I like this photo - the clouds, the mountains and island in the background. but it lacks much breadth of color. and it just doesnt DO it for me. but I dont know what I feel its missing... any ideas? suggestions? feel free to play!

ciao

http://img294.imageshack.us/img294/2640/img6165psp9zr.jpg

Seems a bit monochromatic --all blue. I would bring out some of the color in the land and the foliage.
Regards, Murray

Just doing a little AutoColor helps this - 1st attachment

Then I converted it to LAB color mode and gave it a curves adjustment, same adjustment to A and B channel - 2nd attachment

Then I copied the grassy island onto it's own layer and played with the hue/saturation adjustment (back in RGB mode) and level adjustments.

Next, I felt the blue sky was too much so I reduced the cyans using a hue/sat layer - 3rd attahcment

The 4th attachment shows my layers (I masked the hue/sat layer to allow the water's color to come through) and the 5th is the final image. I think the sky is still not right but you can see there's plenty to play with.

thanks to Monday and Sean - good ideas!

the problem as i saw it was that there wasnt really a good composition here. there's little focus or content. it's just missing something to look at, sort of. i re-compositied the image to give it more content, more focus.

now, if you're taking this shot for realism, for a 'photo memory' or something along those lines, then forget mine, cause it's too doctored :)

see if you can pick out how many elements i changed here.

craig

Great minds think alike Craig.

Quick cut, shunt and crop. (Bit crude, but meant to illustrate an idea rather than as a finished job).

Too blue? It's water and sky in broad daylight.

I'm not much on correcting color just to change things as they are in real life. The colors in the photo are just as I would imagine them to be. Adding more cyan to the water looks artificial to me because it is deep water not the shallows of an island in the Bahamas which are very cyan in real life.

I agree that composition is more the "problem" in your photo.

I like the sky darker, but I didn't go too far because of jpeg artifacts. Also used large radii USM in different degrees on different parts of the image. Mostly used masked color balance layers to adjust the colors.

Bart

"Keep it real" :classic: It's only a quick try. Curves with masks. I know, too much blue :P, will fix it layter.

Retouched (http://img109.imageshack.us/img109/9495/shipcopy2vl.jpg)

the problem as i saw it was that there wasnt really a good composition here. there's little focus or content. it's just missing something to look at, sort of. i re-compositied the image to give it more content, more focus.

now, if you're taking this shot for realism, for a 'photo memory' or something along those lines, then forget mine, cause it's too doctored :)

see if you can pick out how many elements i changed here.

craig

I LIKE the composition!

Great minds think alike Craig.

Quick cut, shunt and crop. (Bit crude, but meant to illustrate an idea rather than as a finished job).

This one TOO! I like the compositions!

gary, indeed. in fact, attached is the original before i cropped it to the final.

bart, i like that, particularly the hill color. i also selectively colored those, but i like yours better.

chas, good :)

craig

I also liked the wide screen look on this one.

Thanks to all for great ideas and treatments. trying the ideas is a great way to learn.

thanks to all and to a good forum!

You have all given me ideas and inspiration - thanks!

Nice one Chas.

yup. very well done!

craig