[cfbuck]

This is a travel photo taken during a hike at Lake Buttermere, Lake District, UK. It was taken on a early morning in May. The sun was already high in the sky behind wispy clouds. I liked the parallel and converging lines of the beach, clouds and fells, and, also the reflections in the lake in the composition, but the sun is certainly a dominant feature. When I attempt to crop it out, I don't like the resulting composition. Does the sun detract too much because of its location and brightness? What suggestions do you have? Any other suggestions are welcome as this is my first photo submitted to the site and I am looking to improve my skills.

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[Wasp]

Good image, well spotted and captured.

Maybe lose a little of the foreground? The rock on the bottom left is a bit of a distraction.

I agree that the sun shining through the clouds makes the image. Try post processing it and tweak the exposure and contrast so that the rays are more prominent.

[jawsy]

Try a panoramic profile. Bit off the top, bit off the bottom, bit off the RHS, couple of tweaks in Lightroom., etc.

Nice image btw. Always tricky facing the sun.

[Bruce Clark]

Definitely crop. Jawsey's effort looks pretty good to me. The full sun in the frame is problematic as is the stone on the bottom edge.

[cfbuck]

It`s amazing how a few suggestions can push forward a bit of knowledge. The reason that my attempt at cropping out the sun in LR was so unsatisfactory was my feeble LR skills. I knew that the crop rectangle had handles at the corners and the mid point on each side, but, every time I tried the midpoints the crop kept the same H to W proportion. Cropping out the sun changed the whole composition detrimentally. The comment from jawsy made me rethink my problem with the handles. I finally spotted the little padlock and found that that released the proportion lock. Other programs that I have used don`t require any lock release to affect one side of the crop only. The LR cropping rectangle was not very intuitive to me--I`m not going to use age as an excuse. Thanks for that little prod everyone.

With the intense sun disk gone, the image is much improved. I tried to make the greens and blues more intense as that is what I remember the landscape was like. I also tried to intensify the sun rays a bit. It may be a little overdone to more experienced eyes. I am very happy with the image now.


Bruce Clark and Wasp, thanks so much for all your suggestions and especially to jawsy for taking the extra time to work on my image. It all helped me immensely.

[CarlJF]

Croping works fine. But it's also a different picture than the original framing... The question is then more what you, as the photographer, wanted to show with this picture ?

As for the uncropped version, have you try to adjust the contrast, exposure and curves to make the sunrays more obvious, as suggested by Wasp ? It could look pretty good, but difficult to say without tryint it. Processing in B&W could even allow a bit more pushing in contrast, again giving you a completely different picture and feeling. It's certainly worth a try...

To make a long story short, there might more to do with this picture than just cropping it...

[cfbuck]

Croping works fine. But it's also a different picture than the original framing... The question is then more what you, as the photographer, wanted to show with this picture ?

I'm not really a photographer in the artistic sense, I just use photography to journalise travel. For me this photo represented and recalled, a couple of fantastic days. We spent two days walking in the fells of Cumbria which we had never seen before. They are an unusual land form to us and as you climb and when you reach the top, the views are just fantastic. This lake was the start of our second day. The view was anticipatory of the day to come. So peaceful and green. The ridges of the fells, the cloud line, the reflections, the shore, and, the debris in the beach all converged to a central unified entity of memories. For me the cropping does not change that fundamentally. So I am happy with the alterations.

As for the uncropped version, have you try to adjust the contrast, exposure and curves to make the sunrays more obvious, as suggested by Wasp ?

I tried to enhance the rays but as I recall, I was not able to accomplish that without deleterious effects elsewhere in the image. Nonetheless, I'll keep trying. I am not yet competent in LR. But thanks for urging me to keep making the photo better.

[ZombieArmy]

I think it looks better uncropped. Cropping out the sun takes out a lot of the tree in the top and I think it looks good. Concerning the rock you could just clone it out in PS.

[Marina M]

I think it looks better uncropped. Cropping out the sun takes out a lot of the tree in the top and I think it looks good. Concerning the rock you could just clone it out in PS.

+1 Will look harmonious this way.

[Ash]

I'd crop the bottom slightly, as the sandy interface is taking up space in the field that could distract from the centre of the image, especially the truncated rock evident in the bottom left of the scene.

[dlh]

I like the composition as is. I wish you'd had a circular polarizing filter on the lens, though. My suggestion is to alter the ratio of highlights to shadows; increase the gamma, decrease the brightness. Possible dodging of the brightest parts using development software.

[szs]

Hello,

I would not crop out the sun. But I would crop out the lowest 10-15%, so that the shoreline starts in the lower right corner (more or less). You would get a triangle of pebble beach in the lower left and a triangle of blue sky in the upper right. And these contrasting the horizontal opposite shoreline and the reflections of the mountains.

Cheers, Steffen