How to Edit Sunrise

I’m interested to see how people edit sunrises (and sets).

I had a first attempt (second pic below) at this sunrise image, struggling to balance the colours in the sky with the relatively dim but actually light foreground subject, heightened by light snowfall. I realised that not only was the result dull, IMV, but not accurate to my memory of the scene. Basically, it seemed more like a sunset than a sunrise. The first pic below then is my new improved effort. I also include a version using sigmoid (third pic) rather than filmic, though it’s a little unfair as I edited primarily for filmic. There are too many modules at work as I was fumbling my way through the edit and I still feel that the subject is perhaps a tad unnaturally bright for the environment because I kind of don’t want to lose the detail of the boats.

One warning, if you fancy playing with the image, you may want to keep the retouch module in my xmp file as shooting in such low light made me realise that my sensor is blasted with dust and I need to give it a clean.

I’m also not sure which of the two xmp files is which.

20240112_1350.RW2 (23.0 MB)

20240112_1350_01.RW2.xmp (26.4 KB)
20240112_1350.RW2.xmp (23.4 KB)

Current Edit:

First Attempt:

Sigmoid:

This file is licensed Creative Commons, By-Attribution, Share-Alike.

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Rt. 5.9


20240112_1350.jpg.out.pp3 (11.4 KB)

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My version…

20240112_1350.RW2.xmp (34.6 KB)

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With ART 1.21


20240112_1350.RW2.arp (11.2 KB)

Greetings. Roberto

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Oh no, those sensor dust spots…

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20240112_1350.RW2.xmp (13.4 KB)

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I agree and indeed went for a darker look (a bit too dark maybe). The sun is still behind the horizon (or the hills at least), so we’re only getting the light that’s being reflected by the sky.

This is the kind of scene that, in my opinion, benefits from a light-touch, pastel look. I darkened the hills to put more emphasis on the sunrise. The boats I specifically left in the dark, since they are not the subject and don’t want them to steal the attention. Rather, they are the witnesses of what is happening. Cropped the bottom to get rid of distracting details and to rebalance the composition.


How to Edit Sunrise 20240112_1350.RW2.xmp (17.1 KB)

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20240112_1350_01.RW2.xmp (18.3 KB)

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Yes, again I’m a bit unclear on what the subject is. I’d probably go a little lighter overall but I think the balance between the foreground and background is better than my effort.

20240112_1350.RW2.xmp (16.6 KB)

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This seems right to me and close to what I remember of the scene

Here comes the colour:


20240112_1350.RW2.xmp (21.7 KB)

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Expressionist!

No “frolicking nudes”

Next time. :rofl:

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Wow. Very nice photo! I really liked the color intensity and beautiful color change from orange to magenta in the version of @dqpcoxeas . I leaned towards that mood:

20240112_1350.RW2.xmp (22,6 KB)

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LOLzz

My sigmoid version. Interesting (and lovely) image, those delicate colours in the sky seem a little ‘fragile’ for want of a better word. Thanks for the tip about the retouch module! I’m all for using other’s hard work… :wink:
20240112_1350_02.RW2.xmp (21.3 KB)

4 Likes

Nice job, and, yeah, I was horrified when I saw the shotgun blast on my sensor.

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ART 1.21.30

I’m not sure about my version of this. I tried to achieve a warm sky but with everything else cold: Highlights warm / orange vs. shadows cold / blue, with some receding depth. I also was bugged by that branch / brier sticking into the shot in the lower right corner. ART really doesn’t (AFAIK) have tools designed to remove arbitrary objects, so I took a stab at it with masked multiple Gaussian blurs. It more or less worked, but I ended up with a little blurred brighter spot and ran out patience trying to mitigate it. I also tried to not overdo it.

So it is what it is. Great shot, though.


20240112_1350.RW2.arp (75.8 KB)

1 Like