High key seascape

[Ken Rennie]

I have taken hundreds of high key seascapes. I thought that they were a fairly new thing for me but trawling through my disk drives has uncovered many images taken in Cornwall, South West England, in 2013. Most of them were taken long after the sun had set on another spectacular sunset. Previously I had ignored the images as they looked oversaturated and frankly unbelievable. I have had to find new ways of processing very low contrast images like these and at the moment this has led me to desaturation and removing most of the pinks and purples. I another year or two, with more experience, I may return and process them totally differently but for now it is this soft and gentle view that I favour. This is a merger of three mages 5,10 and mostly 20s. Comments welcome Ken

 

[AlanLichty]

I like the way this one worked out with the long exposure ocean surface and the pastels you ended up with. Glad you went archive diving

 

[Bob Denton]

I like this.

 

[JimFox]

Hey Ken, that is a very cool idea. The water area looks fine like this, the only area that for me just doesn't work as well is the sky. I have been thinking on this for a few days. I wonder if you used a slight Gausian Blur on the sky to help the high key effect? I think the edges between colors and shapes in the sky seem to grab my attention too much. And I realize there are no sharp edges in the sky, but the edges there I think if softened even more could work?

Not sure at all on that idea, it's just something that came to mind.

 

[Ken Rennie]

Hey Ken, that is a very cool idea. The water area looks fine like this, the only area that for me just doesn't work as well is the sky. I have been thinking on this for a few days. I wonder if you used a slight Gausian Blur on the sky to help the high key effect? I think the edges between colors and shapes in the sky seem to grab my attention too much. And I realize there are no sharp edges in the sky, but the edges there I think if softened even more could work?

Not sure at all on that idea, it's just something that came to mind.

Thanks Jim I have applied quite a lot of negative clarity and contrast to parts of the sky already because I thought that it was too striking. Perhaps some blur may be the answer or perhaps a touch of Orton effect. I may post the RAW file and let people play with it after some exercise it is a lovely day here so out in my bicycle well wrapped up because temp still in the 40s. Ken

 

[JimFox]

Thanks Jim I have applied quite a lot of negative clarity and contrast to parts of the sky already because I thought that it was too striking. Perhaps some blur may be the answer or perhaps a touch of Orton effect. I may post the RAW file and let people play with it after some exercise it is a lovely day here so out in my bicycle well wrapped up because temp still in the 40s. Ken

That sounds like fun Ken!

I know Ben is needing another image for Let’s Play. This might make a good exercise to see how people would convert it to a high key image.

 

[Ben Egbert]

Great suggestion Jim.

 

[JimFox]

Usually Lets Play is just everyone doing what they want in any direction with a photo. It would actually be kind of cool to have a Let’s Play where there was a goal of a certain look like High Key and to see how everyone can do that.

 

[Ben Egbert]

Ken sent me a DNG and it will be used next Saturday.

By the way, I will be here for the next Lets play, but on the road for the following I will need to postpone a week of get a sub to fill in for me.

 

[JimFox]

Ken sent me a DNG and it will be used next Saturday.

By the way, I will be here for the next Lets play, but on the road for the following I will need to postpone a week of get a sub to fill in for me.

Thanks for the heads up, we have time then to decide.