That old sunset problem - RAW challenge

An interesting take on it, going for daylight. Unfortunately, lifting the exposure that much has revealed lightroom's stitching errors. So the left third has been revealed as a different picture.
I wonder about the sun beams. They seem darker and yellower than the surrounding sky.
You've definitely dragged lots of detail out of it, but we have gone to either extremes between us. I wonder which one Joe public likes

Rob, glad you like it (pity it 's not my own photo )

Mark, I let my colour balance shift blend over the sun and right part of the sky (its a move towards yellow and red), but left it off on the left side of the sky as I wanted to retain the blue tone there.... the blend is much better on the max quality JPEG, not really noticable.

Its a very interesting exercise in processing techniques, but the reality is that the shot is simply beyond the capabilities of the equipment used. It doesn't really work as an dark moody sky exposure, because the resulting blackness and smoothed texture of the ground is unrealistic, and the sun is too high for us to believe it, and the rays are shining strongly around the cloud.

The challenges in digging tone and texture out of such underexposure are great, but possible, although with the price of a grainy clarity to the ground. You can't just raise the brightness on a dark smudge as it will look surreal, it needs detailing treatment. The limitation here will be in printing as my detailed grain will be revealed at larger sizes. As it stands its an illusion of full resolution detail at smaller sizes.

Thanks for letting us have a go at this interesting exercise

Yep I think that's the long and short of it Nigel, I don't think it is fixable to any realistic degree. There was a chance it would look interesting anyway.
Nice to see the variations

Way too much fun with this

X-Equals Fuji Velvia 50 mix in LR, plus some digital grads:


(Some of the other Velvia mixes are super-psycadelic-smarty stuff )

And couldn't resist Kodak Portra BW400 and grads:

I just read an article about how preserving the highlights is hurting the feel of the image. Basically it was saying our eyes blow out the highlights to allow us to see the shadows. It tends to force you to raise the shadow area in post, which introduces noise you wouldn't have if you exposed for the core of the shot, and not for the highlights specifically.

I mention it because Pentax is especially angled to this. They are often knocked in reviews because their images appear dark/underexposed/less vibrant. It makes for an interesting conversation. It's almost become a camera geek type thing to discuss, but it's not noticed by most viewers. Most viewers tend to take in the shot without even noticing an area as being blown out. The original shot seems indicative of this., and it's 'properly' exposed for the clouds near the sun, and the core of the shot is now very dark.

Maybe it's just a personal thing, but I strongly disagree that preserving highlights hurts the feel of an image. I can't stand to see blown highlights; to me it looks very unnatural and not how the human eye perceives the world, I think Pentax have got it spot on, particularly with the way the K-3 preserves highlights.

I'm not going to add my efforts to the processing in this thread as I don't think I need to; there are many worthy examples already posted here, but I do think that Mark's original image exposed to preserve the highlights is the best way to approach this type of subject. To blow out those rays would have completely ruined any potential for a nice image.

Regards
David

I can't stand blown highlights either, it's just a personal thing, but it screams cheap camera or phone and washes out the colours nearby. There's undoubtedly a compromise somewhere that looks spectacular.
In any case, I think we should raise our image making to do better than the eye. Done with care so it doesn't look false; just capturing what the mind sees when it joins up the exposures
Matt, they look fab. Love your Velvia preset, but then, I love Velvia

A scene with this much dynamic range suggests HDR to me, or a fusion of multiple exposures if not necessarily tone mapped. I haven't played with the raw file, so I don't know how much recoverable detail is in there, other than the edits shown earlier.

I can't recommend the X-Equals Lightroom profiles highly enough! Best $50 I've spent in a long while
The guy must be nuts - he's scanned and profiled loads of real film stock, including expired stuff. The only problem is there's far too much choice. Each profile is split into 4 areas: mix, low contrast tone, high contrast tone, grain. I'm finding the mix + low contrast presets from a film stock work a treat. The Kodak Portra is another nice one.
Using the QPcard to 'neutralise' the camera's colour is helpful for an ultra-natural look (or for accurate product imaging), and then apply the X-Equals profiles brings some real "pop" in a few seconds without having to drop out to Topaz or PS.


And I can't stand blown highlights that produce a colour shift - e.g. where a red sunset produces an obvious yellow highlight. Some scenes call for blown out highlights, but they should still be controlled in terms of colour, IMHO.

Matt

I thought I'd have another go at this. This time it's been processed via Photomatix and then CS5. I've still gone for the warm colour balance, but included more foreground now.

This one seems to have inspired quite a few versions, so thanks for posting the RAW file.

Probably just me but i prefer the original pic in the first post. Its moody.

This was the article I had read.

Not saying the highlights should be blown out, but more that often in processing the highlights can be blow out anyway.
Also you can get an HDR/fake look going on if they're pulled down too much.

Presented it here for discussion really, not from a 'I'm telling you how it should be done' standpoint at all

I think the discussion is worth having, in that our cameras have a limited dynamic range, and in all scenes you have to make a call where to centre this.
Protecting the highlights is the usual standpoint, but it can at times come at a significant cost to the darker areas of the scene.
The OP photo is a case in point, where protecting the sunrise comes at a cost of the bulk of the rest of the scene.

And a quick play from me just from the original jpeg posted not the raw. Nothing but a masked exposure increase and some warming and the contrast softened. Perhaps too softened but its an alternative view as I found I didn't like the strong contrast most folks have gone for.

Have you guys looked into luminosity masks in Photoshop?

It's an interesting field where you select based on brightness, rather than by area colour etc. By all accounts that seems the best way to approach an HDR like edit, from a single shot, without the usual horrible HDR outputs.

This scene potentially could benefit from that type of approach also.

This guy is awesome, in my humble opinion as they say.

Yes luminosity masks are great - I used a combined drawn and luminosity mask in my edit. Not with PS but with darktable that has luminosity masks on steroids - you can run a full parametric mask on luminosity/rgb colours/lab components etc.