Storm light on the Emerald Coast.

[Alan Hoelzle]

A memorable morning the beach. Got a few good ones.
The water is an amazing green in this section of the Gulf, and the sand if lovely.

 

[Ben Egbert]

Emerald indeed!! Great lines and colors in this.

 

[Guy Schmickle]

Love that wave action and the colors all around. Really beautiful.

 

[AlanLichty]

I cn easily see how it got the name Emerald Coast - the color of the water is stunning. Very nice comp.

 

[MonikaC]

Really great colors with the green water sandwiched between the golden sand & clouds!

 

[JimFox]

Hey Alan,

This is awesome looking! From the thin translucent water at your feet to the emerald green water in the background, there is so much to like about this photo. The clouds play a nice complimentary role in this scene, but that water sure steals the show.

 

[Kyle Jones]

Somehow I'm feeling like the yellows are a little too saturated in the foreground, but this easily could be an accurate representation of that amazing light. The sky is fantastic.

 

[Alan Hoelzle]

From a base of -10 I've got blue sat -3, but nothing on yellow. So maybe it is that wonderful light and delicious sand.
This is the best beach I've ever seen.

 

[Alan Hoelzle]

Wish this did not come up so large. I prefer to see the entire image in a glance, as I'm not into detail, more about mood.
My original take on this had the black too high, and I'd added clarity to the clouds--yuck. Also reduced magenta overall to help the green.
For this version I dragged a grad from the right corner, but then had to de sat the blue, and also took out 3 magenta. Did the same to the green and also lightened it a bit.
Not a fan of the wide angle roll off effect, but in this case that wave and cute bubbles made it work. Another shot just after this has a charging wave with angled shadows pointing right, probably a better overall comp. But I haven't edited it yet.
One of the many good things about this beach is that the sand is superfine and reflective. In broad daylight it looks pure white.

 

[Jim Dockery]

Fantastic, I like everything about it from the great leading lines in the waves and clouds, to the dramatic light and color. I for one appreciate the large version that looks great on my 30" monitor.

 

[Alan Hoelzle]

Yum, a 30 inch monitor. I would love to have one of those. Working on my Macbook. Nowhere to put anything larger in the motorhome.

 

[Tom Narwid]

A memorable morning the beach. Got a few good ones.
The water is an amazing green in this section of the Gulf, and the sand if lovely.


View attachment 4982

Everything works together in this image Alan...beautiful.

 

[Kyle Jones]

Wish this did not come up so large. I prefer to see the entire image in a glance, as I'm not into detail, more about mood.
My original take on this had the black too high, and I'd added clarity to the clouds--yuck. Also reduced magenta overall to help the green.
For this version I dragged a grad from the right corner, but then had to de sat the blue, and also took out 3 magenta. Did the same to the green and also lightened it a bit.
Not a fan of the wide angle roll off effect, but in this case that wave and cute bubbles made it work. Another shot just after this has a charging wave with angled shadows pointing right, probably a better overall comp. But I haven't edited it yet.
One of the many good things about this beach is that the sand is superfine and reflective. In broad daylight it looks pure white.

I like the wave and bubbles in the foreground. At the same time, I just took a look at cropping it out (just below the smaller wave above it). That really let the sky stand as the hero.

 

[Douglas Sherman]

Beautiful image, Alan.

 

[Alan Hoelzle]

Looking at this again, I think Kyle is right. It's easy to fall in love with a certain aspect of your pic, hard to crop it out.

 

[Kyle Jones]

Here's a square crop with the yellow saturation reduced in the foreground and a slightly bluer white balance. I also opened up the shadows just a touch more. These are all just nits - it's a beautiful scene as is and these are minor adjustments.

 

[Alan Hoelzle]

I like the bluer look. But miss my happy bubbles! Went back into LR, turns out, I had increased warmth in the bottom half. This was a remnant of my first take that I missed. Thank you for pointing it out.
As I get better in LR, hopefully there will be fewer mistakes like this.

 

[Kyle Jones]

I like the bubbles too. I don't usually do much cropping, but for me the best part of this image is the sky (which says a lot because the emerald water, waves/bubbles, and sand are all really nice) and I wanted to see what it looked like with some more emphasis.

 

[AlanLichty]

I like the bluer look. But miss my happy bubbles! Went back into LR, turns out, I had increased warmth in the bottom half. This was a remnant of my first take that I missed. Thank you for pointing it out.
As I get better in LR, hopefully there will be fewer mistakes like this.

Agree on the bubbles down in front - don't cut them out. I would almost be more inclined to trim the top and leave the beach down in front alone.

FWIW there is always a fine line between "mistakes" and artistic freedom when it comes to post processing. I have made more than a few mistakes that I decided were actually an improvement on what I intended at the end of the day.

 

[Alan Hoelzle]

This was just one of an amazing sequence. Before the light hit, there was a sand bar in the foreground that was cool. Hard to get the temp balanced on that one, too, but I could work on it and show irt if you'd like.