Long Sunset Pagham Final

This was taken looking North West across Pagham Harbour. In this area of the UK’s south coast at this time of year there are few areas where a sunset can be taken across water with the sun setting well to the north. This is taken from the spit of land across part of the Harbour entrance and is only a mile from home. Pagham Harbour is a nature reserve.

The image was a 58 second long exposure taken with a 10 stop filter. This reduces the amount of light coming through the lens nearly a thousand times.

As can be seen from the before and after pictures below the original colours were disappointing but improved a lot with the processing. The day was windy and the water choppy but the long exposure has the benefit of smoothing out the water and improving reflections.

The picture was taken on a Tripod with a Sony A700 with a Sigma 10-20 wide angle zoom at 10 mm

 Processing started with adjustments in Camera RAW for better detail and colours. The sliders used included exposure, Vibrance and clarity. I aimed to brighten the beach areas and enhance colours

Photoshop

Topaz adjust was used with Vibrance presets group with Specify preset to enhance colours. With Topaz applied on a layer a layer mask was used to exclude the effect from some areas especially the sky to bring down the effect on blues.

Adjustments in levels to brighten the foreground excluding the sky with a layer mask.

Saturation adjustments, blue channel down by 50 points to tone down the blues in the sky and clouds

Layers flattened before going on to sharpening.

Duplicate layer Noiseware Pro and a little sharpening.

Second duplicate layer with mask to apply extra sharpening and contrast with low amount and high radius using Unsharp mask (Clarity Effect) The settings were 30 amount and 30 radius. A layer mask was used to exclude this effect from some highlights.

BEFORE AND AFTER

Below are the Before and After images. First the original, then after RAW editing and then the final result.

Original

Long Sunset Pagham Original

After RAW edit

Long Sunset Pagham RAW edit

Final Image

Long Sunset Pagham Final

For Prints and licences see Long Sunset Pagham

Edwin Jones