A couple sunset shots

[Kristian]

I've been reading articles on the Luminous Landscape site for quite a while now and thought it was time to post up a couple pictures to see how I could improve things in the future. I'm not a professional photographer and I don't use photoshop. All my digital pictures are JPEG's straight from the camera. I do mostly sunset/sunrise and landscape.
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Any and all comments are apreciated, thanks.
Kristian

[jani]

It's a pity that you don't do anything with your images after they come from the camera; you can improve on the contrast, adjust brightness, repair colors, bring forward details that would otherwise be obscured, reduce noise, remove undesirable artifacts, etc. Shooting in RAW and editing in 16-bit increases your editing headroom.

There is nothing unpure about fiddling with your image afterwards; you already "edited" it when you chose your exposure, white balance, color space and JPEG compression.

You don't need to use Photoshop, but a program such as Aperture, Lightroom or another RAW converter with extended capabilities would be very useful.

As for your specific images, my opinion is that they are a bit too gloomy.

The one with the tree is the less gloomy one, and you have a promising theme going with the contrast of the tree, the glowing clouds and the low clouds or fog. Unfortunately, it is a bit unbalanced, perhaps including more of the hills and foreground could help.

The horses in your other picture form nice silhouettes, as do the fence posts. I find the hill sides rather boring and uninteresting, and the far brighter sky distracts from the foreground. Here's a couple of examples of alternate representations:

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But don't take my word as gospel.

[Kristian]

Thanks for the response. The reason I don't do anything to my pictures is that my camera shoots jpeg only and my computer is really slow. I didn't mean to give the impression that I think its wrong to play with the image, but I can see how it came across that way. I like the way you cropped the picture of the horses, I think I will print that one.
Kristian

[Gordon Buck]

The horses and sunset image could be very dramatic with a bit of editing.  In my mind, this image wants to be in landscape format - perhaps even a panoramic view.  Have you tried "stitching" images?

[Kristian]

I guess I should invest in a better computer and some software. It looks like I'm missing out on the best part of digital photography, being able to enhance the pictures. I'm used to film, and not really doing anything after taking the picture. That one looks really good brightened up like that. I have tried to stitch a couple pictures with some success, but they were done without a tripod. The stitching program I used was very basic. Thanks for the tips,
Kristian

[ray905]

Hello, Kristian, thanks for posting these images. I like the first one with the tree. The light is excellant and outlines the tree nicely. Good eye.  Some very basic cropping, color and contrast changes would do wonders. Just a crop of the right and top to emphasize the tree would help make the image stronger.  It's difficult to tell much with a small jpeg as to what could be done.  I would suggest a trial download of Adobe Elements to get your feel wet. You can do the same thing with photo editing software as you can in the wet darkroom, doging, burning, contrast control, color control, etc.  I've spent 35 years in a wet darkroom and I wouldn't go back to it for anything,  You have more control with software.  Also, when you can, pick up a camera that shoots RAW,  you can do so much more with RAW vs Jpeg.  Keep at it and most of all, have fun.

[MARKCAMDEN]

Hello, Kristian, thanks for posting these images. I like the first one with the tree. The light is excellant and outlines the tree nicely. Good eye.  Some very basic cropping, color and contrast changes would do wonders. Just a crop of the right and top to emphasize the tree would help make the image stronger.  It's difficult to tell much with a small jpeg as to what could be done.  I would suggest a trial download of Adobe Elements to get your feel wet. You can do the same thing with photo editing software as you can in the wet darkroom, doging, burning, contrast control, color control, etc.  I've spent 35 years in a wet darkroom and I wouldn't go back to it for anything,  You have more control with software.  Also, when you can, pick up a camera that shoots RAW,  you can do so much more with RAW vs Jpeg.  Keep at it and most of all, have fun.
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YEP....A COUPLE  OF SUNSET SHOTS