Hello all! I'm new to the forum, and need some advice on this picture. I can't decide if the foreground is too dark, and if I need to bring out some more color in the sky. Also, is the glare on the horizon (in front of the sun) too much? I was going to try and tone it down, or even clone it out. All C&C welcome, I'm here to learn!

I'd chop a bit off the bottom. The sun if fine. I'd try to brighten the fog or dust or whatever it is in the foreground. (If you cut the really dark foreground material I'm not sure you need to brighten the rest of the picture.)

LFitch:

That's a lovely image. I'd say it's pretty well handled as-is, but it needs cropping. The sky is too featureless near the top, and the near foreground is oppressively dark. I took the liberty of experimenting with a panoramic crop, which I think works quite well.

You could also try brightening the lower part of the image with a masked curve or the dodge tool, but I wouldn't do too much.



Cheers,
Peter

great, thanks for the advice! I do like it better cropped- I'll have to try a masked curve to see how it turns out. Thanks again!

I like Peter's cropping. Here is a suggestion for the contrast and color:

Nice. Much better detail in the shadows, and it doesn't lose the mood.

LFitch welcome to the Forum. Your image contains some very nice qualities taken under one of the most common challenging situations. Shooting into the sun is always a challenge. I think your image is underexposed, most likely due to the effect the sun has on a camera's meter. You may have compensated a little, that I can't tell, but I can tell you in the example I have posted that I increased the sky by 2/3 to 1 stop. The sun and surrounding amber area has been lightened approx 2/3 of a stop. The rest of the blue sky has been increased up to 1 stop. So I think you could have increased exposure at least 2/3 of a stop and depending on whether or not you are shooting RAW and the conversion software you are using you might have been able to increase exposure by 1.5 stops or more. That is where using your histogram comes in handy.

By increasing exposure you would have much more useful information recorded in the foreground. In the example I have posted the foreground has been increased from 3 to 5 stops. The darkest area in the grass at the front in the lower left of the image has been pushed approx. 5 stops, with the middle area of the foreground increased approx. 3 stops. There is plenty of room here for artistic freedom, but I wanted to show you a brighter example so you can see the range of possibillities.

To achieve optimum exposure when shooting into the sun multiple exposures or use of Neutral Density filters are generaly required. Still as you can see even with an underexposed image there is still allot that can be done.

Always bracket your exposures, and check your histogram when shooting scenes with an extreme range of light. Your goal is to record as much information as you can in the darkest areas of the image without clipping or blowing out the highlights. When shooting into the sun a general rule is to increase exposure 1 to 1.5 stops. That will generaly give you the best compromise in terms of retaining the highlights and recording as much data as possible in the midtones and shadows.

Here are some links that may be of interest:

Section 17 covers exposure and how to use a histogram
Section 18 discusses aspects of RAW processing

http://www.usa.canon.com/content/Rebel_lessons/index.html


http://www.normankoren.com/digital_tonality.html

Try this. A bit more detail in the foreground seems to ad to your image.

Since the image looks OK as is, I'd recommend this: Make 4 copies, and do a simple gamma adjust up and down on 2 copies, and a light/lighter adjust on the other 2. Then flip through the 5 images and take note of what you like, or prefer. Then put them aside and do the same evaluation several hours later. And again the next day. If you're consistent all those times, then you know which way to go.