Toronto

Sandeep!

Simple and well composed landscape. Nice work. Regards.

A strong picture with nice colors and tones.

The focus of interest is the largest tower. I think it would be an even stronger picture if it would not be in the middle but on one of the points which of the golden rule. Namely at one thirth of the side of the image.

Best regards,

Ben

Thanks Ben, Robert. Ben, that is nice suggestion, I will keep it mind.

Sandeep

I like the image. A little more contrast in the non-sky part might be helpful.

Hi Robert,

You bring up very interesting aspect of hdr image... contrast. I am still trying to experiment with these images and try to present them as natural as possible. They do appear 'flat' as compared to conventional images and first instinct is to drag that contrast slider to the right. 

However, if you do that, you make your shadows darker and they get close to black. Then it appears like a conventional image. There are some dark brown trees in foreground and buildings in front have dark areas. If these get close to black, the image appears more contrasty and sharp but loses the 'hdr look'.  The sky then appears overly bright as compared to foreground.

Toning of hdr images is very subjective and matter of personal taste but what I have learnt from experience is the lightness channel (lab mode) in these images should show shades of gray, no blackish areas. That compliments the theory of hdr imaging... as human eye sees real world, not what your digital sensor can capture (with s-curve superimposed).

cheers... Sandeep

There seem to be so many methods and filters for the post treatment of photos that it can many hours of experimentation to get the effect you want.  I really like your sky and the city-scape but I thought the foreground was kind of dark and the colors of the vegetation a little lost.  I tried a filter & came up with an alternative.  You can judge it as something you like or not.  It also adjusted overall contrast. The filter is called "photo pop" in the Topaz series.

Jerry

Hello Jerry,

You nailed it! It is the brightness in foreground that was causing desaturation and subdued image. As soon as I increased brightness, a more balanced and pleasing image appears. I applied the changes with a mask so that sky is not effected at all. I was playing around with contrast before and that was making foreground even more dark. I will try Topaz filter once I get full version of photoshop in a week (trial expired). For now, a simple preview using elements only.

Please take a look at version II uploaded in my profile and comment again. Robert, please comment if that satisfies what you were looking for.

Appreciate very much everyone's input.

Regards... Sandeep