Dunes

I went a few days ago to the dunes near my location. I didnt pay much attention to colors, but when i came home and opened the files, i just noticed no photo was of my liking. The sand was still wet (it rained the same day, I thought the sand would suck up all water and dry faster), the sun was about to set, and sky looked white instead of blue. The water also didnt look blue but kinda whiteish from sun reflections and what not.

Anyone have any tips on how to get the sky and water look deep blue? or a least more appealing than a palre blue. Im thinking maybe the position of the sun is probably the reason im getting ugly colors for water and sky. I'm also wondering if polarization would hel at all.

Here is a photo (heavily manipulated to improve colors, (water and sky still look bad))

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A good polarizing filter would help cut through some of the reflections.

What time of day was this taken?

I love the color of the sand. 
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Not sure what you were hoping to bring out.
But I messed with the color curves in the sky and then the water, then I added a gradient and messed with the levels a bit.

(shrug)

I like this shot!
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Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes.

Oscar Wilde

A good polarizing filter would help cut through some of the reflections.

What time of day was this taken?

I love the color of the sand. 

5:15pm, its Winter, Chile

Sand was still wet from the rain, so it was brown (except on the areas that were not shaded), there were so many 4x4 in there that, the photo i took was pretty much of the only "virgin", wet patch of dune i found...

This is the original photo:
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Not sure what you were hoping to bring out.
But I messed with the color curves in the sky and then the water, then I added a gradient and messed with the levels a bit.

(shrug)

I like this shot!

I'm pretty new to PS... What I was trying to do is to get a saturated blue sky and blue water. How did you modify curves in the sky and water separatly? using the selection tool? And what does the gradient thing do?
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Do you have photoshop? If so, open up the file you want to add color to. Then open up another photo that's mostly blue sky. Make sure the photo you want to change is the active file. Go to Match Color (I'm at work, so I can't remember what it's under, but it's in the same section where you pick the hue/saturation selection). From the dropdown box at the bottom, select the blue sky picture. The resulting image will look too blue, but use the slider bars to the right and play until you get a nice blue sky. You can do the same thing if you want to add a sunset color to your image. Smiley If you do it on a duplicate layer, you can then erase out what you don't want colored, too.

This, of course, is a rushed job, with no care taken to edges, but gives you an idea what you can do. I erased the blue in the water, but you can leave more blue in it to get a nicer look. You can also leave a low opacity blue over the sand, to tone down the gold.
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Comments and Harsh Critiques gladly accepted. My photos are ok to edit.

My photos and art: http://wildmaven.org

Do you have photoshop? If so, open up the file you want to add color to. Then open up another photo that's mostly blue sky. Make sure the photo you want to change is the active file. Go to Match Color (I'm at work, so I can't remember what it's under, but it's in the same section where you pick the hue/saturation selection). From the dropdown box at the bottom, select the blue sky picture. The resulting image will look too blue, but use the slider bars to the right and play until you get a nice blue sky. You can do the same thing if you want to add a sunset color to your image. Smiley If you do it on a duplicate layer, you can then erase out what you don't want colored, too.

This, of course, is a rushed job, with no care taken to edges, but gives you an idea what you can do. I erased the blue in the water, but you can leave more blue in it to get a nicer look. You can also leave a low opacity blue over the sand, to tone down the gold.

Thanks for the tip, i played with that feature a bit and yeah, and its nice feature I'll keep in mind the next time i need to fix colors
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I like the sand in the original better.  I would just go to the hue/saturation menu and select blue and bump up the saturation and darken it a bit then repeat with cyan.  I would do an overall saturation bump to pick up a bit more color in the sand, then just some contrast in the midtones, maybe.
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Alright, I had to play with it.  I did what I mentioned above and then added some color burn for fun, dark brown around the sand and on the buildings and some dark blue in the sky area.  I then did a little normal burning around the edge, however that picked up some red in the clouds on the left, I would change that if I had more time, this was a quick edit.
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Susie
www.charlesbarnardphotography.com
www.definitionimages.com

Quote

I'm pretty new to PS... What I was trying to do is to get a saturated blue sky and blue water. How did you modify curves in the sky and water separatly? using the selection tool? And what does the gradient thing do?

Looks like Marian answered your question.
If not, just say so and someone will hop on here and answer it for you.
 Big Grin

Corey
« Last Edit: July 08, 2008, 03:12:35 PM by BobEdens »
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Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes.

Oscar Wilde

I hope you don't mind, here's my attempt at giving you what you wanted...
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I like Travis's version, except I think you loose too much detail in the shadows of the town.
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-John
Sarcasm, frustrating the clueless since 3000 b.c.

Thanks for all the help... you gave me some good advice on how to improve my landscape photography...
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