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Being dissatisfied with the photo of Dawson Bridge I went there today to see if I could revisit that shot.  The fog wasn't thick enough to obscure the opposite end of the bridge so that idea washed out.  As I was packing up to leave I looked up the river and had to take this picture.

What the raw file looked like.

The clouds and the reflection off the river create some strong diagonal lines that give some perspective to the picture.  The thing that stops the  composition is the entire right side of the image is the dark bank of the river and the messy naked trees along the bank.  What I'll do here is go through my editing process in order to record how I tried to make something better from this image.  All adjustments made in Capture One.

Xrite color checker shot. As shot.
In the white balance section I pick the eye dropper and select one of the neutral grey squares.

After picking the grey neutral square.


After picking the white balance I liked I copied the adjustment and moved on to the photo.

After white balance adjustment.

This adjustment gives the photo a warmer tone I like for sunrise/sunset shots.

After Tonal adjustments.

I then made the usual adjustments to the image tone.  Lowered the highlights and whites. I left the shadows dark because the lower right corner is a mess of river flotsam and jetsam.  Basically I tried to get as much detail in the clouds as I could.


Unconstrained crop

Next is cleaning up the Right side of the frame.  First I tried pulling in the left and right sides a bit. 


Square crop

 I then tried was a square crop.  This mimics a 120 film image and would fit on instagram OK but I am also looking for something to print and for landscapes I prefer a wider format.

Four Thirds crop.

The last thing I tried was a 4 x 3 crop.  This is a good format for printing because it almost fits an 8 x 10 page with an even margin.  To get a perfect fit to 8 x 10 the crop would have to be 5 x 4.  One of the reasons I like the A7RIII is that the forty-two mp sensor gives me the ability to throw away parts of an image without sacrificing image quality.  I see photographers on youtube whining and cringing about cropped images and I can't understand what is the big deal.  I cropped pictures in the darkroom when printing from a negative.  And I crop for composition now.  If the result is a better picture I am for doing what is necessary.


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