Levels & curves to increase contrast.
Selective color to increase the blue color of the sky.
Hue/saturation to desaturate the image a bit.
Shadow/highlight.
Two passes of unsharp mask; one for contrast and one for sharpness.
This is actually a reshoot. I took almost the exact same photograph last Thursday but at that time the sky was, shall we say, 'a bit uncooperative'.
However, I really liked the framing of last week's shot so I ventured back to the same location today for a reshoot of the same scene but with a more pleasant background.
Thanks go to Oskar for a few editing tips.
Statistics
Place: 3 out of 500 Avg (all users): 7.1774 Avg (commenters): 8.3784 Avg (participants): 6.9945 Avg (non-participants): 7.4409 Views since voting: 11634 Views during voting: 496 Votes: 310 Comments: 74 Favorites: 22 (view)
Congratulations on your first ribbon! This is a great shot,- I went to this house myself and took some shots, but chose photo of another house for the challenge.
I'm quite grateful for all the comments, folks ... and I'm of course jumping with joy that I managed to win a ribbon - my first one at that!
I'd like to mention that it is quite funny that the house on my photo is the exact same as the one on the terrific picture that placed 4th in the challenge. Strange, eh?
I also want to address some questions and comments from from people who took the time to comment on my picture:
1) haakky was curious about the location of this shot. Well, this house can be seen while driving from Keflavik airport to Reykjavik, shortly after driving past a small town called 'Vogar'. The picture in 4th place represents the view from the road in case anyone will be traveling to Iceland and is curious about the house.
2) I believe the picture is quite level. On the original photograph (this is a crop as I didn't have long enough lens) there is a house and flagpole to the left and these seem to perfectly level.
3) IceRock commented that he'd like to see the picture either a bit darker or in hard tone B&W. I did play with converting the picture to B&W but ultimately I felt subdued color suited it better.
4) viajero noted that the clouds weren't really dark. This is true but the title refers to the single dark cloud hovering above the house (I felt 'clouds' instead of 'cloud' sounded better so I chose the plural form).
5) cpurser wrote that " wish I had landscapes like this... well, maybe it is good that I don't... I would never go to work!"
Well to answer this, we Icelanders seem to never have time to appreciate our country as we work longer hours than people in most, if not all, 'civilized' countries. ;-)
I also have an outtake for the challenge that some people seem to like better.
Ætlaði að fara á þennan stað sjálfur og taka mynd en enginn nennti að fara með mig þangað. Á meðan fara sumir bara tvisvar. Þetta er ósanngjarnt segi ég:)
CONGRATULATIONS!! Iceland certainly lends itself to ribbon photography doesn't it!!! This is just beautiful!!! How nice to win your first ribbon with this!!!
One of the better submissions in this challenge in my opinion.
Composition is as good as it gets, color levels not over-saturated, great detail and a pleasant subject matter. You got my 9. Hope to see this one of the home page.
the clouds soo surrealistic..the mountains in the same complot
the house fragile as a painting yet soo solid
the foreground soo simple yet majestic
all these ingredients in perfect balance
its on my list!
Top 5, no doubt. Excellent composition, great contrast between snow and brown grass. I may even say this will get the blue. I wish I had landscapes like this... well, maybe it is good that I don't... I would never go to work! Great job. The only 9 so far...
Woow what a backround ! In thiw one,You manage to turn a poor isolated house into a wonderful thing.That's exactly what the challenge said,and your picture is beautiful.a 9
This is just beautiful..love the mountains in background, roughness of terrain and faded color of house..the old fence adds interest and leads the eye..8
good one!!!
the dilapidated house& the broken fence adds to the rough field with hay around the automobile tire marks!
but the white snow in the backgroung is taking the rugged sheen off the forergound!
its nice though, overall!
Totally out of this world shot. The contrast between the forreground and background is amazing and you have done an excellent job to bring that out in this image. I also love the fine details in this one. Well done.
Really good picture, I think it is not hurting to have picture correct horizontal and if you use levels in PS that is not good bit better color adjustment better to do that in curve, after better color adjustment I like to see picture bit darker or in B&W whit hard tone, to get this old house mood .. ir
Absolutely gorgeous photo. Being as picky as possible, I'd like it if the foreground were a little lighter, but that's a small nitpick of a really outstanding picture.
Dark clouds of the past
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