Just another rainy morning

Leslie, first and foremost, I apologize for not responding to a thoughtful suggestion you made regarding one of my architectural abstracts. The "new and improved" PN still has me by the throat.

 

A close examination of this image's foreground reveals the presence of raindrops, but the compelling evidence is in the form of storm clouds toward the background. Although it may have been "just another rainy morning," at least breaks in the cloud cover are letting in some light. You have a knack for presenting angry seas, and this image is no exception, given the battery of white water pounding the shoreline. Excellent work! - - michael

I like this very much. The soft blue colors are wonderful. Any trick to capture the bright soft yellow region so perfect? Or is it just the correct exposure levels?Thanks, Kamala

Many thanks, Michael and Kamala! And now it's my turn to apologize for not responding sooner--I was trying to figure out how to attach the original so I could show you what I did with the editing, Kamala. What I ended up doing is uploading the unedited version as "unedited version: just another rainy morning" in a new gallery called "Temporary" in my portfolio.

 

The info on the image: it was shot in raw with a neutral color balance, so that makes the initial rendering in Lightroom exceedingly blah for most images. I used 1/500 at f7.1, ISO 800 (If I’d thought through it, I would have reduced ISO, increased to f10, and been happy with 1/125 since I was shooting at a 50 mm zoom focal length; but I’d just finished shooting a sequence of poorly lit waves where I’d needed the high ISO).

 

All the editing was then done in Lightroom 6--essentially the same as Adobe Camera Raw (the numbers I give here probably are meaningless in other editing software). First, I warmed the white balance temperature from 5250 to 6679, and I increased the tint from +6 to +16. I increased exposure by 0.3 stops, and increased contrast to +43 (more than I usually do, and I did that mostly to better define the layers of clouds and to bring out the colors). The next big effect on color was to adjust the white point: I increased “whites” to +60, pegging the histogram to the right margin without blowing out any lights; then I reduced “highlights” to -80, until it looked right. That’s what had the major influence on the colors in the clouds, and I had to be really careful there not to allow those changes to oversaturate the lightest tones. I reduced the black point slightly (-33) until it looked right. I didn’t touch the vibrance or saturation since the altered contrast and stretching of the light tones already had increased saturation to where I wanted it for the sky. I usually increase clarity, but for this one I didn’t because I wanted the clouds to remain soft. Instead, I added a gradient at the bottom of the frame, increasing contrast, highlights, shadows, clarity, sharpness, and a little bit of saturation—the intent there was to make the foreground sharper, slightly more saturated, lighter, and more contrasty—all to add a greater sense of depth to the image by making the foreground feel closer.

 

It's been raining pretty much every day for the past few months (good news, actually, since we've been in a drought for several years), but I find myself compulsively photographing any non-gray portions of the sky!