Sky Pictures

[Blaze]

It's very subjective, and depends whether you take photos for yourself or for others (in which case you'll never please everyone !!)
The first photo is straight off camera. The horizon is not level (sea going downhill) and the picture is dark. In the second, I just levelled the horizon, added some brightness and did a crop, all in about 3 minutes in the photo application on my computer. I know which one I prefer ...

Original.png

Straightened and brightened.JPG

[Oldblueraincoat]

Ah,! But would you tell an artist what type of paint, brushes and colours to chose from their palette - the artist , unless it's a commission, is never interested in what you think because they do it for themselves - it's the same for me.

[Blaze]

Ah,! But would you tell an artist what type of paint, brushes and colours to chose from their palette - the artist , unless it's a commission, is never interested in what you think because they do it for themselves - it's the same for me.

Me too.

[Nomoss]

I may have shown this here before, but I don't think it needs enhancing (?)

IMG_0329 crop.jpg

[RobertArthur]

Although many of my pictures are straight from my camera (smartphone....) they are not. There is so much clever software inside our digital cameras and smartphones doing probably more "enhancing tricks" on auto-pilot to the supposed straight result than choosing between Kodachrome, Agfa, Fujicolor or Ilford films in the analogue days. The programmers of Canon, Panasonic, Nikon, Samsung, Motorola, Apple and all the others already embedded their ideas about the best result (does it please the public at large?), the only thing I have to do is to click for the straight result.....What about camera lenses and the almost forgotten black art of the dark room, exposure times, enlarging lenses and photo paper?

[Blaze]

+1 RA.

Some Smartphones and cameras seem to make it easy to take good photos without any adjustment and the finished result may or may not be pleasing, depending on the viewer. In the days of the darkroom, a lot of "enhancing" was done during developing and it's no different today when you make adjustments/post processing. A lot depends on the quality of the photo, sharpness, contrast, levels, curves etc and the result you are looking for. If you don't have an all-singing all-dancing camera, you have to do the adjustments yourself and sometimes the results can be much more interesting. And of course you may have to choose a suitable lens ....
It all depends on whether you like a point and shoot camera that takes good photos without any effort or whether like many of us, you are looking for something else. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and all that.

[L Austin France]

My smartphone camera knows exactly what it's doing.
Shame about the operator

[Blaze]

[Blaze]

A couple of shots from yesterday during a quick walk before the forecast rain ...

Clouds.JPG

Church.JPG

[RobertArthur]

Early evening light in the Nièvre.