PSP with this picture and faded the colors a bit so I had to saturate....

But it is the other version...

Thanks again for your comments and advice

[EnglishBob]

That works very well Irma, you know the sun is still there but it no longer dominats the picture. Great improvement

[stargazer]

I really like this photo Irma. I tried something in PS, but I have mixed feelings on how it turned out. I lke the enhanced details of the trees, fence and road, but I seem to have washed the colors out a little. I wanted to de-emphasize the sun like you did.

Anyway, here is what I got


I like that I could keep the feeling of haziness in the background and take away the overpowering sun a little. I think someone with a little more knowledge of PS could have done a better job of what I wanted, but I know about .002% of what there is to know about Photoshop.

What I did was create a duplicate layer and do an auto levels on it. On the original layer, I used a very large and strong blur tool to soften the sun. I then brightened this layer to enhance the foreground details. From there, all I did was play around with opacity of the two layers.

Chris

[Toad]

I have looked at this photo about 5 times and I can't make up my mind. I think stargazer is on the right track with the reduced contrast, but I prefer the saturation of the original. Sorry not to have anything more clever to say about it.

[Schellamo]

okay, heres my go...


Using photoshop, I duplicated the layer, applied gaussian blur (radius about 10) and erased everything but the sun, then I adjusted the brightness/contrast to tone it down some more.

Then I duplicated the background layer again, changed the blend mode to 'screen' and erased the entire sky, bringing more detail into the foreground.

[stargazer]

Good job! That is very close to what I was trying to do, but being a noob with Photoshop, I didn't achieve quite what I wanted.

[Irma]

Thanks a lot stargazer and Schell for your help... Your tries are great!

I think I need to blur a bit what I did in my second try to blend more the sun without losing the color...

Thanks Bob and Toad for your comment

[shuttertalk]

Irma, your original photo is great, and your 2nd version is awesome too. I like how you've taken the emphasis on the sun, which as you say, was competing for attention in the frame.

I think it shouldn't be gotten rid of altogether, otherwise the photo might look a bit empty on the left hand side...

[Kombisaurus]

great improvements

[Petographer]

I also like your second version Irma. The tones are also much nicer.

[bloodyrain]

[NT73]

I would duplicate the layer, make a big selection round the sun. Shrink that layer until the sun is smaller.
In the first layer, pick up the colour from around the selection and just sort of spray the hole where the selection came from if you cut it, or if you copied it then spray over the sun.
Then paste layer two over layer one.
That way, you should leave your original colours as they were. The new shrunk sun covers over the sprayed bit(hopefully)