Isle of May

[madattak]

I took this photo on holiday in Scotland this Summer. For reasons I no longer remember I didn't have my camera available, so I took it on my iPhone 5. I'm interested mainly in suggestions on how to crop, and any effects that could improve it that can be applied with free software, but I am also interested in composition suggestions.

Thanks! 

[™Ken Kruse™]

Although the sky has some interest it's nothing that will keep a viewers attention for long, for that reason it would probably be best to include more of the landscape. I would consider cropping at a 2:1 or 16:9, keeping the entire bottom but losing much of the sky. Doing this will have the added benefit of making the lighthouse buildings more prominent. A quick and easy way to test this (assuming you have a 16:9 monitor) is to enlarge the photo so it fills the whole screen side to side, then scroll down so the bottom of the photo is at the bottom of the screen. I also might try warming the foreground area which will make the grass pop against the sky even more. Maybe, if possible, bring up the shadows just a touch.

[© Tom Cooper]

In general, I agree with Ken.  The lighthouse is too close to the center of the frame.  You could try cropping to move it lower, but I don't see a good reason to go in that direction.  I would remove sky from the top until the lighthouse is near the top third of the image.

 

I would also lighten the shadows a little.  This is a case where I might have tried a careful application of HDR to get more shadow detail without causing noise problems.

 

As far as warming the background (I assume he means the sky) - the sky color is not consistent from one side of the image to the other (this is natural).  I think a change in one area would be too much in the other.  I don't suggest doing much at all to the color of the sky.  However, it is possible Ken is talking about the hill and the cliff.  I have to admit I would need to see the lighened shadows before deciding what to do with the color of the hill.

[Nick Weall]

I'd work on getting the horizon level too if editing. It might be my ancient eyes but the horizon on the left at sea level seems lower than on the right

[Desmond Riordan]

I'm all for keeping the horizon low when you have an interesting sky - have a look at seventeenth century Dutch and Flemish landscapes for useful hints on this kind of composition - but unfortunately in this picture the clouds are a little too blown out and all that whiteness rather dominates the scene.

When I look at what's below I'm afraid that once again I'm left feeling a little frustrated. Because of where you have positioned the rocky outcrop and the buildings I find that I immediately want to see what's to the left or to the right of the frame and I can do neither. It would have helped to have turned a little in either direction to includes a little more of the sea and to achieve a less centre-weighted composition. But we have what we have, and what we have isn't without possibilities.

I'm in agreement with Ken Kruse about warming the foreground. Make a feathered selection and apply a warming filter for quick results - the wild flowers are an attractive part of the composition.

I agree with Tom Cooper with regard to cropping out most of the sky and trying to bring out some detail in the shadier portions of the picture.

And Nick Weal is right about the horizon.

And to the above I would add the following:

Crop out some of the left-hand side of the scene. Just below the smaller light house-type structure there are two walls running diagonally. I would crop to where the left-hand wall seems to disappear at the bottom. I would then make a rectangular selection at the top of the picture, feather it and then darken a little in levels (having done that you'll probably need to desaturate a little too). This will stop the top of the picture from 'floating away'.

Lastly, if you're thinking that this is a bit much for free software then try typing 'Photoshop CS2 free' into your search engine of choice. Adobe no longer want to support some of the older versions of Photoshop so they are giving them away! Free!

The picture has good possibilities and you knew what you wanted to capture. I think that it would help to pause for a moment to think about composition before releasing the shutter. Keep up the good work. Practice doesn't always make perfect, but it does make better.

[madattak]

Just sticking my head in to say that I'm not ignoring these posts, I've just been busier than expected and haven't had any time for photography :( (Also I wasn't expecting the photoshop download to be quite so convoluted!) 

[Paarsh Saini]

 @madattak, that's a decent shot. The horizon is aligned with the second horizontal, which makes your's a decent composition as far as the rule of thirds is concerned. But if you are interested in cropping, I would suggest aligning the horizon with the first horizontal by stripping off some

of the sky. This would also mean that the lighthouses would appear a bit closer than what they actually were and would make your composition a bit more appealing. Thanks.

[vww...@yahoo.co.uk]

Its a nice clear shot, if you could have got a better view point with the sea on in the background it would have been much better